military, former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and low.
low. Two admirals who broke ranks and testified in favor
his deputy William Howard Taft opposed it and carried
out their share of its reforms halfheartedly. It is not known
whether Defense Secretary Frank Calucci will support ef-
forts to weaken the reforms. Former Navy Secretary John
Lehman continues to aim his tin cannon at the legislation
from retirement's shore, and others in the military just lay
The new raunchiness of American advertising.
FLOGGING UNDERWEAR
BY AisfDREW SULLIVAN
C OLGATE-PALMOLIVE'S TV commercial for New
Fab detergent opens with a frame of a naked man on
the edge of a bed, squeezing into a pair of jeans. In a parody
of a stripper sequence, the camera follows the belt-line up
the legs, moves round to the back as he buckles his crotch,
and then circles toward the abdomen as he pulls on a snug
white T-shirt. The stripper music heats up until, suddenly,
a cascade of liquid softener gushes into a Fab detergent
container. The guy finishes his routine with a quick pelvic
thrust to the music. A companion commercial for Fab liq-
uid shows two bare male legs getting out of bed in the
morning, and being clothed with a pair of yellow sweat-
pants. The climax is a strong, silent pull on the groin-level to the jeans. He throws them in with a couple of rocks:
drawstring, and a shot of the man's grinning face.
Of all the new ads focusing on sexuality, Fab's is one of
the most innocent. The mood is coy and amiable. Still, a
male stripper, even in reverse (the ad's message is that the
clothes are so soft you can't wait to put them on), is a long women are always portrayed as. It's post-feminist fallout."
way from conventional detergent ads showing "kids with
crap on their T-shirts," as Daniel O'Hearn put it. O'Hearn
is the account director at FCB/Leber Katz, the agency that
developed the Fab campaign.
While public concern has focused on movies and rock
lyrics, and despite the widespread impression that the peak
of permissiveness has passed, the art form that probably
affects and reflects our culture more than any other—
advertising—has become amazingly raunchy. Fashion ad-
vertising has been infected with a brazen new elitism,
sexism, and objectification of the flesh. Abuse of women,
homosexual erotica, and the milder forms of sadomasoch-
ism are now commonplace marketing techniques, directed
at the average American household. Products as everyday
as salami, chemicals, and pianos are being sold with a
sexual expHcitness once reserved for paying customers of
soft-core pornography. The ADS virus, once restricted to
high-risk publications such as GQ, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, isunderwear company Hom shows a subtle change. The
now breaking out in the general circulation.
The Fab campaign illustrates how acceptable it now is to
20 THE NEW REPUBLIC
of the bill in 1985 are now out on the street.
ARTHUR T.HADLEY
Arthur T. Hadley is the author of The Straw Giant: Triumph
& Failure: America's Armed Forces (Avon).
present the male body—almost always implicitly young,
unmarried, and available—as a selling point to wives and
mothers. Take a similar but less innocuous TV ad for Levi's
jeans. Here, there's an excuse for the raunchiness—jeans are
legitimately sold on the basis of increasing your attractive-
ness to the opposite (or increasingly to the same) sex. Nev-
ertheless, the ad reveals the new parameters of public taste.
An attractive man wanders into a laundromat and slowly
takes off all his clothes. This isn't a striptease, you under-
stand, despite the assembled throng of transfixed women.
He just has to wash all his clothes and, poor guy, forgot to
bring any spares. Twenty-five seconds into the act, we get
stone-washing '80s-style. It's both an erotic and self-con-
sciously witty statement. According to Barbara Lippert, ad-
vertising critic ioiAdweek, women are wreaking their sexual
revenge: "They want to see men reduced to the bimbos that
Male eroticism is the most unprecedented aspect of the
new advertising culture. Nude or seminude men are now
part of the advertising campaigns of, among others, BMW,
Saks Fifth Avenue, Calvin Klein, and the French Socialist
Party. Until now, only women were portrayed as passive
sex objects. What's interesting is not so much the sudden
objectification—even feminization—of male sexuality,
but the question why men are buying products sold with
male sex. Previous campaigns for men's clothes, perfume,
aftershave, underwear, all emphasized women, usually in
suggestive or submissive positions. The implicit and readi-
ly understandable sales line was that the products would
bring you greater success with the opposite sex. Today's
male advertising, in contrast, is remarkably bimbo-free—
female bimbos, that is.
Of course, it's hard to sell men's underwear without
showing a man in his underwear. But an ad for the fashion
figure is not a Jockey model, arms crossed, hair tousled, in a
locker room. He's a pouting, sexually ambiguous model.
dressed in briefs and undershirt, his right arm lifted above In a notorious picture spread for Guess Jeans, the homo-
him, his left hand drawing his undershirt away from his eroticism is lesbian. Two denim-clad girls provocatively in-
crotch to reveal his abdomen, while groping languidly to- tertwine in fields, their clothes buttoned and unbuttoned in
ward his (just visible) left nipple. The discreet implication various places. By last spring the campaign had moved on to
is that he doesn't smoke Marlboro. violence and even sadism. Two young girls, in what is
Who are these ads meant for? James Devens, president claimed to be a reference to the 1956 movie Baby Doll, are
of Hom, claims no subtlety of targeting: "We don't specify joined by a man in a black coat, hat, and mustache. In sever-
any particular audience . . . we'll sell to men, women, chil- al shots he seizes one girl by the chin, embraces the other at
dren, and animals." Pressed, he claims his market is pri- the end of a pier, and, by his appearance and expression, is
marily women, since even today women still buy most obviously pushing the girls into some sort of coerced sexual
men's underwear. If women are the market, it says some- activity. The girls seem to be attracted by the prospect. Last
thing interesting about the male sexuality they now want fall's Guess Jeans ad featured an elderly, balding, Mafioso-
to buy: passive, in- type man, with sun-
trospective, and sexu- glasses. In scenes that
ally ambiguous. But are conjure up the atmo-
women really the mar- sphere of an expensive
ket? The only magazine hotel, he kisses and
to run the Hom ad abuses young women
so far is Men V Look, in various states of un-
a male fashion maga- dress. One is pushed
zine. Devens explains, back onto a dining table
"We don't place them as her godfather mo-
in women's magazines, lests her. Another is
because they're too ex- thrown over a stone
pensive." That's clear- fountain, with the
ly disingenuous. This Mafioso's sickening
is gay advertising: the power-lust grin bless-
marketing that dare not ing the scene. Yet an-
speak its name. other girl, wearing a
But the new Madi- tight-fitting black leo-
son Avenue sexuality is tard, is kneeling down
not essentially gay, al- in front of the man, his
though a large chunk face out of view, her
of its market may be. eyes inches from his
Its central characteris- groin, in a picture
tics are its introspection of fearful pre-fellatial
and separation from submission.
social context. Fathers, Typical of this genre
sons, and businessmen of ads, the product it-
have not disappeared self is barely on view.
from contemporary ad- In eight pages of photos
vertising imagery, but featuring 11 models,
they have been supple- only two are wearing
mented by someone denim. One is the girl-
else: the single male figure, existing in a sexually charged slave about to minister to her Mafia-master, the other is the
social void with perfect. Nautilus-chiseled contours. He ex- same girl crouching in his lap, her eyes staring with indiffer-
ists alone, his body a work of obvious labor in the gym, his ence toward us, his aging lips reaching for the bottom of her
lifestyle apparently affluent but beyond that unspecified. neck. Do women buy jeans marketed with this message?
The famous Calvin Klein underwear ad {see cover) began Guess Jeans refuses to talk about the campaign or its suc-
the genre. Last year's Soloflex exercise equipment print ads cess, but industry experts say the company is thriving. Ja-
captured perfectly the way in which the '80s fitness ethic cob Jacoby, a professor of business at New York University,
and the new sexuality overlap. The muscleman was not explains the logic: "The aim is first to generate attention.
some Charles Atlas figure but a young, gymnastic, sweaty How you do it doesn't matter. Research suggests that over
boy—emanating sexuality, yet implicitly directing most of time, people separate the source of the material from the
it at himself. A current ad for Calvin Klein's Obsession For content of the message so all you recall in the end is the la-
Men perfume shows a young, attractive man—hair slicked bel. Guess Jeans." Sadomasochism as attention-grabber.
back, suit pressed, and in love in the way only an '80s man
The Guess Jeans campaign is also typical in its sim-
can be: he's staring straight into a mirror.
ple colors: black-and-white photography overlaid with

22 THE NEW REPUBLIC

lipstick-red lettering. It's a technique used not only to international Italian fashion company Benetton, specialize
stand out from the colorful, glossy crowd, but also be- in caricatures of YWi? Aryanism, set in Germanic land-
cause the simplicity of the colors impresses itself instant- scapes. Young couples with cropped, blond hair are pic-
ly on the receptive mind. Blue and red—the favorite col- tured striding into woods, carrying sheep on their shoul-
ors for much of this advertising—are also used for airport ders, striding up alpine streams, or trudging through the
landing strips and were common in the 1930s for totali- Schwarzwald,
tarian propaganda. Professor Marshall Blonsky, the editor The Polo Ralph Lauren Autumn Collection features an
of On Si^ns, chillingly describes the method as "simple arch world of pre-Amchluss aristocracy. Black-and-white
color for simple ideas." tableaux depict elegant Aryan landowners at country-
Perhaps the best adjective to describe the ethic house retreats, sipping champagne in faded tuxedos. The
of the whole power-sex genre of advertisement is: fas- print ads for Toni Gard, a French fashion company, re-
cist, Calvin Klein's create in black and
Obsession For Men is white a studied orchard
a fine example. The lunch party in a French
leading print ad of the chateau, servants at
campaign shows four hand, styling gel at
naked men and two the ready. Not that
naked women draped the label is exactly
over a Nuremberg- foisted upon the poten-
style obelisk. Each FOR MEN tial consumer. Several-
looks intently, almost FOR THE BODY page spreads go by
painfully, into the without the name of
middle distance, as if the company or design-
stricken with an acute er appearing at all, and
case of hemorrhoids. those clothes that do
They bask in a green- feature are obscured
filtered sun, their lead- by the sepulchral soft-
en muscular legs angled lens. What is important
over their groins as a is the ambience, the
languid, careless after- creation of a mood. In
thought. The homo- this case, Nuremberg.
eroticism is mild (pre-
The new ad aesthetic
sumably two of the
would be easier to de-
men will have to keep
fend if it were based on
themselves company),
any genuine artistic in-
but the complete lack
novation or creativity.
of emotion—let alone
But the photographers
passion—is the real
of these images—Bruce
point. None of these
Weber for Lauren and
models cares about
Obsession print cam-
anything, nor do they
paigns, Wayne Maser
represent anything rec-
ognizably human or
humane. Their bodies
Calvin Klei for Guess Jeans, for
example—are parasites
on the genuine age of
are as objectified as
artistic fashion photog-
the obelisk they stand on. Their minds are absent. raphy. The era of Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, work-
They have no motivation, no possible reason for being ing for Harper's Bazaar and Vo^ue in the late 1940s to the
there, no thought to express, no communication to con- early 1960s, established much of the lighting techniques,
vey. They do not even look at one another. But they dramatic composition, and figure painting that today's
sell smell. photographers imitate. Even the explicitness of today's
The narcissism of these nautilized Aryans carries over eroticism is not new in the field of fashion photography,
into more mundane advertising. The aesthetic of fascist- although it has never appeared in popular American publi-
realist torsos photographed either in sepia, black and cations before now, Helmut Newton's work for the French
white, or some color filter to give that added "It's-1934-in- Vogue in the 1970s—some of it depicting explicit sadomas-
Bavaria" touch are now commonplace in fashion maga- ochism and bestiality—went much further than the soft-
zines, and in the new proto-fascist magazines. University core pornography of Obsession.
Man, Men's Fitness, and all the Joe Weider muscle/fitness Today's commercial photo-art is not only unoriginal,
publications. Print advertisements for Sisley, a label of the it also lacks the fundamental quality of great fashion

JANUARY 18, 1988 23

photography: its connection between human personality
and clothes. Avedon and Penn were both essentially por-
traitists. Few of today's photographers are. "What typi-
fies the new generation is their denial of individuality.
You simply can't imagine a Bruce Weber portrait. It's too
human a conception" is how Adam Gopnik, a writer on
the relationship between popular culture and high art,
puts it.
He's right. The central feature of today's ads is the de-
humanized uniformity of the bodies they display, a re-
lentless elitism of the flesh. Take Jovan Musk's contro-
versial TV commercial produced by Adrian Lyne, who
was also responsible for the original Diet Pepsi campaign
and ioi Fatal AitracHon. With an opening shot of the ques-
tion "What is sexy?" it flashes 29 spots in 30 seconds,
hypnotically choreographed to a pulsating rhythm. We
cannot know the people involved. They clearly have no
history nor any relationship that we might have time or
interest to contemplate. We see a man spraying a woman
with a hose; a woman
dancing frantically in
front of a backlight;
three hands clasping
each other on a bronzed
thigh; a wet-kiss in a
shower. They are all
miniseconds of stylish
erotica—arousing, but
in an instant, distract-
ing, almost thoughtless
way.
The growing sophis-
tication of American
advertising (Jovan's
previous campaign fea-
tured the juvenile slo-
gan "It may not put
more women in your life but it'll put more life into your
women") reflects increasing influence of European
taste—and European ownership—in the American adver-
tising industry. But the calculated sexuality also reflects
increased desperation to break through the clutter of
competing ads. A Swedish agency. Hall and Cederquist,
was hired to design a campaign for a small sneakers com-
pany. Travel Fox. To make an impact against competitors
such as Nike and Reebok, with something like 20 to 30
times Travel Fox's budget, the campaign focused on sex.
A print ad, whose only information about its sneakers
was that they were made of leather, featured various
permutations of two intertwined nude bodies, just sexu-
ally distinguishable, each sporting a pair of Travel Fox
sneakers—and nothing else. One ad shows them in the
missionary position; another has her bare buttocks firmly
placed on his shoulders. Sales in the New York area,
where the campaign was concentrated, tripled in a year.
The company spent $1 million in 1986 on the campaign,
out of total sales of $5 million. In other words, 20 cents
of every dollar you pay for your Travel Fox sneakers
24 THE NEW REPUBLIC
goes to convincing you that they're sexy.
The sneaker campaign also reveals the importance of
simplicity. Mood advertising—with little information
about the product but plenty of apparently tangential as-
sociations—is increasingly regarded as the most effective
way of conveying a message. This is partly an attempt to
rise above the clutter of information with something clear
and visual. Written information is a disadvantage. A study
by Jacob Jacoby found that around 20 percent of all adver-
tising copy is misconstrued. (The bad news is, that figure is
even higher for editorial material.) The solution? Cut the
copy, crank up the copulation.
Fancy theories can't disguise the basic point, though,
which is sex. A recent glossy brochure promises "Warmth.
Power. Passion. Response." It is selling a piano. A TV ad
features a bare-chested man lathering himself in a shower
to advertise Liquid Drano. ICI Chemicals boasts about its
share of the world fibers market with a photograph shot at
ground level looking up three women's pantyhoses.
Schick's razors feature
a woman singing, "1 got
a man with a slow
hand."
The latest ad for
Round The Clock
Pantyhose features a
tuxedo-clad man re-
turning home to open
his mail. One item is a
poster. He unpacks it,
looks at it for a mo-
ment, smiles, and pins
it to the wall. Never
taking his gaze away,
he takes off his tie,
drops his suspenders,
and falls back into bed.
Then he switches off the light. Then we see what he's look-
ing at: a rear view of a woman's legs in pantyhose. The ques-
tion is: What's he going to do next? It takes an effort to recall
that this is an ad for stockings for women, not safe sex for
men. Still, preliminary figures show sales are up 30 percent.
Perhaps the explosion of fantasy and eroticism in adver-
tising isn't a consequence of increasing decadence at all.
More likely it is a symptom of increased restraint and
monogamy in the period of safe sex. The Instant nature of
advertising, its uniquely close relationship to the market it
attracts, and its ubiquity in every medium make it the
leading public art form of the late 20th century. Now that
government has abandoned its traditional role as the cul-
tural and moral guardian of public culture, the ad industry
has taken over. We no longer build statues; we mount
billboards. The result is a public culture more sensitive to
the demands of the faceless, but hardly passionless, many
than ever before. Unlike elite, officially sponsored art,
advertising has to mirror public taste—middle-class
taste—or go out of business. And what the public wants,
apparently, is this. a