Wednesday, July 28, 2010

She'll Get You There


air1

air2

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:

american-apparel-ad-amsterdam-nowopen-06

14 comments:

Wildfell Hall Vintage said...

it was all a bit charming and nostalgically 'wrong' until that last one, that's just plain disgusting really.

Jennifer said...

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.

Mother Midnight Vintage said...

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.

Verseau Vintage said...

woah, what do they sell again? I wonder if this new location will be near the red light district in Amsterdam.

The Creative Bohemian said...

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

alexkeller said...

um, yeah. well, thank God AA isn't an airline. we'd all have to join the mile high club

lauren said...

super blargh.

Alma said...

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!

Alma said...

One other thing: that AA model looks on the verge of tears.

Huzzah! Vintage said...

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.

Italian Postcards said...

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

Karen/Small Earth Vintage said...

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.

Kelly Lauren said...

American Apparel is sadly overly needy and desperate at this point.

Desiree said...

Shame on Dov Charney. It goes without saying. Christ.