May 6, 2009
I will be the first to admit that I have neither the inclination nor the money to buy Dolce and Gabbana. But I will not be the first to say that this advertisement is not making me want to buy their shoes.
Seriously, D&G you may be all trendy but I can’t think of anything even remotely cool about gang rape.
Let’s pretend for a second that I could afford your shoes. (No, I don’t have $500 for a pair of sandals or $700 for a pair of heels.) I would be ashamed to buy them if you are encouraging this kind of garbage to sell shoes. And you, your advertising firm and everybody that agreed that this campaign was a good idea should be likewise embarrassed.
This takes poor taste to a new level.
___
Hat tip and much more of this kind of garbage at Black Belt Mama. I practically stole this post from her. Fortunately she is the coolest and hopefully won’t mind.
Posted by Goon Squad Sarah @ 9:43 pm • My Soapbox
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May 6th, 2009 at 10:16 pm, Black Belt Mama Says:
I’m not the first girl to blog about this, and I certainly won’t be the last. And that is exactly the idea. This kind of garbage needs to stop before my daughters start reading grown-up magazines. I’m happy to have your help spreading the word.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:19 pm, Molly Says:
Wow. Yeah, I’m with you. I wouldn’t buy their stuff anyway, but…just no.
Gang-bang advertising is probably not going to do it for most consumers. At least, I hope not.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:49 pm, Sarah Says:
Wow, that is tasteless. Not that I could afford to anyway, but I certainly wouldn’t buy their stuff now.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:43 am, Janine Says:
Advertisers don’t care as long as you notice the ad and remember the name.
And they’d probably claim that those are not rapists, but personal trainers.
May 7th, 2009 at 8:41 am, debbie Says:
I hadn’t even seen this ad. That is terrible. What were they thinking?
May 7th, 2009 at 8:46 am, Jenni Says:
you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me with this. what are they thinking? really? really?
May 7th, 2009 at 9:26 am, patois Says:
Damn, they are taking the “any publicity is good publicity” way too seriously. What a bunch of garbage.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:36 am, Jae Ehlke Says:
That is horrible!!!! Holding her down what else could that possibly mean. It is not cute and I wouldn’t have known the add was for shoes….
OMG
May 7th, 2009 at 1:46 pm, so the fish said Says:
Never look at your own stomach while you are driving. Unless you are 25 and/or childless…
Hey! Do you guys want to hear all about my new diet in total and excruciating detail! Ok then, moving along. No wait, we’re not moving along. I’m hungry, and I can either sit here and tell you about it……
May 7th, 2009 at 1:47 pm, Beth (A Mom's Life) Says:
All I can do is shake my head and say a prayer. What has this world come to??
May 7th, 2009 at 2:41 pm, Parentopia Devra Says:
I recently ran out of my D&G Light Blue Perfume.
Time to look for a new scent. Not going to support a company who thinks this type of ad is okay. It’s not.
May 7th, 2009 at 3:33 pm, wyliekat Says:
Gang rape makes me want to buy condoms, not shoes. Oh and a tazer. And maybe pepper spray?
Or SHOES WITH PEPPER SPRAY. Or a killer heel that actually kills.
D&G FAIL.
May 7th, 2009 at 3:37 pm, Goon Squad Sarah Says:
This ad makes me want to buy a gun more than a pair of shoes.
And I don’t like guns.
May 7th, 2009 at 3:47 pm, Meagan Francis Says:
But don’t those shoes just make her look like she’s asking for it?
Kidding. That is disgusting. And just so not appealing in an way.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:58 am, kate Says:
Wow.. now that is inappropriate! A tad gob smacked here…
May 8th, 2009 at 6:27 am, SciFi Dad Says:
Dolce and Gabbana: shoes that’ll get you gang raped (or, if you checked out BBM’s post, dumped in the trunk of a car and left for dead).
The problem is, by blogging about it, we’re giving them the “press” they seek. This is like #motrinmoms in that we’re taking something bad and giving it more publicity.
I get why we’re talking about it, but it bugs me that their name gets out even more from it.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:31 am, Black Belt Mama Says:
SciFi Dad: Before I hit publish I thought exactly that, that the last thing they need is more publicity. So, I added contact info for the companies and figured that way, they’ll have some yucky mail and phone calls to deal with and maybe, just maybe, someone will think about it. Also, if you notice above, one person said she’s not going to buy her D & G perfume anymore. Maybe that will be the new trend. That’s my hope.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm, Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com Says:
When I was in college, I had this, er, RADICAL professor for some English class or another. Everybody’s got to have at least one professor like this guy, I’m sure, but he was way out there.
There was one unit in the class that really interested me, though. We had to go out and find ads with women in them: 500 ads total. And they had to be from diverse sources: movie trailers, billboards, magazines, book covers, store posters, etc. Since I was a poor starving student who worked in the mall, I found most of my ads in shop windows and magazines.
After we had collected the ads, he had us paste them up on his office walls. And then he asked us what we saw. WHAT, exactly, our daughters would see when they saw these ads. And our granddaughters. And our great-granddaughters. A culture, he said, is always defined by how it portrays itself, and ads are an enormous part of how we portray ourselves, so he wanted us to look at all of the images and tell him what it meant to be a woman just based on what we saw.
There were clothing ads with women on leashes. Ads with women of color in animal prints and crawling around on the floor, while a white woman on the opposite spread was standing up and examining her nails. Ads where the woman’s most significant characteristic was a diamond ring. Ads with a woman in a cage, ads with black-eye make-up.
In all of those ads, 500 from each student, probably a dozen total students, there were only FOUR ads that portrayed women in a positive light. A woman who stood, whose eyes were not shaded or bruised or covered by sunglasses, who wasn’t emphasizing her wifely-ness or her cleanliness or her animal-ness, who was even-eye-level with men, who wasn’t an object, etc. FOUR. Out of several thousand.
A few weeks later, we had to do the same thing with ads about men. And you know what? That project right there convinced me that: a) we need to work on our ad industry, and b) feminism better not die anytime soon, because GOODNESS KNOWS that we need it.
This ad is just one more example of that. It’s gross.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:17 pm, Patience Says:
Sick. Just sick.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:38 am, Steph Says:
Ok I must admit your title totally caught my eye not for the reasons you think though. I was just shocked that a mom blog would have such a title. I couldn’t agree with you more and I wish they would remove trashy ads like these
May 9th, 2009 at 8:42 am, Karly Says:
This makes me want to shake my head and wonder aloud “What is the world coming to?” But then I’d feel all old and stuff so I’m just going to privately wonder it.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:50 pm, Suebob Says:
F***ing ridiculous. Awful.