By
Dear Editor,
I write to you in regard to a trend I have noticed over the last several issues of City on a Hill Press, which I, despite being a male of average sensibility, find obtrusive. I refer, of course, to recent American Apparel ads, most, if not all of which, feature young women clad scantily in solid colors. Although American Apparel undeniably promotes solid business practices in a consumerist wasteland ridden with child labor and sweatshops, I cannot help but feel much like a small child in front of whom some mega-corporation is dangling its intricate market plan disguised as a lollipop (a very attractive lollipop . . . available in many solid colors). Now fending off vicious marketing schemes, that I can deal with – after all, I am an American and I get beat about the face by various advertising [campaigns] on a regular basis. But what prompted the keystrokes of this correspondence was an event that occurred the other day after class. I had just picked up the latest CHP and while examining the index, I was blown away by the full-page American Apparel ad set directly opposite, featuring a topless model with a header that claimed something about tights. She didn’t care, it was obvious that she was uncomfortable and so was I. I have no problem accepting the feminine form but I felt tricked, deceived and more subtly insulted. I have no use for tights. I don’t wear skirts, nor do I wear any of the other products featured in the American Apparel ads that clearly appeal either to a misogynistic construct of beauty as being half-naked and only for women, or to men, but only on the hopes that guys everywhere will let the lower half of their body drag them into stores to see what all the excitement is about. I understand that CHP does not have as much control as it might like over the content of its sponsor’s ads, but I hope that there are those out there that feel the same as I do, and can perhaps take steps to correct this flawed ideology and ad campaign.
Your Concerned Reader,<br/>Max McDaniel
