How offensive do you find this Dolce & Gabbana ad? The folks at NOW Foundation have it at the top of their list of offensive ads, describing it as “a scene evoking a gang rape and reeking of violence against women.” In fact, it was banned in Spain earlier this year after public outcry, but was published in Esquire here in the U.S.
If your Monday is slow and you want to test your own threshold for offensive imagery in advertising, check out NOW’s full list. Or, for more thoughtful commentary (the NOW list quickly degrades in quality or offensiveness as you scroll down the page), visit this Metafilter post to see what other readers find (un)acceptable.
“Selling (out) our Women” [Metafilter]
RELATED
“Love Your Body: Offensive Ads” [NOW Foundation]
“Dolce & Gabbana angry at advertising campaign controversy in Spain” [EiTB24]
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Now NOW is railing about this? About four years ago my Sociology professor showed the class an ad about shoes.
The man’s legs were spread. A woman was on top of him, butt to his crotch. Both wore shoes, obviously.
“a scene evoking a gang rape and reeking of violence against women.”
I have to agree, it does. However, it is very tame.
In contrast, most romance books and films describe male dominance in romantic issues. So, I dont think this ad is anymore harmful than the Princess Bride.
ya, those guys are a little too gay to be gang-raping a woman. If anything, most of them seem to be “supervising” the rape.
Promoting? Maybe not. Exploiting the fantasy that gang rape is somehow taboo-sexy instead of evil and wrong? You betcha.
@MyCokesBiggerThanYours: Wow, the movie must not have matched the book at all.
I wonder when people are going to get up in arms about the thousands upon thousands of TV commercials that depict fathers and husbands as bumbling idiots.
@rmz: FWIW, I hate those ads too. They’re dumb and offensive and no better for women than the “rape me” ads, because they don’t just stereotype the dumb husband, they stereotype the wife too as the perfect housekeeper and an obnoxious know-it-all.
If the Ralph Lauren Polo ad with the semi-bare-breasted chick is offensive to women, should I be thrice as offended by the D&G ad featuring a semi-bare-breasted and two completely shirtless men? I don’t know what I’m suposed to think! Please help! What’s an appropriate response to this ad? How offended should I act? Is there a National Organization of Men tracking this shit and telling us men what to think and how to feel about this and other inane advertisements?
It looks like mannequin gang rape. That’s not really offensive, just weird.
Give me a break people…it’s art…not a news photograph.
I highly doubt that the average person looks at that and thinks gang rape…unless they are looking for things to be upset about…
How offensive do you find this Dolce & Gabbana ad? A: I find it very offensive; in the way that a bunch of gays try to pretend to be straight.
In my point of view, most of D&G have the same “sex” theme. It is either, a bunch of guys and a girl; or a guy and a bunch of girls, or “Guys”. I don’t find their advertisement attractive, and their girl models are anorexic looking. To make this clear, why children or teenagers should be looking into Bazaar, Vogue Magazine, etc? Those magazines are for Female adults and male gays (no offense).
all the guys look gay to me, but then most male models are
Doesn’t offend me. Gang rape isn’t what i thought when I looked at this. Looks like he wants to tell her a secret, I think he wants to borrow her shoes!
The thought that came to my head when I looked at this photo is “damn that guy on the right standing up sure is hot!”
What’s “offensive” about the ad is how godawful scrawny she is.
That, and as is usual with clothing ads nowadays is that they don’t ever seem to focus on the clothes they’re trying to sell. So WTF are they “wrestling” for? The ad agency needs to be firing a designer, not for a faux “gang rape” clothing ad, but for making an ad that makes no sense whatsoever.
Couldn’t it just be group sex, involving beautiful people, wearing nice clothing, on a roof top?
I hate people who are always looking for reasons to be outraged.
One of the TV ads for the perfume “Diesel” has a woman walking away from the camera and you get a full view of her naked backside. I haven’t quite figured out who this ad is supposed to be targeting, or appealing to, men or women? Or what a naked butt has to do with perfume?
I’m surprised the NOW website doesn’t list recent-ish (within the past year) Jimmy Choo ads that were featured in numerous magazines that showed women IN CAR TRUNKS and lying by the side of a road while a man DUG A HOLE to presumably bury the woman in. Those were very disturbing and no one talked about them. I wrote letters to the company and to the magazines but didn’t hear back (not that I’m surprised). Not to mention Jimmy Choo’s are crap quality for the price — they’ll snap right in half according to many people I know who have paid $700+ for their shoes.
Okay, I don’t get the whole “this can’t be gang rape, those dudes are obviously gay,” thing. I mean, what does a gay man look like, anyway? If it’s just about the way they’re dressed, well, even the straightest of straight men can “look gay” if properly tarted up by makeup and wardrobe departments. Otherwise, I have no idea why everybody’s insisting on the gay thing.
Also, even if all those models are gay, that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of posing as straight men in a still photograph.
I’ve never even heard of Dolce & Gabbana, but their ad makes me NOT want to look them up. For all I know from this ad, it’s a company that sells lube or something. Way to go guys, lost a potential customer because your ad is offensive and has nothing to do with whatever the hell your product is.
I mean – we all know the men creatively behind these ads are absolutely sexist pigs, but I can’t believe that there are woman who would actively participate in such blatantly sexist advertising at any creative level, much less NEGOTIATE for or ACCEPT very large sums of money from the people and companies responsible for the aforementioned offensive content. I mean – who would do that?
Oh wait…
…models will!
Being interested in the fashion world, this ad doesn’t surprise me at all…it’s pretty much par for the course, and to me it’s not offensive. It’s meant to be a little shocking and eye-catching…it’s an AD, after all. Okay, he’s holding her down…and? Is he holding a gun to her head? Is she crying and screaming? No…there’s no implied danger or terror on her part.
Also, D&G, Gucci, all those couture fashion houses are based in Europe, where the standards for what is “okay” in advertising are much looser. When they have commercials for shampoo or soap over there, they freely show breasts and backsides all the time. No one thinks anything of it. It’s a different culture in some ways.
Besides, I’ve seen far worse and more offensive crap than this regularly pumped out by America. Someone up there mentioned ads for erectile dysfunction meds….yeah! Those damn Enzyte commercials, with “Bob”…those things offend me more than a sexy guy holding onto a sexy woman would any damn day.
This is such old news. Like months old. This horse was already beat to death. And gang raped apparently.
Oh, and the people bad-mouthing the models should probably be bad-mouthing the art directors and the companies themselves. The girls that model for a living are usually doing it to support their family, and the money isn’t that good anyway (average model makes like, 30k a year), so if I was one of them I wouldn’t turn down a D&G print ad. And if you were a model, you probably wouldn’t turn it down either, so blame the companies, not the individuals trying to make a living.
She is raising her hips way up in the air. This isn’t gang rape, it’s just a good, old-fashioned gangbang.
@CumaeanSibyl: Hell, I don’t get why people think a gay man can’t rape a woman.
With shoes like she’s wearing, I think she’s enjoying herself.
I don’t see how that’s rape, she doesn’t look frightened, sorta bored. If anything they should have just gone with voyeur or exhibition or even just rape, rather then gangrape – because the other guys don’t really seem to be doing anything, and you could cut them out of the ad and paste them anywhere and it wouldn’t like any different.
I’m not the kind of gal spends a lot of time looking for things to be offended about, but this is definitely creepy.
The fact that she’s outnumbered and restrained is bad enough, but when you add in the fine layer of grease on everyone’s skin and hair it really ups the skeeviness factor…
It kinda reminds me of those poorly lit, bad flm-quality ads that CK put out a few years ago – looked like amateur underage porn and left one feeling unsettled.
Nothing offensive about that at all. She’s clearly not struggling. And is that a bit of a Mona Lisa smirk I see? Perhaps she’s looking forward to some group sex. Who are we to judge her likes.
I would call it odd too if they didn’t look so bored. Looks more like they’re gettign ready for a willing group scene with a hot chick they already know is just boring in bed…
OK, I think the outrage is probably overkill, too, but I can’t help but question the “hips raised” comments. If you’re being held down against your will, I suspect you’d try to squirm away. And if you did, isn’t it possible that your hips would tilt in the process? Just sayin’.
I heard about this months ago in some article that didn’t show the ad and I went searching for the picture. I was far more creeped out by this one: [secretum.files.wordpress.com] Man rapes man, print it. Man rapes woman, that’s a banning.
“Since when has the idea of four men holding down a woman ever suggested rape?”
…Wow…Great observation! Four men pinning down a woman, even against her will, can’t POSSIBLY suggest rape…
“Everyone knows that rape scenes provide healthy masculine role models for growing boys. Geez.”
Oh yeah, rape scenes – the classic American dream in two words. The world would be a much better place if all guys modeled themselves after rapists!
Seriously though, why the heck would you want your kid or anyone else influenced by such perverse atrocities?
ARGUMENTUM AD IGNORANTIAM
@utsastudent: Or she’s in shock, meaning that the other guys are just waiting their turn…
seriously, images can be taken a buhmillion different ways, so STFU!
The main problem I see here is illustrated pretty well by the NOW Foundation page showing their preferred and offensive advertising selections. Seems pretty clear that there are a bunch of fat women who prefer that guys not want to look at thin women; a bunch of ugly women who prefer that guys not want to look at pretty women; and a bunch of shy or puritanical women who prefer that guys not witness or want anything passionate, arousing, or salacious. Despite the fact that advertising, by its very nature and due to limitations of the presentation medium, is entirely aesthetic and superficial, these would-be police of what we should see, think, feel, or hear would have us witness only the aesthetic and superficial “average” (or less) in society, yet somehow sit in appreciation of the inner beauty, kind soul, thoughtful wit, or loving heart of the subject that the medium is simply unable to express. Advertisers often get only a fraction of a second to seduce your eyes. A sweet photo of Grandma Moses ain’t gonna do it.
I see this as more of a gang bang. Not gang rape.
Maybe if her facial expression was more along the lines of agony or scared then I could see it as rape…but she clearly seems to be enjoying it. NOt offensive to me.
@rmz: My thought exactly. If I had to see that idiotic “fooled the pizza hut guy” ad with the idiot husband pirouetting in the living room one more time, I think I’d vomit.
And the sex starved stereotype is just as bad. Actually, I avoid Unilever brand products for just that reason. I think Axe insults men just as much as women. I’m sick of seeing ads that make guys out as only thinking about where they can park their Johnson.
I think her startling lack of healthy flesh is way more offensive than the positioning of the models.
I found an ad that kind of fits in with this stuff
[www.feeldifferent.philips.com]
Regardless of how offensive it is, how EFFECTIVE is it? It makes me actively want to not buy D&G products. Maybe that’s because I’m not their target market?
No me gusta.
Anyone who isn’t offended by that ad probably “thinks” that ‘good taste’ means a woman likes giving b.j.’s.
I’m pretty sure rape implies a lack of consent, the women in the ad is arching her back up, it hardly looks non-consensual. The Now Foundation is similar to those feminist groups that claim that all sex is rape. Frankly, these organizations would be more effective in getting there message across if they stuck to complaining about legitimately offensive advertisement, instead of complaining about every ad that features women in general.
i think from the blank stares on their faces this is more trying to suggest a class of people so rich and carefree that they can be excited by nothing, up to and including group sex, or be as it may, gang rape.
if the woman is being forced, as she may be, she doesnt care because her shoes are so fabulous.i dont think most ads try to specifically portray anything other than the fact that they make you irresistable to any and all men, thus resulting in gangrape, groupsex,or as some ads appear to portray, even molestation. the people making these ads know there are some women who NEED every man to at least want to have sex with them.
It´s degrading, yes, but the biggest mistake of this ad is to draw the attention of female´s envy.
Seriously, an important detail to describe this as a rape can be the man´s sunglasses, more than the women´s posture.
Bwaaahahahaha.
This is so horrible!