American Apparel is officially soft core pornography

...and I am officially boycotting this company.

Ok, so I own some of their stuff. In total, I have two v-necks, a gray dress, a brown leotard, two pair of track shorts, and some metallic silver snake skin leggings (that make my legs feel like they are in sausage casings and that I've only worn twice, but god damn do they look good on me and make me want to get doooown on the dance floor). And I'm not throwing away the items that I purchased from them almost a year ago because that would be straight wasteful, and I never throw clothes away in the first place. I donate. I'm actually wearing one of their shirts right now: a white v-neck that I wore with a white skirt and brown leather belt today because it was 90 freakin' degrees outside and I intended to reflect the rays of the scorching sun as much as possible. So please, don't try to call me a total reactionary or a hypocrite, because I do own some of the company's clothing, I do think that what I own is comfortable, and I am not getting rid of any of it just for my moral opposition to their advertisements. Oh, yeah, so if you were wondering why I'm embarking on this rant about American Apparel, it all stems from just that: their barely legal soft core pornography advertising campaign.

When I was in my early teenage years, my mom would not allow me to purchase a pair of Calvin Klein denim jeans because she was so opposed to the blatant female objectification and hegemonic, male-centric sexuality that was portrayed in their billboard and print ad campaigns. I'm pretty sure that if I had a teenage son or daughter today who wanted to give their money to a company that promoted such objectified images of women that did nothing to advertise the clothing and solely promoted a male-centric gaze toward the barely legal women featured in their ads, you can bet I would react in a similar fashion to my mother and exclaim an emphatic "no".

An example of said objectifying image from the lovely company in question:

This is a photograph from a slide show on the American Apparel website entitled "Britney wearing the Unisex Oversized See Thru T-Shirt". Surname-less, generic, blond Britney "wearing" a t-shirt laying on a bed with a come-hither look in her eyes is more asking the viewer to buy her body and not an item of clothing. I can't even tell if that's a t-shirt or a scarf, and as I buyer I would have no idea how the shirt actually fit a human body. And actually, based on this photo, she's about to not be wearing it in two seconds. And as a matter of fact, as the slide show goes on, there are, to my shock and amazement, blatantly displayed nipples (hover over the photograph for the slide show navigators to appear). Somehow, this smacks of a Playboy photo feature and not a clothing advertisement, don't you think?

Britney is in no way a single occurrence in this company's quest to push the limit of appropriateness. If you want more examples of crotch shots, vacant stares, take-me-from-behind poses, and near-nipple exposure, trust me, they are really easy to find. Please take note that none of these half- and near-naked slide shows feature men. The only male representation to be seen in the slide show section is of men going places for the company, doing things like dying t-shirts, and trying out different ways to wear a jacket, under which the model is surprisingly wearing pants. There are half-naked men modeling underwear, but that is to be expected; even Hanes does that kind of stuff. For a company that claims to be unisex, female customers are certainly getting the short end of the stick when it comes to advertisement eye candy (that's what I like to call sarcasm, kids). What I mean to say is: for a company that offers clothing for both men and women, their advertising is certainly geared toward the gaze of their male customer. Well, that's not being fair to all the women-loving women out there...let's just keep it simple and say that their advertising unabashedly depicts mostly women, not men, in a hyper-sexualized light. And it wouldn't be nearly as creepy if the brightly lit photographs didn't so closely resemble barely-legal pornography.

In short, I refuse to give another dime to this company. The inner fashionista in me might be crying this summer when she can't rock that fly light-weight jersey dress everyone else is sporting, but the gender equality side of me will hopefully just punch that stupid American-Apparel-craving hipster straight in the face and call it a day.