Delighted, I suppose, not to live in a time when airlines draft beguiling women to convince a primarily male clientele of the safety and comfort of their flying death tubes. Not naive enough, however, to think that the image of 'woman as vessel (of sexual pleasure for men and maternal containment for mankind)' has lost--or will lose--its symbolic currency.
Case in point:
14 comments:
it was all a bit charming and nostalgically 'wrong' until that last one, that's just plain disgusting really.
Wow, I agree with Wildfell and my mouth dropped at the audacity of the last one. The "be unfaithful" one was pretty nasty,too, but the last one was downright pornographic. Sheesh.
conflicted by the shivers of feminist disgust and an overwhelming desire put some pants on that AA girl.
sad but true that some things never change.
i'm wondering who they are marketing the last ad to - men who wear unitards?
both the campaign and men in unitards are icky, in my opinion.
woah, what do they sell again? I wonder if this new location will be near the red light district in Amsterdam.
Yeah, that last one is just plain old in-bad-taste, LOL.
Bet they had alot of guys going with that airline at the time, though!
Diane
um, yeah. well, thank God AA isn't an airline. we'd all have to join the mile high club
super blargh.
I remember one AA ad that was just the silhouette of a girl. Just black female figure on pink background. No idea what she was wearing, if anything. And even if she was you couldn't see it.
Also on the right of the AA ad it says "Now hiring: send a photo and a brief letter." Haha! Now THAT'S an efficient way to hire someone!
One other thing: that AA model looks on the verge of tears.
I also find this (and many other AA) ads completely repulsive and not at all 'empowering'. I think, though, that demure (or, covert) sexism like that expressed in the vintage airline ads is actually more nefarious, if only because it doesn't inspire visceral disgust but passing indifference.
The company of American Apparel is all made in America and sweat shop free but the owner, Don Charney, has had at least 3 sexual harassment suits. He takes all of those overly sexy advertising pictures himself. He keeps naked pictures of women on the walls in his LA office and he dates many of his employees. Watch this CBS interview with him and decide for yourself but I think he's creepy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYqR8UIl8A4
It's nostalgia whiplash. Oh, I wish I lived in another time. Wait, never mind--things are better now. We've made advances! Oh, wait--maybe not so much.
American Apparel is sadly overly needy and desperate at this point.
Shame on Dov Charney. It goes without saying. Christ.
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