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Hey Everyone,

So this is the Wikispace I am still getting use to it and trying to figure out how everything works, but if you have any questions post them in the discussion. I'm assuming once we are done our parts we will post it here and then Nari can format it and I can edit!

Kristina

Hi everyone. Please give me feedback and I will be able to check my email/wiki tomorrow night between 7-9pm when I get back from work (I also emailed my part to you). When I edit our project, I will add my references. I will add Susan's article to my part if you think it needs it, I guess we will know once we read all of our combined parts. Forthe section about the culture jammer theorists, I left out the gay vague pink collar part of our project because in the intro I specifically refer to the half naked model as the foundation of our culture jam. I will add this in if you think it is needed.

Can we establish who is editing and when, just to avoid confusion?

Hope you are all having a great long weekend,

Amy

JAMMING ABERCROMBIE & FITCH’s HALF NAKED MALE MODEL ADVERTISEMENT

Abercrombie and Fitch’s (A & F) clothing advertisements are notorious for displaying a privileged lifestyle that can be purchased from their latest clothing collections. We are jamming an A & F advertisement, located on a building wall, which uses a faceless, half naked man with an extremely low waistline, to sell A & F clothing and a casually luxurious lifestyle. Although the male A & F model in the ad is white and able bodied, the company perceives that all male consumers are able to obtain privilege in their lives regardless of their sexuality, race, ethnicity and class. Our interventions of stickering and scribbling on the A & F advertisement, disrupts the company’s heteronormative and gay vague advertising by making the pink collar market or gay male consumers more visible. Our interventions also address how male objectification in advertising is glorified and functions to increase consumption of women and men.

THE COMPANY: ABERCROMBIE & FITCH

A & F is a clothing company for men and women that asserts a “preppy, youthful All-American lifestyle” to their consumers, through print advertisements, billboards and television commercials. A & F has 280 stores in the U.S and 14 international stores that project the same brand messages, that A & F is timeless and always cool and conveys privilege and casual luxury. In 2011, A & F and its affiliated company brands; //Abercrombie kids//, //Hollister// and //Gilly Hicks// made $4.158 billion (Abercrombie & Fitch CO. FORM 10-K ). A & F’s slogan, “rooted in East Coast traditions and Ivy League Heritage” inspired their current //Elements// //of// //Ivey// //Collection// for men and women. The men’s collection includes clothing from //A & F Prep// and //A & F Athletic// and all of the items are expensive. From example, flip flops are $68, skinny jeans are $168 and sweatshirts are up to $160 dollars. The women’s collection called //A & F Pretty// is also costly and each item is given a woman’s name, where as the men’s clothing is named after nature, like a river or mountain. The most popular clothing purchased by men in 2011 were fleece items, active wear and knit tops, while woven tops, sweaters and knit shirts were most frequently consumed by women (41).

A & F AD CAMPAIGNS

The //Elements of Ivey Collection// is not the first time A & F has used heteronormativity as a persuasive mechanism to sell their products. After conducting a Google image search of “Abercrombie and Fitch”, the majority of A & F advertisements display a heterosexual lifestyle, such as intimate or playful moments between or among men and women. However, A & F uses gay vague advertisements that may go undetected by heterosexual consumers because the images of men and women’s sexuality are subtly displayed but cue the “pink collar” market of gay consumers.

CULTURE JAMMING THEORY In his article, Darts discusses how subtle yet embedded ideology is in visual culture. A & F advertisements are not an acceptation because the company uses normative gender roles to sell men and women’s clothing. For example, the A & F half naked model is a conventional representation of masculinity, that is; white, strong, athletic and powerful, even though the male model is being objectified. Not having an equivalent //A & F Athletic// collection for women reinforces a gender binary, specifically, men are active and women are passive. In addition, A & F’s advertisement uses contradicting ideologies. Aesthetically, the ad of the almost naked man takes up a significant amount of public space, displaying entitlement and privilege that A & F promotes. However, the consumers who can afford A & F clothing are most likely privileged and entitled because those are traits that accompany a high socio-economic status. Therefore, A & F provides an illusion that consumers are able to purchase privilege by wearing A & F clothing but further marginalizes them buy selling a lifestyle they cannot afford.

Hey Everyone I'm posting my section here as well, please give me some feed back.

Since Abercrombie and Fitch was reestablished in 1988 the company has faced many accusations regarding its employment practices, advertising method, labour practices, and violations of privacy (Joffe- Walt, 2011). A & F advertisements have been criticized for their sexually explicit, homo-erotic, and racist images (International Labor Rights Forum, 2009). Many campaigns have been established attempting to bring awareness of the unethical practices A & F partakes in (Joffe- Walt, 2011). These campaigns are seeking to influence A & F to stop forced child labour in cotton picking (Joffe- Walt, 2011). The government of Uzbekistan is continuing to remove millions of children from schools and forcing them to pick cotton during the harvest season (Joffe- Walt, 2011). Children’s involvement is something these companies attempt to keep hidden. Although these children are not working directly in sweatshops they are encouraged to leave school to make below average wages in poor working environments. This situation is being encouraged by A & F due to its developed policies with the Uzbekistan cotton industry (Joffe- Walt, 2011). This has been an issue since the reestablishment of A & F and as a result there has been public outcry with little action from the company. In December 2010, 28 workers making clothes for A & F in Bangladesh were killed due to a massive fire at a sweatshop (Joffe- Walt, 2011). A & F has not taken responsibility for this unfortunate event which occurred due to their irresponsible building practices, and lack of regard for employee safety. A & F clothing is manufactured mainly at an Alta Mode factory in the Philippines, but they have many other sweatshop locations across Asia (Joffe- Walt, 2011). In November 2009, A & F was added to the “Sweatshop Hall of Fame 2010” by the advocacy group //International Labor Rights Forum// (International Labor Rights Forum, 2009). Regardless of these unethical practices consumers are continuously buying into the idolized A & F lifestyle with little regard to how poorly this company treats its employs, objectives women, and falsely advertises as an “openly gay” company. The company has faced many legal conflicts due to the poor treatment of its employees. In 2004 a lawsuit was filed against A & F referred to as Gonzalez, et al. v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc (Greenhouse, 2004). The company was accused of discriminating against African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and women, due to constantly offering floor sales positions and store management to only whites and men (McBride, 80). A & F lost this case and was required to pay 40 million dollars to all individuals who applied and were not hired due to their race. The company was required to make many adjustments (1) revise its hiring, and (2) promotion policies, (3) revise its complaint procedures, (4) appoint a Vice President of Diversity, (5) hire 25 recruiters to seek out minority applicants, (6) stop hiring individuals primarily from white fraternities and sororities, (7) report to the court once per year, and lastly (8) include minorities in marketing materials (McBride, 82). These unethical employment practices proves the tactics A & F uses to promote the image of privileged white individuals, as the company openly discriminates against those who do not fit A & F’s casual luxurious lifestyle. A & F used not only whiteness, but masculine whiteness to attract its audiences; this is a new form of colonialism and is a key part of A & F ideology (McBride, 75). A & F clearly depicts non- Europeans as “others” and dependent on the white man (McBride, 75). These notions have been transferred to A & F clothing as they are committed to the image of “masculine whiteness, with an emphasis on exploiting individuals of non- white race and women (McBride, 76). This is All- American Lifestyle and citizenship at its best. In 2002 A & F sold t-shirts that were undeniably racist, the shirts featured the slogan “Wong Brothers Laundry Service- Two Wongs Can Make it White” with an image of early Chinese immigrants (McBride, 79). A & F is able to offend different races with little or no repercussions, they removed the clothing from their selves, and in a year or so come out with another line that is offensive to different minority groups and women. A & F markets to white privileged bodies, as this image is supposed to represent All- American college students. These are not your average students; instead A & F has made it clear that their clothing represents the Ivy League student. This lifestyle does not include different races, genders or sexualities, but instead solely represents white, privileged, upper- middle class men.
 * Controversy & Criticisms**
 * Racism:** Employment Practices

A & F clothing constantly represents women as accessories with no faces, with their only asset being their bodies. Many organizations have challenged the companies’ sexist clothing, but it seems that little or no change has occurred as the company is constantly objectifying women in their advertisements, through their clothing, and within stores. In 2005, the //Women and Girl Foundation// launched a “Girlcott” campaign targeting A & F sexist messages. Examples are “Who needs brains when you have these?” and “I had a nightmare I was a Brunette” (Houser, 2005). This campaign received national coverage and after five days the shirts well pulled off selves (Houser, 2005). A & F has not changed its marketing tactics or messages, in 2009 A & F launched a Back- to- School collection labeled “humor tees” (Houser, 2005). The slogans on these shirts portrayed women as passive sexual objects. Two of the shirts’ slogans were “Female Streaking Encouraged” and “Female Students Wanted for Sexual Research” (Houser, 2005). These slogans are intended to represent a certain type of lifestyle by guiding young girls into a lifestyle that encourages sex as recreation. Women are represented as passive objects and accessories to men within A & F stores and in their advertisements. In many A & F advertisements women’s faces are constantly removed and only their bodies are used in the frame. This instantly shows what they are worth and what they signify, “a piece of meat”.
 * Gender:**

The common saying “sex sells” is one of A & F main marketing tactics. A & F attempts to appeal to a wide audience including young adults, both male and female, as well as the gay community by stating they are “openly gay”. A & F’s newest advertisement was launched last month and features clips of shirtless, muscular models romping in minimal amounts of A & F clothing (Sieczkowski, 2012). These images show men wrestling, showering together, and kissing each other on the forehead (Sieczkowski, 2012). This new campaign has received positive feedback from audiences stating “It is about time the company came proudly out of the closet and marketed a gay aesthetic in a positive, rather than ambiguous, light”. Although it might appear that A & F is “openly gay” through their homo-erotic images, it is very clear that this is a marketing strategy used to attract the “pink dollar”. In reality this is just a marketing ploy as A & F’s cultural statement “Rooted in East Coast traditions and Ivy League heritage...” does not traditionally include the gay community, as white privileged Ivy League men are assumed to be heterosexual. Kevin Ramstack is the District manager of A & F and he explains their marketing strategies as beneficial to the company and therefore justified; “We use good looking people to attract customers because we want to show our clothes off. Basically, we want to make the clothes look good. One is more likely to notice a skirt and sweater on an attractive, unique looking girl, rather than an everyday Joe Schmo, customers feel that the clothing will make them look good” (McBride, 60). This is a push and pull marketing strategy, A & F uses a push marketing technique by creating a lifestyle that consumers feel they need to be a part of, and as a result a pull strategy was established. Regardless of the unethical practices A & F participates in, consumers continuously express their need for this market. In the article “//Deviance, Dissonance, and Detournement”// Sandlin and Callahan describe the role emotion plays in consumer resistance. They argue that because emotion plays a large role in the creation of consumerist ideology, emotion can be used to fight against consumerism (Sandlin and Callahan, 80). A & F uses emotions to create brand loyalty and ultimately increases its profits because consumers feel a need to partake in the lifestyle A & F idolizes. Jamming A & F advertisements can be accomplished by bringing up the emotion of disgust, as this emotion has the capacity to turn individuals against capitalism and hyper- consumption (Sandlin and Callahan, 80). Mass media and advertising are powerful tools used by corporations to manipulate emotions, but Sandlin and Callahan suggest that culture jammers are also able to use emotions in fighting against consumerist ideology. This is can be achieved by exposing the reality behind advertisements and ultimately shocking its consumers. An example is A & F’s cultural statement “Rooted in East Coast Traditions and Ivy League heritage, Abercrombie and Fitch is the essence of privilege and causal luxury”. In reality A & F clothing is produced in East Asian countries paying its workers $1. 25 a day while charging consumers $130.00 per article of clothing. The intention of our campaign is to encourage consumer resistance through methods of culture jamming. This is partially accomplished by exposing the unethical practices of A & F through different methods such as, stickering and scribbling on A & F advertisements to reveal the company’s true intention. Our intervention attempts to establish Detournment; turning expression of the capitalist system against itself (Sandlin and Callahan, 86). By exposing A & F’s unethical labor practices, sexist messages, and “pink dollar” marketing strategies, consumers will experience a “moral shock”. These types of emotions, shock, shame, anger, and fear are the foundation of influencing social change and emotion deviance “when an individual simply breaks emotional norms and chooses to express genuinely experienced emotions” (Sandlin and Callahan, 81). Therefore our campaign will use emotions to jam mainstream consumers out of the distorted and naive reality A & F has created. This type of intervention has been used by individuals such as Reverend Billy and his //Church of Stop Shopping.// Reverend Billy engages consumers in emotional deviance by performing ‘retail interventions’ in popular stores such as the Disney Company, Starbucks, and Victoria’s Secret (Sandlin and Callahan, 101). His goal is to awake the emotions of the general public which he explains is accomplished by confusing his audiences “I love it I see someone and their jaw’s down and their eyes are confused... ‘What is this?- What is this guy doing- What? Mickey’s the devil but he’s not Christian? - What? - What?- Is he an actor is this a stunt?... If that suspension takes place for two or three or four minutes, they’re gonna take that home and they’re gonna still be thinking about it a week later. They might even hesitate to buy a Disney product” (Sandlin and Callahan, 102). The use of emotion in encouraging consumer resistance is significant because emotions lead our behaviours. The goal is to use these emotions to ultimately disrupt the “naturalization” of consumption, by unveiling the unpleasant yet truthful side of globalization and hyper- capitalism.
 * Sexuality:**
 * Theory:**