Shoes

[slemslempike]

The F Word just linked to this Harvey Nicks ad. It is obviously vile in many ways. It plays to a very specific discourse of femininity, it makes the men into headless pieces of meat, the sole black man is second from last desirable, the shoes are UGLY...

But the part that really annoys me is that THERE IS NO LINE. We are meant to infer that it goes up to the right, but really, it could be opposite, or squiggly or zig-zag, or any such scientific term. But it is not showing us anything. And people are goig to use this to say "oh, silly women, you're getting all het up over nothing, the ad isn't saying that trainers make you undesirable or that fat men are automatically ugly, you're making it say that with your own silly stereotypes! You're the baddy here!"

I hate them.

Though it has reminded me that I wanted to post pictures of my new boots. I love them.

Comments

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's their advertising strategy - get feminists being sarky about it, then we'll forget about the advert (because there's always a new outrage), but later on we'll see a sign for Harvey Nicks and remember the laughter...and buy ugly shoes. Yep.

[teenagelogic.livejournal.com]

Either that or you'll see the sign, remember the laughter, and go out and decapitate six men. It's fifty-fifty, really.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Hee! Risky business...