Italian design duo Dolce & Gabbana have pulled this ad from Italian and Spanish publications after people complained that it glorifies gang rape. Stefano Gabbana, meanwhile, says the ad “recall an erotic dream, a sexual game.”
What’s your take, reader? Rape or fantasy? As if we don’t already know what you’re going to say…
joey
my response…heaven.
jason
I saw a version of this ad in the latest GQ. I didn’t think “rape” at all. I thought “Where’s the content of this magazine?”
Blake
I saw it in GQ too. I was appaled. Change the clothes and the models into real people and then what? To glamorize a scene like that is just vile and disgusting. An erotic dream? It just shows again that Mr. Gabbana needs a reality check.
And don’t pull the art and pushing boundaries crap on me. It’s an ad campaign for some expensive euro trash clothes and unless Steven Klein changes the look of the ad at some point, then that’s just the look that has proven to sell.
Hey I got an idea for the next ad. Have a few hunky guys with baseball bats stand around a guy on the floor who’s wearing a great tank top that says “faggot” on it while one especially gorgeous model in just his underwear takes a swing at him. Now that I think of it that actually is sort of provocative… You read it here first. Sadly some people’s response would still be “heaven”.
joey
blake…my response was a joke. thanks.
Blake
Sorry Joey.
FizziekruntNT
I’d say if the magazine weren’t a homophobe’s rendition of queer chic, they’d have ditched the bitch and turned it into what D&G REALLY intended, which was a full-on homo gangbangin’, Italian style!
Artemesia
Please, that photograph is it is so rape chic it is revolting!! It is clear that she is struggling, look at her facial expression, the lower part of her body is trying to escape.
God, even Helmut Newton would agree, this one is obvious!! But hey! great shoes! Also, enough with the cliched greasy Italians!!
kx2
Rape…..don’t think so……it’s 5 gay guys trying to steal her ROCKING shoes……
Rob
So does everyone think “my goodness, they’re glorifying the Nazis” when someone sees a magazine spread showing a picture of the Holocaust or Darfur? It’s all about context. I see a Dolce and Gabana ad and think all involved were handsomely paid to pose with too much oil and high heels on a make-believe beach. If this was a picture of a real event such as the horror of Darfur, then I would be worried about Western Civilisation. I seriously doubt a real rape would be as carefully posed.
I look at it and think “advertising for the diffident and disaffected”? When I open magazines like GQ, my first response is where is the damn table of contents and why does this magazine smell like the guy in the elevator with too much cologne and too little class? I am unlikely to pay $100 for a a shirt or pants designed for shabby chic when I can do it for much less and comparable quality if I want that look).
jim
I think it depicts five men demanding the woman on the ground tell them where the nearest full body waxing salon is.
Josh Raso
They just want her dress.
Neferew
It is a photograph. Photographs lie and the photographer who takes the picture lies. Any decent artist with the help of a good graphic arts computer program can fabricate the most delicious of lies. That same artist can generate the most heated discussions as a result of his work. And a good artist can also produce brand name recognition through the resulting controversy. This guy did. He earned his money. The company gets name brand recognition and scrutiny of its products, the artist got paid for it and the public got what it wanted, something new to bitch about, since that is what it is best at.
nystudman
Hard to believe she couldn’t deck that skinny guy. BTW, WHAT expression on her face? That woman has as much expression as a corpse. Then again, they all do. Ridiculous – D&G only put this up for controversy for their stupid overpriced threads, so they got what they wanted. Reminds of the Simpsons episode where the monster ad creatures are defeated by everyone looking away and ignoring them.
xlibris
They’re all so …shiny. Was Madame Tussaud the stylist for the shoot?
HL
As a female,
I would say it doesn’t seem like a rape scene to me. I thought of it as like an exhibitionist couple enjoying the audience. Just my take.
jack
Maybe you should all consider finding yourselves a life and stop worrying about what some Italian designer and his add campaign decides would sell the most of their overpriced product. I like D&G and I will buy whatever I like of theirs even if they have a poster of Hitler buttfucking Captain Kangaroo or vicer-versa. Unless D&G has actually raped you, maybe you should use your free time pondering the real issues that face the world today.
Mark
rape fantasy is a common fantasy and roleplay among many women.
but really theres nothing in the ad to define wether its consensual roleplay or not.
Its also mighty odd imagery to use for selling clothes more like something to advertise one of those rape fantasy sites or something.
But the ad worked big time, its given them twice the publicity a less confusing or less contentious image would have given them.
Like with most of these controvesey generating ads such as bennettons various ads and the recent sony playstation “black and white” ad, its hard to believe that the controvsey and so mass publicity generation was not in their minds when they commisioned the ad.