The Old School Lunch

Junichi over at Poplicks raised the question of whether this ad from Dolce & Gabbana is a depiction of gang-rape. Love Your Body, an awesome website (in the same spirit as Killing Us Softly) that he links to in his post, writes:

This ad is beyond offensive, with a scene evoking a gang rape and reeking of violence against women. In an interview, NOW Foundation President Kim Gandy said, “It’s in Esquire, so they probably don’t think a stylized gang rape will sell clothes to women, but what is more likely is that they think it will get them publicity. It’s a provocative ad but it is provoking things that really are not what we want to have provoked. We don’t need any more violence.”

Junichi raises the question of the ad’s depiction on his website and the (I hope) non-moderated comments in response aren’t a reflection of what I believe Poplicks to be about but they are nonetheless, in two words, pure shit.

Yeah, but it looks like the bloke with the glasses who’s going to be on the end of the gang rape in question. None of those greased pretty boys seems to be interested in the woman at all. - Paul Herzberg

So right off the bat Paul has told the world in two sentences that #1. Guys who are bare-chested, slim, white and “clean cut” are gay. #2. Guys who looks, by suggestion, “gay” could never rape a women. #3. If there’s going to be any sort of real rape going on, it’s going to be men raping another man.

NO. No they should not. They shouldn’t show ugly-ass skeletons humping ugly ass-high society skeletons. God I hate advertizing. Actually they should have a full out gang rape, only it’s the clothes they’re trying to hump. - Squish

OK, so let me get this straight. Beyond the obvious gang-rape in the scene, you’re going to make the “high society skeletons” the priority in your scathing analysis? You’re mad that Dolce & Gabbana uses “ugly-ass skeletons” as models but you don’t care so much for, oh, the woman that’s about to be raped in the scene?

no. what they should do is lower the prices on their damn clothes so that I can afford the shit. advertisements annoy me. it never makes me want to buy stuff. - eric

Oh wow, you too? So now you’re angry that Dolce & Gabbana have prices your ass can’t afford? That’s the outrage here? And you, like our friend “Squish,” hate advertising because, what a pity, it just doesn’t make you want to whip out the old Visa and fill up that shopping cart? So now you’re angry that the advertisement doesn’t pull you in? That’s what you’re angry about?

If an ad is banned, it would only become more attractive to a public that loves forbidden fruit.

Besides, the ad appears to be more homoerotic than misogynistic. Most of the prettyboys are standing far away from the woman and appear to be utterly uninterested in her.
MAC

So…let me get this straight. If an ad is offensive, regardless of how sexist or racist it may be, what we should all do is just put our hands in our pockets and look at the ground? That works for dinner guests, MAC, not for a multi-billion dollar advertising industry. What burns my toast more than you saying that is you suggesting that the people who are protesting the ad, the people who are sticking their necks out there are the ones at fault for “just giving the ad more publicity.” I guess we all just should’ve shut up about Kenneth Eng, huh? And you too, with your “they must be gay, their flags aren’t at salute” argument. Honestly, what do you think they were going to put in the ad, the guy in the corner is supposed to sit there with a handle-bar mustache and fiendishly rub his hands together?

definitely homo. erotic. - chrisisaballer

Now obviously he’s just piggybacking on the “duuude, lol they are sooo gay” comments but this all I think shows a very, very dangerous start to a mentality when it comes to perceptions of men raping and gang-raping women. I think as Duke LAX, the OC rape case, and almost any other rape case in which a woman was attacked by more than one man showed, the belief is (if it isn’t that the men couldn’t have possibly raped the woman because no straight man does anything like that when it’s 5 men and 1 woman) that any woman who is in any situation remotely sexual with one or more man always must be fully consenting (and if she says she didn’t, then she’s just a “slut and a nut”).

The ad could not be more cut-and-dry. He’s pinning her down, he’s restraining her, and it clearly illustrates a strength and weight advantage that he has over her. It’s about his power and his control of her. And to make it even worse, the depiction is that the men are going to watch this man rape the woman or they’re going to rape her as well.