Wait, this is Wrangler right? The Wrangler Jeans we used to make fun of on the faux cowboys in high school? This is what they have to resort to to keep their dying brand aloft? Muahahahahaha.
Oh wait, murder isn't sexy, no matter how hard you try to emulate Twin Peaks.

I...

don't get it.

...

I have no words.

what the muthafuckinfuck?

How is this selling jeans?

...if I wear the jeans, I'll look dead and that is good?.... wha?

truly, truly fucking horrible.

wow, just wow.

i was trying to figure out how this is supposed to sell anything. the only thing i could think of is that humans are animals and so do violent acts like killing - but wrangler jeans are tough, and can withstand such violent acts (this might be part of the reason why the 2nd girl is missing her shirt but shock! her jeans are still there, thank goodness she was wearing wranglers!)

Wear our jeans! They'll make you look like a corpse!

The weirdest thing is, you know there was an *entire room full* of people at Wrangler who all nodded and smiled when this campaign was unveiled. The hell?

the same ad agency also produced this, which is less brutal/triggering but definitely promulgates a fruity 'sexyfun' misogyny via animals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6V9mtDxn9Q

O/T, mods, but the Livejournal login isn't working. backchannel me if you need the error log.

I don't understand this ad campaign whatsoever. I mean, when there are horribly sexist or racist ads, I sometimes say I don't understand how those ideas could have been approved, but usually I understand the point of the ad on a completely elementary level.

This one? Impenetrable. We are animals therefore we kill each other? What do either of those sentiments have to do with jeans? And who buys a pair of jeans because they saw an ad with a dead woman wearing them? I mean, supposedly people buy, like, Axe body spray because the commercials make it look like you'll get laid. This one makes it look like you'll get killed. That's not really appealing to, um...anyone.

And oh my gosh, Claudrophenia, I had no idea those ads were both produced by the same agency! I watched that Orangina ad yesterday before taking a nap and had a horrible nightmare about it! Worst ad agency ever!

Is it possible that the model isn't supposed to be dead, but rather just rolling around topless in the mud?

If that were the case, the "we" in the slogan would be referring to "we women" who like to slap on a pair of wranglers and mud wrastle.

Then the appeal would be (supposed to be) that if you're a rough-n-tumble mud-gal you might want to choose this brand of jeans.

No?

the ad appears to show humans engaging in what is typically thought to be non-human animal behavior.

It looks like people are drinking out of streams and lakes at night.

I have seen zero corpses. The people featured in the ads on this blog post are not "obviously" dead or alive, and in the ad, people certainly appear to be alive.

To me this campaign isn't particularly compelling, but that's much different than "disturbing" or an instance of sexual violence against women.

I don't think it's any more violent to women than any other major fashion ad.

People have agency to make decisions about what they think is attractive or sexy. Why do we get to legislate what is okay to be sexy and what isn't?

You should definitely do more in-depth research before posting like this. it was a big let-down.

Even besides the fact that the premise of the post is totally wrong, it doesn't address some of the other issues it raises that are also spoken to, such as the agency of humans, the distinction between humans and animals and the way we observe others.

If violence is okay sometimes (it's certainly inevitable), then I fail to understand what about this campaign is "unacceptable" violence.

Ugh, hopefully this will backfire big-time.
I associate Wrangler with a pair of jeans I owned when I was 10 (1992) so this is kinda like cognitive dissonance for me...

Wow, those are freaky. They actually bear resemblance to several crime scene photos I've looked at (yeah, I'm morbid, I look at dead people pictures). Obviously, these are cleaner than a crime scene photo, but they sure did manage a great mock-up. And by great I mean vomit inducing, wtf is wrong with you people sort of great.

xocoatl, the images have a familiarity to them (another site brought up the crime scenes from 'Twin Peaks'). particularly with the shot of the woman's back, above--it looks exactly like a homicide photo. so, this agency is saying 'Wrangler jeans are desirable and attractive because the bodies of dead women are sexy.' or, 'the bodies of dead women are an edgy, forward-looking form of sexiness or attractiveness.' for comparison, would you be likely to buy a brand of children's clothes if the ad campaign showed a baby's arm, pale blue (the color the skin turns after death), coated in dirt, laying in a field? probably not. however, this sort of dialectic is common when it comes to depictions of women in advertising. the cultural idea that violence towards women--particularly sexual violence--is acceptable needs to be challenged.

you ask, 'Why do we get to legislate what is okay to be sexy and what isn't?' the answer is, because we are members of the society in which these depictions exist. for the same reason that 'we' get to 'legislate' that child pornography is not okay, and that slavery is not okay.

inevitability and acceptability are two completely different things, even in the commercial sphere. would it be acceptable to sell food using imagery of victims of starvation, as long as 'they look sexy'? what if you saw an ad for a Big Mac that depicted a dead African child, eyes covered in flies? why is it 'okay' to you if the victims are women? the research YOU need to do is within your OWN assumptions.

for the record, i think several of the other images of the campaign are not really offensive--they are similar to some Diesel promotions from years past, and i can see where the idea of 'okay, we have these hipsters, but we're going to shoot them in the style of rare wildlife footage to make them all feral and raw, all right, go team' could be done in a way that doesn't offend anyone, but as usual, when it's time to push part of the envelope towards extremity, it seemed that dead women was the immediate go-to idea. SIGH.

oh.my.god.

what.the.fuck.

claudrophenia, you fail to respond to the thrust of my post which is that these women are not dead.

They just aren't. the picture you point out is the more obvious of the two. The woman's skin, while pale, is certainly not dead. Her arm is flexed and her neck is raised. It is not an image of a dead woman, just a sexyback.

I think people can advertise with images of dead people if they'd like. You have no argument why that shouldn't be the case. I probably wouldn't buy items that they advertised with dead babies, but it depends on the product. Everyone dies. Why is using images of death bad?

I also don't understand why an image of a dead person is any more violent than that of a live person.

Some people enjoy violence being inflicted upon themselves, or enjoy inflicting violence on others and do so in consensual relationships.

Just because there are people committing violence against women (and men) does not necessarily mean that said violence is culturally acceptable. Even if it does, I fail to see how these ads make violence against women more accepted.

I don't know why you think that just because you're a member of a society that you get to make all the decisions for that society. You can not like the ad, but to be outraged about it just shows how petty and narrow your politics are.

If you think that the system of legislation that we have now is effective or even approaches justice, you're wrong.

it would be okay to use imagery of victims of starvation in advertisements for food. I wouldn't personally think they were appealing images, but I don't think we should censor those images arbitrarily.

(also, why is the dead child African? Your racism is as evident as your authoritarianism)

You claim that child pornography is wrong, but don't really explain why that is. Do children not have sexual identities? Are children not sexual creatures?

In your haste to make sure your viewpoints are legislated as the only correct ones, you elide a lot of important issues and pigeonhole people unfairly.

Every act is an act of violence. Some forms are more or less acceptable than others.

some people like to get objectified, tied up, smacked around and fucked. Some don't. To that I say "to each their own." You have not sufficiently proven your argument that you should get to decide what is okay or not okay for everyone to do.

But her skin is not blue, her feet are flat (they'd be slack or "pointed" were she dead, or even asleep), and her head is lifted out of the water.

I really don't see "death" here: just another wanky ad showing a woman rolling around in muddy water.

I agree with xocoatl that the woman in the second ad doesn't look dead at all to me... More like she's swimming with her head just out of the water and her arm flexing to stroke; and the ripples in the water suggest movement rather than stagnation. I don't see how this is supposed to sell jeans per se, but I also don't see how it's a necessarily violent image.

Umm, looking at the positioning of the second picture (still confused by the first one), the tag line, as well as the video, are they going for a "predator/stealth" theme? Hence the "we are animals" line?

I tried to keep an open mind as some of the other commenters suggested as I viewed these shots.

My simple question is: What comes to mind when you view them? What other images are evoked as you take in these ads?

They don't look like anything else I've ever seen except:

1. Crime scene photos of corpses.
2. Pictures of drowning victims after the Tsunami and after Katrina.
3. Pictures from the "body farm" experiment in Tennessee where forensic anthropologists study decomposition.

Here's what they DON'T look like:

1. Stylized images of "tomboys" playing in the mud. (Their bodies appear inert and ummm, they are semi-clad)
2. Women engaged in rough and tumble sports activities. (If they are being portrayed as "alive," at most they are crawling, on their stomachs, through muck.)

These photos are too up close to even give them any context, so I'm not likely to believe the "sporting" or "rough and tumble" arguments. Are they at a football field? Down at the town's creek? It doesn't matter, because that's not what the ad intended.

This leads me to believe that these images were going just for what most of us saw in them. These images mirror other real images that we have all seen after violence or tragedy has occurred.

I'm not sure why one would have a difficult time believing this as it's not the first time women have been portrayed as corpses for "fashion."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-l-pozner/top-models-beau_b_44331.html

Un-fucking-necessary.

Corpses are not 'fashionable' in anyway. When, oh when will the fashion industry learn, man?

I don't know whether the women look dead or alive to me.

It's a crappy ad at the least for how ambiguous it is...

I wonder how something like this would go down in New Orleans, where people had to deal with the reality of real drowned people? This shows a total lack of taste, but worse yet, a total lack of social sensitivity.

Is there anywhere we can write to the company to complain? Several family members and I are incensed and would like to say something.

They are trying to sell product. What idiot would think that mess would sell product?

...I don't see them as dead btw

xocoatl, your post was the first one here (including the OP) to mention legislation. Critiquing an image and calling for it to be banned aren't really the same thing.

that said...

claudrophenia- "for the same reason that 'we' get to 'legislate' that child pornography is not okay, and that slavery is not okay."

I was under the impression that the reason those things were legislated against was because they had actual, concrete, immediate victims. A creepy, sexist ad campaign doesn't really fall into the same category.

Wow. Sick. As another comment mentioned, this reminds me so much of Susan Faludi's chapters on fashion and beauty in _Backlash_ where she talks about the (re)-advent of the Victorian corpse look. And it reminds me of horror-movie ads, like for _Saw_ and _Hostel_.

I'm really disturbed but also intrigued by this glamorizing and sexualizing of death (primarily women's death), making pain and death sexy. I find it so sick and think it explains SO much about rape and violence and the lack of respect for women in our culture. Though violence is also glamorized to sell shit to men (like the Dolce & Gabbana ad with one of the men slumped over and a bullet hole in his head), using realistic (not even cartoon) ads depicting dead people, male or female, to SELL SHIT is just really repulsive.

There's a gallery of more disgusting ads here at Media Watch: http://www.mediawatch.com/gallery/ads . Some of the images aren't very well sourced or even dated, which annoys me, but there are more very powerful examples of the "dead look" and women in stereotypically deferential poses and situations (lying down, flopping around, half dressed while the men are fully dressed, with facial expressions showing pain or discomfort).

I'd also like to add that the tagline "We are animals" is fucking stupid. No, in fact, we are not "animals." And just because we are biologically animals does not mean we need to act or think or *treat others* like animals.

P.S. To add to arguments about whether the girls are dead or alive: It's ambiguous. You can't tell just from looking at the pictures. But why would an ad writer/director even want to make it ambiguous whether the model was dead or alive if s/he didn't mean to play on suspicions that the model was dead? Why couldn't the writer/director of the second ad, for example, showed the girl's eyes, or show that she was holding her head up ever so slightly?

P.P.S. Even if these aren't attempting to play on the sexualization of violence, they're still resorting to FEAR. That television ad was CLEARLY appealing to fear.

... what the fuck. couldnt agree with vanessa more, the sexualization of violence is jumping off the screen! so disturbing.

what the fuck wrangler, and even more i agree with ellestar when i say, i... don't get it. people want their jeans so much they kill for them? so why are the people still wearing the jeans, wouldn't they have taken them?...

also, love bifemmefatale's comment about how people at wrangler thought this was a good idea...

We constantly get told that today's sophisticated ad campaigns are about brand awareness, so often an ad will seem disconnected from the actual product. The idea is get the brand into the consumer's mind, and what better way to do that than by being controversial?

However, this ad campaign goes beyond being controversial. Sure, I am now aware of the Wrangler brand, and its attempt to "revamp" itself in a highly competitive market, but because of the imagery used, I would exercise my choice and NEVER buy any of their products.

Both of the photos are suggestive to many people of crime scene photos of the corpses of young women. The first one looks like some mutilation has occurred to the legs (and jeans), and the second links sexual attractiveness with death by showing the naked back of a young woman face-down in water. Note that in this photo, the jeans hardly feature.

The TV ad is reminiscent of horror movies when a victim is stalked in a swampy area in the dark with just the crickets singing in the background. The whole aura created is one of predation and fear. And was I correct in glimpsing a couple kissing at the edge of the water toward the end of the ad? Again we have the link between sex and violence, together with a healthy dose of voyeurism.

Some have claimed that there is ambiguity apparent in that the women may not necessarily be dead, but the passive poses, suggestions of violence and locations of the photos and TV ad are strongly indicative that the women could be. All that is really missing to take away any doubt is blood. But maybe that "small detail" is what determines acceptability in the minds of those who created and used this ad campaign, in that they can claim ambiguity as a defence if questioned?

I know in my country, there is an office set up to look into complaints about advertising. If you have such a body in countries where these ads are showing, perhaps contacting them would be a step toward having them independently assessed and hopefully removed.

Way to sexualize violence against women, Wrangler.

And are they suggesting that Wrangler jeans are extra-durable or something? They'll survive a wild-animal attack?

I don't get it either.

Just showed the above 2 photos to my 22 year old son, but covered up the captions and writing. I asked him what they were. For the first he said a dead person, and the second he said a dead woman. I then let him in on the fact that they were ads for jeans. Initially, he was speechless. He then responded with: "What's being dead got to do with jeans?" and "How would that make a woman want to buy their jeans?" He certainly didn't see any ambiguity in the fact that the models appeared dead, but certainly questioned the angle taken by the ad campaign. Although not female, he's in the age demographic these ads would be aiming at. We had a discussion on how violence against women is often linked with sex. Obviously he is not unaware of this given his age, but he fully agreed that its use in an advertising campaign, ironically aimed at women, was extremely questionable.

(also, why is the dead child African? Your racism is as evident as your authoritarianism)

I do not think that claudrophenia was being racist when they mentioned the dead child being African. What I think they meant was that's the image we see when we think of a 'starving child.' Yes, millions of children in America are starving but if someone said "Close your eyes and picture a starving child," most of us would see an African child because those are the pictures brought to us on televison and in the news.

About the pictures, I definately see these as violence against women. To me, they do seem obviously dead. The first one, with the girl face down in the water with no shirt, appears to have bruises up and down her back and a red handprint on her upper arm. The second one seems like she has been viciously attacked. Her jeans are ripped as if in some sort of struggle.

Nothing about these ads makes me want to buy jeans; in fact, I'd be LESS likely to wear a pair of Wrangler jeans now because I don't like their advertising.

"We are Animals"? Then how about showing a person in a savannah roaring like a lion or swimming with pengiuns? There are much better ways to portray that "we are animals". Even a person curled up asleep in the sun like a house cat would be better than those ads.

Holy shit. Gross gross gross creepy creepy gross.

How is this even an ad? Who the hell would want the jeans after seeing these? The tagline doesn't make sense, the photos don't make sense, the product has nothing to do with the advertisement. It's like slasher porn with so context whatsoever.

WEIRD weird weird gross creepy.

The TV ad is trying to look like a nature show: if they could have gotten a Richard Attenborough sound-a-like to narrate it would have sealed it. (Or whoever is the French equivalent.)

The ones in the water are supposed to be like crocs. The ones walking through the woods are supposed to be like deer.

I'm not defending these ads because they're moronic and they're comparing women to animals, and doing it like that's supposed to be a good thing--BUT, there really ARE ads out there that push the death thing, and you can't be the "little feminist who cried murder/rape fantasy" when there are other more obvious takes on the images. You're only going to see murdered corpses if you're looking for them. You call murder/rape fantasy on an ad campaign that clearly isn't going for that, and no one will take you seriously when you call BS on one that really IS sexualizing women as corpses.

Holden: the jeans aren't torn. Those are leaves. I completely agree with you that there are more positive images of animals they could have used (aside from this lurking in the dark covered in mud BS), but it would be better not to compare women to animals at all: I'm not sure the ad-makers of the world are capable of not being awful.

"the "little feminist who cried murder/rape fantasy""

I think that is overly condescending, given that most cultural symbolism type stuff feminism deals with is somewhat subjective, and undoubtedly for every single issue feminists try to tackle there are hoards of people saying they're making much out of nothing.

But, I agree these women aren't dead, which is the way I was more leaning originally anyway. I think's it's a dumb ad, but, the women aren't supposed to be dead.

In the second picture, she's not even floating in the water. She's holding herself out of the water supporting her weight on her arm, and you can see her nose right below where the "r" in Wrangler is.

Holden: the jeans aren't torn. Those are leaves

You're right. I can see that now. I had to get pretty close on the screen to tell the difference but that's probably more due to the fact I need new glasses rather than the ad itself.

If the picture of the naked woman in the water is supposed to make me think of a crocodile, or a predator in the water, then Wrangler fail at advertising.

The first thing I saw was a corpse in the water. It reminded me of that poor kid whose torso was dredged up over here in England a few years back.

I showed it to my OH, independent of the written commentary above, and he saw corpses too.

If they wanted to make that image look like a crocodile in the water, they would not have focussed on her arse. We would have seen just the woman's eyes peering up out of the water, focussed and predatory, or a massive splash of water as she launches herself out of it at some prey. The still, murkiness of the water is what suggests death to me, even more so than the naked and cold-looking body. Moving, live bodies create motion in water.

The positioning of the shoulder, which is the only thing to suggest life, is only noticeable upon a later, closer inspection. And how many people out in the public are going to examine these ads that quickly, when they see them in passing?