She has jeans?

I know what you’re thinking: that’s a bit “not safe for work”, isn’t it?

Well, you can’t blame me on that one–I’ve got it on good authority that it’s fine. At least for Australians:

Controversial Lee Jeans Ad Declared Acceptable by the Board

In an astonishing development Lee Jeans’ controversial ‘Lolita’ advertisement campaign for spring-summer 2006, has been declared acceptable by the Advertising Standards Board. The advertisement campaign has portrayed a young woman in sexually explicit pose; however, the advertisement watchdog has considered it inoffensive. The board has dismissed the complaints about the campaign saying the ad was not appropriate despite having sexual overtones.

Disclosure: From as early as I can remember until my early teens, my dad worked for Lee Jeans, until they closed their North American manufacturing operations. I even worked for them occasionally as a teen.

So, it pretty clear that this ad campaign is designed to trigger low-rent, soft-core pornography associations (appearance and position of the model, ‘cheapness’ of the scene, presence of the photographer in the image, etc.) It’s equally obvious that the imagery is at least mildly paedophilliac. You can see the rest of the campaign–the image here is actually one of the tamer ones. One of them doesn’t even have any jeans in it.

(The title of this post refers to the old joke about jeans ads not working because the model distracts the viewer from the product. Nothing new in that for jeans ads–the Cindy Crawford “nothing gets between me and my Calvins” ads figured pretty importantly in my school days, for example, but I don’t think I ever noticed the jeans. Still it’s something else again to actually not have the product appear in the ad.)

On one hand, this will surely get them lots of attention, on the “no such thing as bad publicity” plus “sex sells” theories–I mean, it worked for Klein in 1995:

They owe their legacy to a series by Calvin Klein in 1995 in which a very young model was pictured in a seedy, wood-panelled room, reclining with her underwear showing beneath a short skirt: the pornographic subtext was impossible to ignore.

At the time the ads caused outrage and Klein was accused of peddling pedophilia (not for the last time) long before the issue was front and centre in the media.

And whatever else happens, the campaign should work to put Lee front and center in the media. The already have people complaining, which will certainly increase the media attention. Whether you think it’s a clever bit of envelope-pushing, or a “a grimy bid to cash in on the fact people will complain about such advertising and that the ensuing media coverage is nothing more than a free plug that makes the target market think it’s an edgy brand”, there’s no doubt that it will catch some attention.

I don’t want to get into the sex-in-the-media thing, there’s lots of earnest resources for that around. I am kind of interested in the connection between the level of sexual imagery in advertising (and other media) and public perception of the repressiveness of government, but I’m not going to do the research for that post right now.

I do, though, have a few other, much lower-brow, things to throw out in relation to this campaign.

First, is there a visible nipple in the image up there? I say yes, but my wife says no, accusing me of being fooled by shadows and the basic male desire to see nipples. I on the other hand, see a nipple. Some polling of friends and online associates is overwhelmingly in agreement with me, but tell me if I’m wrong.

Second, I have some questions about Australia. Here’s the Age quoting the report:

But while the board acknowledged “there were sexual overtones in the pose, and her consumption of the lollipop”, it said that a degree of sexuality in advertising was not unacceptable.

“The board (notes) that the woman is over 18, is fully clothed in attire that is fashionable amongst young women for summer, and that there is no nudity,” its determination said.

“The board also (notes) that consumption of this style of lollipop is now common amongst people over 18.”

So, they are outright stating that there is no nudity, and that the model is fully clothed. I see a nipple. Clearly there is some conflict here. I’d love the answer to be that Australians consider “visible nipples” to not be mutually exclusive with “fully clothed”.

Further though, they say “attire that is fashionable amongst young women for summer”. Umm. Again, I’m thinking that Australian girls must dress a little differently than Canadian girls. I am sure that I don’t commonly see jean shorts with overall straps as the entirety of an outfit, anyway.

And finally, I need to say I am sick to death of irony-as-an-excuse. Look, what you’re doing is taking the classic exaggerated poses and sexuality of jeans ads and exaggerating them even more, while mixing in allusions to soft core porn shoots and underage sexuality.

Fine.

Admit it.

Sex sells, we all know it. Just don’t do that kind of campaign and then claim that it’s “”tongue in cheek” and “kitschy”. The sexuality of the ads doesn’t bother me at all, skeevy as it is, but I find the hypocrisy offensive.