American Apparel ads

"They're fucking gross, man. Look, I love beautiful girls too. I think everyone should be free to have their knee socks and their sweaty shorts, but I'm over it. I'm over this weird, exhausted girl. I'm over the girl that's tired and freezing and hungry. I like bossy girls, I always have. I like people filled with life. I'm over this weird media thing with all this, like, hollow-eyed, empty, party crap." (Amy Poehler in Bust Magazine)

Some American Apparel ads:

I am so sick of consumerist expectations. Fuck you American Apparel, YOU ARE SO BORING. Stop trying to sell me things in completely unoriginal ways. 


An American Apparel ad, courtesy of Frankie Magazine:

Some of the AA ads, such as the two featured above, differ in that they attempt to provide the models with some measure of 'character' and 'personality' in accompanying the images with text relating to the girls; where they work, what they do, blah blah. Who are these people? What have they achieved? Why are you telling me about them? I don't care????? Whenever magazines delve 'into the minds of the models' I just seriously don't get it. That modelling requires talent and discipline I can accept, but why would anyone care about your average model's general interests? Unless they were actually awesome, or an artist or musician or SOMETHING. Hello??????? 


Besides which, let's at least be honest here. The 'substance' of these models doesn't lie in their interests, quirky achievements or favourite article of AA clothing. These factors are peripheral. These models are in fact defined by their appearance. Delicate or 'bad-ass', quirky or innocent, mysterious or seemingly with substance, their appearance is what creates our 'idea' of them, and that idea is all that matters. Marshall McLuhan asserted that the form is the function and no where is this so true as in contemporary advertisement's representations of women. 


Many women subconsciously accept this idea and aspire to it, no matter how false or elusive it may be. And of course, advertisers are aware of how these interactions play out and they foster our insecurities, telling us YOU TOO CAN BE THIS IDEA OF WOMAN (so long as you look this way, act this way and wear these clothes). Woman aren't the only ones who buy into it, though. Men do too, at least in regards to woman, thereby expediting the whole tedious spiral. The glittery veneer of these advertisements lure us in, but they are false promises with nothing to offer but tedious self-loathing and a prioritisation of appearance/idea/form above all else, always contingent on the validation of others. That is, rather than real substance, emotion, character, passion, personality, dreams, independence, self-worth/respect, beauty and relationships. And you can't ever win, because they are endless. There is always a new model, a new way to be, new clothes to buy. You can't stop the ageing process. God it's so boring I could cry. 


I want to be Joni Mitchell. 

Naomi Wolf.

Sylvia Plath. 

Or Simone de Beauvoir