Um...yeah!
Before we even talk about Tom Ford and his previous sexist advertisements, just look at the pictures themselves. Six-year old girl wearing a LOT of makeup, which has been applied to create a very sexy look. On the left, she is wearing dark red lipstick reminiscent of a Hollywood bombshell. There are layers of mascara. This is beyond a little girl sneaking into her mother’s room and trying on her makeup for the first time. She is wearing stiletto heels and decked out in gold. Do I need to point out that she is perched upon a leopard print bed on the right? And her dress is extremely low-cut, opened almost down to her belly button. And what about the pouty-lipped, vapid expression?This fashion editorial ran in French Vogue, one of the most important magazines in the fashion industry. It is read by millions of people worldwide. Just because it is an adult magazine, it should not be OK.
Tom Ford thinks of himself as a “fashion rebel” and loves to provoke through his advertising. He is always trying to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in terms of sexuality. Most of his advertising to date has been the most sexist that I have ever seen, but at least, I suppose, was focused on adults. I don’t think that it is witty or irreverent to try to make a statement about sexuality when in order to do so, you have to exploit minors. Especially six-year old girls who are just a few years from puberty, which is a time when a lot of girls lose all sense of self-esteem. I don’t think that is should be “fashionable” to oversexualize children in advertising. Really, Tom Ford? This is disgusting.
I'd love to see an advertiser really push a boundary, by leaving out distressing ideas of beauty and sexuality and sexist images of naked women throwing themselves at boozing cigar toking men, yawn. Have we not moved at all since the 40s? Advertisers and photographers have become stagnant and boring, boring,boring. Great article
ReplyDeleteTom Ford sexist? Really? Tom Ford promotes both women and men as empowered openly-sexual beings and his 'sexist' ad campaigns probably made women over 40 feel that way for the first time in their lives... yet it seems, based on both this article and it's response, that we are nonetheless still stuck in the 40's... Do I think it's appropriate to have an ad campaign featuring a little girl dressed and posing this way? No, sadly, I don't, but not because there's actually anything wrong with the ad itself... little girls do, indeed, love 'dressing up' and the ad is, in effect, nothing more than a rose coloured glasses symbolism of that... it's not appropriate, however, because of our own warped, puritanical and filthy minds which read something into it that in reality is not actually there...
ReplyDelete