JC, The dog image really did tear me apart because I had just put my 15-year-old Golden Retriever to sleep, and she wasn’t just a dog- she was a therapy dog who brought joy to many hospital and nursing home patients. It broke my heart because she was starving also, but not from lack of food- she just could no longer utilize her nutrients. The deer-in-the-headlights… Gut reaction? That poor guy that escaped from Jeffrey Dahmer, only to be returned to him by the police… Matthew Shepard crossed my mind as well. I was surprised you mentioned him. So senseless…and the torn-up jeans with the feet? Any one of the millions of people who have or will end up like that one day.

I suppose if I saw those images 100 more times, they would lose their effect on me. I hope that never happens. I don’t want to become one of those people who see a guy get hit by a car and leave him lying in the road without doing a thing to help him, or listen to the screams of somone being raped or killed and not “get involved”.

BTW, JC, thanks for your recommending British Fabrics. You don’t have any other sources of good wools and cashmeres here in the US do you?

Women wear Wranglers too, so it’s interesting that so many of us saw the implication of rape and misogyny, in an ad that didn’t portray that at all. The live spot doesn’t even depict a man in it.

Knowing Ryan’s work, what he may be saying is that in “we are animals”, it is WOMEN who are predators, although in the case of female animals, they are either securing food for, or protecting their young––or eliminate a rival during mating season. How many times have I seen that?

As one in the predatory field of high fashion publishing, his perspective in this tastelessly edgy ad makes sense to me. Maybe some of my female associates can’t say it––but I’m sure, on occasion, they’d LOVE to wring my neck and leave me in the mud somewhere––and hopefully, I’ll be wearing better jeans than Wrangler, when I’m found.

We have a hard time seeing ourselves portrayed as victimizers, although we can be. If not, all those mean girl/gossip/women shows wouldn’t be so popular.

And that means this ad will work for it’s intended market––the age group of mean/gossip girls, who don’t see themselves as misogynist victims, but cougars-in-training, who’ll get what they want, and eliminate their rivals. At least a gay male photog sees women as empowered, even if it IS predatory.

AS for a young straight man? Check out the EKCO manufacturing ad, featuring a factory of bikini-clad girls, smiling and making their clothing––THAT’S misogyny! Portraying me as a mind-less idiot who’d love nothing more, than to sew his clothes with next to nothing on.

To Valerie’s point about re-staging the shoot as gay men: I don’t read the torn cuff on the jeans as a chase through the woods. I read it as wearing out the jeans because it’s the “fur” these animals have.

But, if I saw blood, ropes, or a fencepost in the image, I probably couldn’t help but be reminded of Matthew Shepard’s (who was a chat buddy, btw) murder. The truth is, I would have to confront my feelings about that situation. And, it would make me view the art in context different than you would or Matthew’s mother would. That’s the point: to make you think.

My criticism, though, is that the majority of objections to art come from crowds experiencing “group think” that have not yet processed the information. The level of processing is evident to me due to the lack of personal context in the response. I have yet to hear an individual rise in the crowd and say: “this reminds me of … and it evokes “. Instead, we hear broad statements, like “not suitable for children”.

{Yes, I recall the Maplethorpe debates. And, I was highly unimpressed when I saw the exhibit for all the verbose statements made. It was, well, underwhelming compared to the hype.}

It’s a parent’s prerogative to shelter a child while helping them to develop coping mechanisms. I get that it’s tough to do that when you’re immersed in culture with too much inbound information. The frustration, though, is misplaced and misdirected.

If children haven’t witnessed a bad experience, then they’re not going to project that experience onto the images they see. They’re coming at it with a clean slate, no pre-conceptions, no context. If art makes one think, wouldn’t one response be to turn to the child and decide if it were time to teach a lesson by sharing a story about a personal experience?

I fail to understand how the people generating the art can be held accountable for the observer’s perception. If the content is offensive, don’t look. If the material is objectionable, don’t consume. I think we, as a society, give away too much of our personal power.

I’ve looked at the photographer’s portfolio. I don’t see misogyny so much as I see sterility. In an attempt to avoid looking like Sears catalog, he uses nudity the same way others might use a strobe or a flood light, i.e. as a common tool rather than a subject. “Hmmm, this is boring, let’s try it naked. Aha, now it’s art!” Nude teenagers who aren’t even interacting with each other except accidentally – um, what’s wrong with that picture? Anyone? Bueller? His work is a mixture of gritty reality tempered by bored post-modernism and devoid of intelligence or a vision of what could or should be. If this be “edgy”, I’ll stick to something nearer the center, please. Wake me when it’s over.

As to the Wrangler ad, doesn’t it strike anyone else as odd that this campaign is supposedly aimed at a French audience, yet the copy is in English? “We are animals.” This is France, where there are government ministries charged with keeping foreign language adaptations from polluting the Mother Language. I smell manure.

And I still can’t find the one that supposedly has cowboys hunting the models.

How would you identify these “gay men” in your theoretical ad? It is a comparison that just doesn’t make sense.

At any rate, I did not read that image as a crime scene photo. In the preceding image we see a woman looking like a deer in headlights. My thought was that she was hit by a car and dead on the side of the road.

I also don’t get any “hunting” necessarily from the TV spot. It’s all about interpretation.

Do I not see some men in this picture?

Nothing is more frustrating to me than people who have opinions that limit the expression of others when they haven’t even taken the time to view what they’re supposed to have an opinion on.