Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics: ‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze, Pt. 4

“Hey babe, let’s go out tonight”: Rebel Ads, a Few General Thoughts

Just to be clear, I’m not opposed to alterna-girl in general.  Hell, I still am one.  To prove I'm not always a hater, here are some ads that do a marginally better job of attempting to tap into rebellion without being embarrassingly sexist.

While I may loathe some of Marc Jacobs advertising with the heat of a thousand suns (cough!Daisy!cough!), I actually think the ad for Marc Jacobs Lola taps into the rebellious advertising methology without being offensive. Pouty lips and vacant stare aside, our model seems to be fully clothes, and is actively holding something she looks like she might be about to shove down your throat. I’d give this a B- as ads go, which is a high grade for a mainstream product.

Likewise I don’t find the Anna Sui Rock Me! Ad offensive. A complete rip off of Billy Idol’s style? Absolutely. Interestingly androgynous? Yep? Open mouth, vacant stare, white like every other model? Check, check, check. But active, sort of. I mean she’s holding a guitar. She might play it…you know. Someday. Fully dressed? Yes! And the fashion is an interesting mix of leather and butterflies, metal studs and pink buttons, which I enjoy. FN1.

At the end of the day, though, edgy has become just another commodity. This urban decay cosmetics ad says it all. Click on the image to read the ad copy -- it's a trip.  This company uses rebellion as an way to attract those who might eschew cosmetics by demonstrating they can be used as tools to express external difference.  Because no one, no matter how alternative, should be allowed to escape the long arm of negative body image and gender conformity. You can color yourself in Acid Rain, Roach, and Smog, but it’s just another way of doing what your mom did with her Maybelline. Lip gunk by any other name is still the tool of beauty industry and its efforts to sell you everything you need to conform. FN2. Perhaps the really rebellious thing would be to refuse to wear make-up at all.

This wraps up our foray into feminist critique of perfume advertising that uses alterna-girl.  Have no fear, though.  There are more insidious advertising techniques to mock, and your intrepid feminist sniffa is here to bring them to you.  If you want more, stay tuned...

If you missed the previous portion a of the series, following the "Perfume and Feminist Aesthetics" tab above.  You can also find other feminist aesthetics pieces cataloged on the same tab.
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FN1. Don’t get me started on the Anna Sui Rock Me! Summer of Love ad, though. It’s the china doll childishness of it, the big eyes and weird doll pose, and childlike accessories that kill me.  The whole image screams object-for-prurient-interest-in-young-girls that makes me throw up in my mouth.

FN2. In the interest of full disclosure-- I own and wear make-up. Lots of it. My current nail polish is a shiny royal blue, and my toes are a shiny aqua. My last manicure was two weeks ago. I color my hair because I do not enjoy my natural blondness. I’m a non/conformist like the lot of these ad girls, and I’m still shopping the "rebel, rebel" lines. Sometimes, though, I wish I could wake up and feel pretty enough to just go out in the world and think I was beautiful as I was, without the idea that if I failed to “take proper care” of myself, I was failing as a woman, and less pretty because of it.

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics: ‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze, Pt. 3

“Hey babe, your hair’s alright”: Rhianna Reb’l Fleur and Victoria Secret Love Rocks!

Before I even get to the ads, let’s look at Rhianna’s commentary on her scent, Reb'l Fleur:

The fragrance’s name, which is also a tattoo on Rihanna’s neck, originates from a name her grandmother called her. “My grandmother in Barbados used to call me her Rebel Flower,” Rihanna told People.

The scent is being described “like heels with a short, flirty dress” and comes in a high heel shaped bottle. The scent combines the impressions of delicious fruits and sumptuous florals, as well as a musky blend of vanilla, patchouli and amber.

“I believe a woman should dare to be different — willing to live her life for herself and not for other people,” Rihanna said in a press release. “This fragrance is about my passion for individuality — being expressive and empowering, yes, but also emotional and intriguing. I promise you Reb’l Fleur will not be easily forgotten.”

The 22-year-old singer tells People, “Over the years, I layered many different scents to get something that was truly my own. But I wanted…something that said ‘Rihanna was here.’ Something delicious and special, a fragrance with subtle hints that linger and leave a sexy memory.”

Rhianna, you are a huge disappointment, and not only because you’re following the ex-boyfriend who beat the crap out of you on twitter. FN1. No, it’s because you decided that “a woman should dare to be different — willing to live her life for herself and not for other people” was best expressed by a scent that is “heels with a short, flirty dress” and you dressed in nothing but bling, a sheet, and heels, stretched out like a human smorgasbord while you make eye-love to the camera. Is this what your grandma wanted? You topless under your blazer, sniffing at a flower as you gaze vacantly into the distance?

 I think you look way fiercer here in this photo of you performing. Why wasn’t this active image of you doing the thing you love, where you have talent and passion, a good enough image to sell your scent? And that’s why Reb’l fleur, for all its rebellious pomp and circumstance, utterly fails at being truly rebellious; it fails to actually challenge gender stereotypes, to march to a path not already beaten and worn by the cowed women before you.

 You want to be unique? You want to be a rebel? Next time try hawking your scent in the same clothes you’d wear to run to the grocery store or go to the gym.

. . . . . .

And while I’m picking on celebrities and their scents, let's talk about Taylor Momsen. Oh, little J. You were Dan's little sister, and the best thing about you was that you were cute and talented and into fashion and you looked like you could be anyone's little sister in America, or their next door neighbor? Where did that girl go?

Reader, do you remember Momsen when she was cute and healthy? Remember when she looked like a pretty girl you’d run into in a bookstore or high school car wash fundraiser? I miss that girl. I liked her. She was talented, adorable, and had a healthy BMI.

Now look at her. She’s out pimping for Victoria Secret Love Rocks and she looks like a zombified shadow of her former self. She is scary thin, and all that black crap around her eyes is not hiding their sunken look.FN2. I look at photos of her now, and I become terrified she will be like so many other young girls, dying of organ failure because they are riding the A-train straight into a living hell. Anorexia kills – literally. FN3.

Having personally seen more than one vibrant young woman slowly dying to be beautiful during the course of my long stay here in higher education, it is a horrific and torturous protracted event that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

 I don’t see how starving yourself is rebellious. In my mind, it’s a level of internalized objectification to the point of self-hatred. The world sees you as an object, use once and destroy. You are thing, a decoration, to be pretty and ignored. And please, take up as little room as possible while you’re at it – these big men need room to move!

And I promise you, no matter how many rosaries you sport as necklaces or slip dresses you wear, death by starvation is not rebellious. It does not, in fact, “rock.” I guess I shouldn’t expect better in a rep from Victoria Secret, but I hope Momsen will realize she doesn’t need to trade eating for a career.

Tune in tomorrow for more ranting in my current series “‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze,” also known as “Rebel without a Clue.”  If you missed yesterday's portion of the series, following the "Perfume and Feminist Aesthetics" tab above.
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FN1. And before any of you get up in my grill, I am aware of how difficult it is to leave an abuser; there are a lot of barriers. I am educated on the cycle of violence. I know very well that attempts to leave are fraught with increased violence and leaving is often the most dangerous time.  But Rhianna left her abusers and has the  financial, social, legal, and emotional resources to stay free. I find her electing to have contact with him disappointing, just like I find Oksana Grigorieva dropping her suit against Mel Gibson disappointing. I don’t require these women to be better role models for other women. I just wish they wanted to be, and wanted better for themselves.

FN2. For the record, Momsen claims she does not have an eating disorder and has “always been naturally thin.” (A) I think the photos above demonstrate that she is NOT as naturally thin as she appears right now and reports indicate she dropped 20 lbs to a 108lb size zero at age fifteen in 2008 for Gossip Girl. (B) Even if she is naturally thin, the fact that she is a "thinspiration” terrifies me at a level I can’t really comprehend.

FN3. A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover. The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old. (South Carolina Department of Mental Health, http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/statistics.htm [Viewed May 22, 2011].)

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics: ‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze, Pt. 2

“Rebel, rebel, your face is a mess”: Vera Wang Princess & Vera Wang Glam Princess

If the Juicy Couture ads I talked about yesterday were aimed at sixteen year-olds, then Vera Wang Princess, like Seventeen Magazine, may say they want teens to buy their goods, but are actually aiming to catch those tweens before they begin their dating duties. Therefore we get our pretty princess to our left, staring seductively at your as she pulls up her skirts, daring you to come get her. Yes, the look on her face a little sullen, like the way you practice in the mirror, and the pirate hat is clearly edgy, but underneath that ‘rebel’ exterior, she’s still waiting to be consumed by the viewer, like every other objectified girl before her.  and that big purple heart riding at the edge of her skirt?  Yeah, that's exactly what's she's daring you to come get -- her heart.

Don’t believe me? Here's our little rebel again, actually laid out for you.  I don't know which part kills me more: her exploding cleavage, the rumpled sheets, the tousled sex hair with crown barely hanging on, or that she's looks like she's pulling her own hair! (Her right hand in particular.) Now if you're into hair pulling, good for you.  What I hate here is the happy girl, laid out on a platter for the viewer, subtly suggesting violence will be a-okay with her.  If the ads were more adult, I might be less bothered by this aspect, but the model is so young and the "princess" themes infantilize her further.  As an advocate for victims of sexual assault, many of whom have been young women on the cusp of exploring their sexuality in a world that does not like women to be in control of their sexuality, I find these ads truly scary because of this part of it. I am also not at all jazzed but the rope encircling that heart shaped bottle and spelling out "princess."  What about being a princess involves rope?  Nothing, unless you're into kinky kidnapping fantasies.  And again, if that is what you and your adult partner engage in with mutual full consent and safe words in place, awesome.  Somehow,  I don't think our little princess has consented, and I think this ad tries to make it okay for you to engage in  a dominance fantasy, and her consent isn't required or even a consideration.

As for our princess, you can have her alone in her bed, or if that doesn’t quite work for you, there’s a shirtless boy to cue you in about what’s about to happen to our little princess. Apparently “born to rule” means marrying a denim clad prince.  And you know how best to bed them – by wearing Vera Wang Princess. Isn’t that how we all hope to ascend to power? By sleeping our way to the top, willingly or not? The cat, by the way, killing me.  I cannot decide if it makes the image more innocent and therefore better, or heightens the weirdness of the lolita-esque sexual messages, making it worse.  The only thing I can come up with is that cats, like women, are animals to be taken care however you deem fit.  They are to be pampered, but are not active people with equal right to reason, autonomy, or rule. If you've got thoughts about the cat please share them because I am so puzzled.

Okay, one more.  Vera Wang Glam Princess puts the modern spin on it, by making ‘princess’ the equivalent of modern celebrity. What I find aaaaa-mazballs about the male gaze in this ad is how completely overt it is. A crowd of photographers in the background, meant to indicate all the focus of the world’s attention is on our little glamorous royal. The three photographer faces you can see? All dudes. Because, let’s remember girls, the only attention that matters in the world is male attention.

Hand drawn pirate tattoo or not, our Vera Wang Princess/Glam Princess is hardly a rebel. Assuming of course we mean actually rejecting traditional modes of femininity as defined and limited by patriarchy and for male consumption, and not just trying to pick up slightly alternative fashioned boys by dressing similarly.

And the saddest part? I found these photos of a woman trying to make her daughter into this ad. How's that for women policing themselves?


Tune in tomorrow for continued ranting in my current series “‘Alternative’ Advertising and the Male Gaze in Perfume Advertising,” also known as “Rebel without a Clue.” &If you missed yesterday's portion of the series, following the "Perfume and Feminist Aesthetics" tab above.

Perfume Marketing and Feminist Aesthetics: ‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze, Pt. 1

Wow. It’s been a long time since I talked about the various categories of mainstream perfume advertising and how they reflect different methods of objectification and policing sex and gender. For those of you just joining us, it might be useful to refer to the previous posts, which you can find on the tab “Perfume and Feminist Aesthetics” above.

As you may recall, dear reader, a while back I began a series discussing the male gaze and its presence in perfume advertising. For ease of discussion, I broke the ads down into various groups. FN1. The first, general erotica, focused on ads appealing purely to sex, and which tend to quantify women as objects to be used for male pleasure. Make no mistake, we will be doing another round of these; in the year since I started this series, there have been more terrible ads that treat women as props and objects, rather than people. But there are other approaches to objectification, and these approaches frequently not only objectify women as objects, but implicate other women in the policing of their own gender or other forms of privilege by focusing on difference.

Previously we discussed the use of the “exotic” as a form of othering. Another form of othering is the idea of selling “the other” as an alternative form of appeal. Call it what you wants: alternative, DIY, hipster, bohemian. Eventually capitalism finds a way co-opt successful critique by commodifying it for mainstream consumption. FN2. I find this aspect incredibly troubling in part because, when I was a young, naïve little thing, this is the flavor of insidious advertising most likely to move my hand to my wallet. That’s right. I was a teenage rebel, and if you tried to convince me your product would make me different (like everybody else), I was right there with you.

Not terribly unlike a lot of teen girls nowadays, actually.

Thus I bring you the ‘rebel’ ad series, in all its disappointing glory.

“Rebel, rebel, you’ve torn your dress”: Juicy Couture

Let’s start with one of the most shallow examples of the “rebel but not really” ads. Oh, Juicy Couture. Our heroine, with her semi-mohawk pompadour and her haute couture dress seem edgy. And look, she’s blowing off that guy with a handful of glitter. She’s totally a strong, independent woman. Except…

She’s not. You see that, right? Yeah younger-self, I’m looking at you. She’s this incredibly, stereotypically thin girl wearing a skirt so short there’s nothing but tulle there. And even if we give her that the skinniness is genetic and not from upchucking her lunch every day in a sacrifice to the porcelain gods of thinness, and even if we declare her barely there skirt as an act of self-empowerment, we still have to deal with the guy.

That’s right. There’s a guy. And I don’t mean the glit and glam boy with the too long hair she’s literally blowing off. I mean the one she’s staring off the page at. Because if you’re younger-me, you might think she’s looking at you, daring you, young pretty alterna-girl, to “Do the Dont’s,” to be the person everyone tells you not to be.

She’s not looking at you. She’s daring Mr. Male Gaze to have sex with her, two-dimensional alterna-girl. Sure, she wears weird clothes, styles her hair like a 50’s greaser, and probably doesn’t shave as regularly as your last girlfriend, but isn’t it nice to get a little strange every once in a while? She’s not looking for a weirdo guy like glitter guy; she wants you.

Combine it with the other two Juicy Couture ads, and it confirms all subtle cuing in the first ad. This girl has a giant bow on her head – how alternative! The fact that she’s topless and has the same vacant come hither gaze as all the other ad girls? It means she’s out to capture the same insipid dude’s attention as all the others.

And here we have bow-head again (she has a top on, hallelujah!), with her alterna-male friend who appears to also be into you, Mr. Male Gaze, in case you swing that way. We here at Alterna-Sex-R-Us aim to please.

And let me clear -- I have no problem with nudity or sexuality in images or film or art or reality.  I do object, however, to using a woman's nude body to sell a product, as though her sexuality is something to be commodified right along with the bottle of perfume she's hawking.  I have a problem with the idea that we use women's bodies, and men's bodies for that matter, as things rather than seeing them as people.  If bowhead and her alterna-man friend there want to go at it, because they freely choose to, more power to them.

I just want the advertising industry to recognize that when it decouples the person from the body, you allow the distance that makes it easier for hatred against that body, for violence against that body, to be committed and ignored and excused by a world that has historically seen women as chattel, not as people.  A world that in many places still does.

And in case your alterna-fantasies of "taking" a woman run toward the pseudo-hippy type, we have a natural blonde here covered in flowers, butterflies, and feathers, just waiting to share her peace, love, and Juicy Couture with you. That vacant stare, those slightly open lips, her complete inability to act, because she’s so blissed out, so all she can do is lay there passively? All for you.

 Excuse me, younger self, I think I have to vom for a bit.

Tune in tomorrow for more continuing ranting in my current series “‘Alternative’ Styles in Advertising and the Male Gaze,” also known as “Rebel without a Clue.”
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FN1. This series sprung from a presentation I did with Angela from Now Smell This!

FN2. I sometimes wonder if this process is what makes us reach farther and farther into the extreme to establish ourselves as outside the mainstream. Sure, some of it a desperate need to feel original and unique in a world where you can be connected to literally millions of other people with a click of a button. But some of it, I think, is also a legitimate effort to reject aspects of a culture we find uncomfortable. When those efforts become a new trend, it pushes those who feel at odds to further extremes. I can’t decide how I feel about it. On the one hand, more behavior becomes permissible, which means more freedom to express one’s identity without rejection. On the other hand, as the middle gets bigger, the left and right gets pushed out to further extremes, which results in the kind of political rhetoric that leads nowhere. On the gripping hand, true rejection of culture is so extreme very few ever engage in it; what we do is more upcycle or downcycle parts of a culture, because no one really wants revolution most of the time. Most of the time we just want more bread and circuses, even if we can’t admit that to ourselves. But I digress…