Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Sweatshop VS Hypersexuality

The main argument in the American Apparel issue concentrated on the ethics behind production versus those of promotion. While the company might be "sweatshop-free", it's advertising strategy is (as we may put it) "garment-free". This is a pun mainly on the idea that American Apparel uses hypersexual imagery to help sell their products. My take on this can be summarized in 7 simple words. "DO WE REALLY KNOW WHAT WE WANT?" First we were against the poor treatment of sweatshop workers, now we are are against "hypersexuality" in advertisement? It's one thing to rightfully complain about underpaid factory workers, but it's entirely another to complain about "sexuality in advertisement". In a world where we cannot have two sides of the coin, I would much prefer "hypersexual-advertising" over "sweatshop-barbarity".
American Apparel is one of the few companies who is "sweatshop-free" (so they say). I am in no way in support of degradation and exploitation of women, but the idea that American Apparel uses "images of young women that continue practices of subordination" sounds really exaggerated. There are gazillion more companies who use this same "unethical" strategy for advertising. The important question is are they "sweatshop-free"? American Apparel is. (well, so they say)

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