or featuring death-row inmates:
Apart from the company logo, the focus of these posters is on the issue they're raising awareness for. But let's look at their new one, shall we?
(via Adpunch)
Oh, look at those bruises. At least she colour-co-ordinated her wrap! Oh, isn't she stylish!
Yep. Benetton is hawking their products, and domestic violence sells. They could have focussed on the faces, where the signs of battery are clear, and have provided a straight-to-the-point message. Instead, in all three adverts, the clothing choice of the 'victims' is very obvious. This is just exploitative.
Of course, the first discussion I saw of this didn't see it that way. Nope, the focus was 'what about the men'. Men get beaten by their wives too! UCoB is anti-men! Those women are trying to make as all appear evil!
I'm tired of this.
I don't know what to say, really. This is on a wholly different level of wrongness. Most advertisers allude to violence against women. Here it is explicitly shown and used to promote a clothing line.
ReplyDeleteThe first image from Adpunch is particularly posed and 'normal' in terms of advertising clothes - her hair is even flicked as though there is a wind machine involved.
ReplyDeleteI also find it odd that they would only use hispanic and asian models (guessing there, so forgive me if wrong and taking things on face value) for this campaign when they seem to be so stuck on black/white, or black/white/yellow for their other campaigns. It's almost as if they are making some statement about increased risk of DV within hispanic and asian communities.
Oh but the menz! Funny, when crimes that are most often commited against men are given attention (such as non-DV violence) there aren't loads of women piping up pointing out that they are victims of violence too - even though they most obviously are! I suppose you could argue that crimes like non-DV violence don't get that much attention, but in terms of media coverage, violence offences make up approximately 60% of offences covered in media, while they only make up around 30% of all offences commited.
"It's almost as if they are making some statement about increased risk of DV within hispanic and asian communities."
ReplyDeleteUm, what? isn't that a false syllogism? Surely hispanic women are as likely to suffer from domestic violence as any other kind of woman? So why NOT include them in the campaign?
"Oh but the menz! Funny, when crimes that are most often commited against men are given attention (such as non-DV violence) there aren't loads of women piping up pointing out that they are victims of violence too - even though they most obviously are! I suppose you could argue that crimes like non-DV violence don't get that much attention, but in terms of media coverage, violence offences make up approximately 60% of offences covered in media, while they only make up around 30% of all offences commited."
And what percentage of offences committed are domestic-violvence? And wouldn't your problems with media coverage have nothign to do with men, and everything to do with the media itself?
Well, RDA, to be fair she wasn't saying that ethnic minority people shouldn't be shown in an anti-DV campaign, she's just saying she finds it odd that they were the ONLY ones when DV affects al women, and theorised that perhaps there is another message within.
ReplyDeleteShe also wasn't saying that men are to blame for the media coverage. The 'Oh, but the menz' thing references how every time something is brought up as a feminist issue, we always get 'what about the men' yelled back, yet this is much less prevalent in issues which are mentioned as involving men.
Violence is majority perpetrated by men, period.
ReplyDeleteCertainly women can be and are violent.
Certainly women can be and are batterers.
Certainly men can be and are raped, even by women.
Nonetheless, for men to point the finger outward at women saying "see, women are violent too" when 9 out of 10 times that DV (or sexual assault or serial murders etc) is committed, those nine times it is a man doing it, only serves to try and take the focus off of where the heart, root and center of the problem lies: with men.
To the men who point their fingers so excitedly and self-righteously at women batterers---I would say, question your own motivations for attempting to place women's violence on a par with men's violence.
Certainly all violence is wrong...but to somehow try to compare the incidence of women's violence with the incidence of men's violence and to somehow say these are exactly the same is deceptive and inaccurate.
Where female violence is concerned....it is an isolated incident, not socially condoned nor historically precedented.
Where male violence is concerned, it is historically precedented, socially condoned, tied to systemic structures of oppression based in gender (ie, that men are more important than women, and that male physical violence is "normal" because men are the stronger of the species, more naturally aggressive, etc etc etc) and considered, still, to be the right of the male to commit.
Men, you still need to look inward at yourselves to address the violence of your male community and stop being so concerned by isolated incidents of female violence.
Men, you need to do more work to stem male violence and stop being so focused on women because women are not the problem...you, men, are.
Women will take care of their own as they have always done and will do the needed work to continue to assure that violence is not a priority within their communities, as it is with men.
The clothing line isn't trying to use domestic violence as a way of promoting there clothes.
ReplyDeleteThey have purposably used this, to get people thinking about the name "Benetton"
This advert has been made to shock and raise questions.
And they are not targeting women. There not that stupid.
and to be honest, good on them.
Everyone needs to be pulled out the comfort zone once in a while.
Amazing and un believable Ads.
ReplyDelete