02/16/2005
Aryan Brand Building
Here's the latest Abercrombie billboard up across from Pastis in New York's "meatpacking" district. I shot it the other day after having my eggs and sausage at brunch. They're pushing this blond Aryan model real hard this season.
Meanwhile, my friends at Phototopia found a grassroots campaign on the streets of San Francisco that really gets the A&F Hitler youth message across.
Posted 11:30 AM EST by Andy Towle in Fashion Men, Photography, Print Media | Permalink
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Hitler Youth? I thought it was a picture of people lined up to get White House press passes.
Posted by: Paul | Feb 16, 2005 1:26:39 PM
yeah... I heard Suge Night wanted that AF campaign oh well...
Posted by: Mike | Feb 16, 2005 1:50:33 PM
aboacrombie is getting another itch, I see!
Posted by: visibleh20 | Feb 16, 2005 3:22:44 PM
I think that you're missing the point - you're STILL paying attention. You can hide your attraction to the ad and the model behind pretentious nonsense regarding race. But really you liked looking and you liked posting it in the blog - because it looks great!
Posted by: trev | Feb 16, 2005 3:59:25 PM
"Pretentious nonsense regarding race"?? Put down the crack pipe Mary, if anyone missed the point it's obviously you.
Posted by: HoyaBoy | Feb 16, 2005 4:03:24 PM
You have so-o-o-o missed the point, Trev. Glance back at other postings and ramblings from the readers of this fine blog and you'll find many, myself included, who are weary of all the wonderbread abercrombie-zombie hitler youth models, something that seems to have ticked upwards during the Bush administration. Oops, made a sociological point - hope I didn't disturb Trev's boy gazing.
Posted by: cafegogo | Feb 16, 2005 4:54:59 PM
I live about three blocks away from the billboard, at Washington and Gansevoort. (No, I moved there years ago before the 'hood became trendy.) Have to admit, it is causing a lot of neck strain.
I'm on the fence about Abercrombie. On one hand, the models are cute, to be sure. But I sometimes feel like I'm watching outtakes from a Refinstahl movie.
Certainly a good location for an ad. Everyone stops thru Pastis, from Candice Bergen (who's very gay friendly!) to Frankie G. Mmmm.
rod
brotha2Brotha
Posted by: Rod | Feb 16, 2005 5:48:48 PM
Andy, this might sound like a flame, but it's sincerely not--just confusion. As you regularly post your own and others' pix of men solely because you find them hot [versus for some accomplishment such as the attractive gay author], where's your beef, as it were, with Abercrombie? The comparison to blond Hitler jugend is, of course, easy, but not all their models are blond, e.g., the Carlson Twins who probably have hit the biggest. Even if they were all blond, were your three days of hosannas to brunette Brent Van Zant, just to use one example, any less "looksist"? Or the advertisers you feature? If the "oppression" of "looksism" is the issue, when is the last time you featured the picture of an UNattractive gay author? If it's the rarity at AF of nonwhite hotties, on my random visits here, I've rarely seen Black or Asian hotties. Is it simply because AF is a big corporation, in the same way that people blindly rage about Starbucks even though it has inclusive hiring policies, allegedly great employee benefits, and donates to liberal politicians? Sorry, if I missed something else, because I genuinely respect your intelligence.
Posted by: Lolly | Feb 16, 2005 5:52:39 PM
Lolly:
First of all - the Abercrombie model is obviously hot - nobody's denying that. The beef I have with Abercrombie has been that every time I walk into their stores it feels like I am walking into a Red State where gays and minorities are not wanted, and their past (well documented) hiring and editorial policies have reflected that. I feature them on my blog (the Christmastime models at their stores, etc) because I find it amusing and relevant to the people who read this site. If you read those posts, they're certainly not love letters to the models. If you've read this blog before you'll know that it's a measured mix of politics, gay issues, media news, entertainment news, photography, etc. Hot guys are certainly not featured to the exclusion of anything else.
A lot of the material (photo previews, etc) that I feature is sent to me - much of it I find online. I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining why I choose to publish good looking photos. My "three days of hosannas" (and if your post was not a flame then please spare me the sarcasm) to Brent van Zant came because I was offered the photos to publish and I thought people would enjoy them. The lack of Black or Asian hotties on this site is a reflection of the lack of images of minorities that I come across in my daily gathering of content for the site — and I'll admit, there is a preponderance of caucasian images here (along with as many hot Brazilian fotologgers as I can find :-)). I had a discussion about just this topic the other day with Rod over at Brotha2Brotha which I recently discovered and encourage you to visit. You'll see his blog focuses a lot on black culture, but neither of us (and I think I can briefly speak for him based on an email he wrote to me) have exclusionary sensibilities or motives.
As far as my ads go, I have no control over who chooses to advertise on Towleroad. I can reject an ad, but I certainly don't pick and choose my advertisers based on whether or not there is a washboard stomach in the creative. I don't create their ads. They just have an idea about what might sell their product to this audience. The ads are there to support the site, not to promote an agenda.
Okay, this post has gone on far too long, but I guess you touched a nerve. And to quote Divine, "my diet pill is wearing off."
Posted by: andy | Feb 16, 2005 6:49:28 PM
Look back at the Brant posting, Lolly. You'll see a few Hitler youth whitebread complaints there, so it's not just regarding Abercrombie.
There is no hypocrisy on the part of the readers here - who's venting is, if anything, remarkably consistent - and there's no hypocrisy on the site's part, either, by posting photos and letting the responses, pro or con, be posted.
I also don't think it's the "responsibility" of a personal blog site to have a perfect-world politically-correct parade of models. That, I'm afraid, would be the real hypocrisy.
Posted by: cafegogo | Feb 16, 2005 7:10:18 PM
They also have a huge billboard on 5th Ave next door to Bvlgari (across from Trump Tower). It's definitely HAWT!
Posted by: Gino | Feb 16, 2005 7:34:51 PM
I don't know about you, Lolly, but I'm far more outraged at Abercrombie's insistence on using real men for models as opposed to sexy cartoon men. I'm sorry, but that Nightcharm cartoon in the advert bar is, like, totally hot. Discrimination against hairy-chested cartoon dudes has gone on far too long!
Posted by: Norman | Feb 16, 2005 7:39:13 PM
Lolly, I totally agree with you. And Andy, please... your excuse for why you don't feature blacks and asians on this site is pretty lame. Especially considering that shouldn't have to be making an excuse for this. You feature on your site the type of boys and men that you find attractive... and there's nothing wrong with that. If I had a personal blog of my thoughts and interests, I would feature the same types of men... and the fact that I'm not attracted to blacks or asians doesn't make me a racist. So stop appologizing and lets be honest. Political correctness went out in the 90s. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a Republican (pahlease!), but capitalism and freedom is what seperates us from the muslim world. Abercrombie makes money by targeting a certain demographic. To hate Abercrombie for this is un-American.
Posted by: James | Feb 16, 2005 9:18:46 PM
Leave my husband alone! I'm the only one allowed to get on Andy's back, mmmkay?!
Posted by: Britt | Feb 16, 2005 10:54:57 PM
Thanks for your feedback, Andy. Actually, I'm one who would like to see you post more personally written, detailed commentary. I much appreciate the mentions and links to stories on other sites that I might otherwise miss, and, yes, enjoy your choice of yummy jungen whatever their hair color or race. But we need more literate, liberal gay men writing at length on the Net. Not just for its easier accessibility, but because gay print media is, at least that primarily directed toward men, little more than a collection of "clones." Gather the latest issues of everything from the current iteration of your former imprint "Genre" to "Instinct" and "OUT," rip off the covers and, save for their different paper stocks, it's impossible to distinguish between them. Vague editorial viewpoints beyond sex, celeb interviews, hot boy spreads and spread hot boys, "fashion" features with clothes no one this side of Carson's bridge work or without more money than they know what to do with would purchase--excusable irrelevance, I suppose. (And, yet another one was announced this week, with, alert Mensa, Mario Cantone on the cover.) But, long since "Christopher Street" died, where is our "New Yorker," or even "People" which, disposable as it often is, mixes lots of photos with some articles of substance, albeit too short? Even the pretender to that throne, "The Advocate," which periodically seems to be trying to grow beyond one page-only "serious" articles and cover features on the latest C-grade celebrity who tolerates us, seems to get thinner each issue. Sorry, just unrealistic whining, I suppose--or something might have come along to successfully combine the best aspects of "Christopher Street" with spreads featuring $1200 shirts and Reichenesque soft porn. But the ever-expanding LGBT book business, good and bad, would seem to suggest that there's a market for something more than what's currently available.
Posted by: Lolly | Feb 16, 2005 11:52:48 PM
Lolly, I too, would like a literate and "hawt" gay magazine - but it doesn't exist, and it likely won't. That's why I visit blogs like this, which I think are closer to the old "Christopher Street" in terms of their mix of content then something like "Out," which I don't even look at anymore (not even at the dentist's office; if I want celebrity crap, I'll read "Vanity Fair").
As to the ever-expanding LGBT book business, surely you jest. More and more gay bookstores, like Different Light, are tossing out most of their book sections in favor of glossy calanders and quickie books about the lives of porn stars.
Posted by: cafegogo | Feb 17, 2005 1:10:40 AM
I want to know what America does James live in and why does he feel that taking a crack at the muslim world is okay. Political correctness might have went out with HIM in the 90's but people who are not white/christian/male/physically abled etc. still value the underlying motivation for it's use. EMPATHY. Oh and F*CK A&F. Oops I'm being un-American. I guess I should be shipped to Guantanamo.
Posted by: Mikey D | Feb 17, 2005 1:14:26 AM
Blonds are pretty. But most go off at 30 like the flick of a switch. Their only hope is to take up dye and turn into goths.
Posted by: bongo | Feb 17, 2005 6:17:42 AM
i just went to San Francisco for the past weekend and in the A&F store there they actually had a guy at the door taking pictures with drooling gay kids and giddy teenyboppers. it was the oddest thing ever. no, he wasn't blonde. but he WAS that typical, whitebread, Aberzombie stereotype. i'll admit at first it was really off-putting. but the gay guys i was with, 80% of them thought he was "so hot". i didn't find him attractive at all, however. but i think it's just the power of the media. for most gay guys, A&F models are "the look", and it's sad for anyone who is outside that look and i think perhaps most of the anti-A&F flak is perpetuated by those of us outside of it. when we went into the A&F store, all the posters were of this uber-aryanesque nature. i could've sworn this company just lost some lawsuit and was forced to diversify this stuff. but i refuse to shop there because of it. unfortunately, most gay guys don't care and would rather fit in or look good than stand behind something. such is life.
Posted by: Derrick | Feb 17, 2005 10:18:20 AM
AF has a target get it !
Go to the Phat Farm store Derrick you will be more comfotable.
Posted by: Mike | Feb 17, 2005 12:41:26 PM
I love it when fat ugly gay guys talk about how our culture is so image obsessed
and then they go out and hit on the prettiest guys at bars
Posted by: Mike | Feb 17, 2005 1:22:02 PM
It's not that "A&F has a target," it's the fact that A&F has a history of discriminating in hiring against Asians, Latinos, and African Americans. As such, it's advertising continues hyping its version of pretty, northern European people.
How does this affect others who are not part of this clique when their friends who are of northern European heritage can buy into A&F fantasy.
As for Phat Farm and the rest of the hip hop clothing trend, you are so wrong. The majority of buyers of hip hop music and clothing are young whites. Advertisements for Phat Farm and Sean John are multiracial.
In contrast, A&F has been historically almost all white. The lawsuits by Asian and Latino job applicants and workers (who were only allowed retail jobs in the store rooms) escalated and resulted in A&F settling the lawsuit and promising to change its hiring and advertising policies.
To deny that there has been a historic bias for portraying the ideal picture of beauty as "white bread" is more than wrong it's delusional.
Andy, I appreciate your posting this topic. I would also expect you to post more mixed-race, Asian, non-white/mestizo Latinos, and African-Americans hotties.
Posted by: Dan | Feb 17, 2005 2:15:04 PM
Dan, Dan, Dan, I was with you...until you all but ordered Andy to start posting a politically-correct rainbow parade of boys. This site does not, like A&F, have a discriminatory past. This site does not, in my opinion, need to redress wrongs. And finally, this is a personal blog, which means the writer is free to post whatever he likes, whether you like it or not. To make demands of the kind you're making is just as stomach-turning, to me, as Red Staters wanting to burn gay texts. It smacks of "my way or the highway" thinking.
Posted by: cafegogo | Feb 17, 2005 3:32:28 PM
Dan, Dan, Dan, I was against you from your first sentence. And to all of those A&F haters out there-- just don't go in the damn stores! And if your black or asian, just apply for a job somewhere else? It's not like there's a shortage of clothing stores out there. I'm sure if I walked into a Sean John store and filled out an application, they would toss it in the trash and say "Shit dawg... that mo'fuckr gots to be smoken some crack if he be thinkin he could work his skinny white ass in here."
Posted by: James | Feb 17, 2005 6:00:27 PM
this is rod from brotha2brotha, whom andy spoke of earlier. have to take issue w/ james because a blog is a merely a digital manifestation of the subconscious.
this isn't an elitist site, certainly not like datalounge, where i feel very unwelcome, and if i post anything even remotely supportive of blacks and latins, i will be guaranteed an attack.
people like what they like; i may be primarily attracted to black and latin men, and that's what my site features, but i also obsess over the same things as many gwm--cher, iPods, the right table at highline or cafeteria, etc. and my blog talks about those things. ironically, yesterday was the first day i ever posted or mentioned janet or beyonce, lol.
seriously, tho, i don't consider this blog elitist, and would never ask for a parity or affirmative action in the cyberworld. u can run what you want. i run lots of pictures of buff, black and brown men, should i establish parity? no. but i encourage dialogue from everyone.
btw, i've known andy for less than a week, he's treated me very cordially, more so than many gbm bloggers.
rod
brotha2brotha
Posted by: rod | Feb 17, 2005 7:37:44 PM