Fashion house Dolce & Gabbana have conceded to the widespread complaints that their new adverts glorify gang rape. At first, damage control was minimal:
We will only withdraw this photo from the Spanish market. They’re a bit behind the times.
Now the backpeddling becomes a wee bit more frantic as the designers have issued a blanket statement:
We have decided to cancel … the advertising image that has caused such repercussions within human interest groups and individuals.
We were looking to recreate a game of seduction in the campaign and highlight the beauty of our collections.
It was never our intention to … offend anyone or promote violence against women.
Oh really. Yet it was their likely intention to attract tons of publicity by apparently promoting violence against females. That’s completely different.
Dolce & Gabbana are no strangers to this sort of “artistic” promotion that aims for the controversial. A few collections back, the duo defended a campaign that featured knife-wielding female models as a heavily stylized version of 19th century art:
What has an artistic photo got to do with a real act? You would have to burn museums like the Louvre or the paintings of Caravaggio.
This statement followed 150+ complaints to the British Advertising Standards Authority that D&G adverts glorified and promoted violent crime. Let’s have a look at some of these artistic renderings, shall we?
Giselle Bundchen’s Webcam Pr0n and Lesbian Doll Factory With Knives:
Lesbian Dolls Gain Life, Lesbian Doll Ropeplay, and Lesbian Doll Sex:
Gay Men At Gay Pr0n Shoot, Man With Pants Down, and (my personal favourite) Man Nonchalantly Sticks Hand In Pants:
Earlier: D&G Go For The Offensive
6 comments
Interesting how they initially blamed it on people who are “behind the times,” but when the “human interest groups” screamed (rightfully), they caught on. It was OK if they think it’s just silly old-fashioned (traditional) types complaining, but when those free-thinking, hip “human interest groups” (progressives) complain, they learn it’s not OK.
Got it.
Amoral idiots.
I still contend this is a group of OBVIOUSLY GAY men attempting emergency fashion resuscitation. I also this this ad obviously privileges the impossible desire of certain tragic, beautiful women - who shall remain nameless - to be the object of desire of the aforementioned OBVIOUSLY GAY men.
I won’t even buy thier crap at garage sales now. Rape isn’t sexy and DnG has gotten aged looking. It’s a rerun of a rerun.
Try this as a caption under the advert:
I do NOT eat tuna tacos, bitch! Thank you, God, that I’m gay (and much better looking that John Edwards).
It’s a photograph and is open to interpretion. Obviously it is meant to be sexually provocative. But why assume it is meant to convey only one idea? As a heterosexual woman with the affliction described by flea, I can see how some women would interpret it his way. Men who are rapists, or have rape fantasies would probably see it as a rape scene. Women who have fantasies of being raped might see it that way too. On the other hand, women who have fantasies of being consensually involved in sex with a group of men might look at it and see consensual group sex. Transvesites who fetishize the idea of themselves as women might see themselves in the woman depicted.
P.S. If the image could only convey one thing, it’s power to sell would be diminished because it would only appeal to people who get off on that single concept. It’s doubtful that D&G would want that.
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