Quiz 2 - 'Patriarchy Gets Funky'

With the beginning of the 20^th century came extreme movements concerning race, gender and sexuality. This could largely be seen in advertisements of corporations such as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Nike, Benetton, the Gap and Diesel (Klein 112).

Klein mentions how the Gen-Xers compared to the boomers, who valued individualism, valued ‘diversity as a key fact of life’ (Klein 111). The Gen-Xers believe that if the typecast images and loaded languages changed in magazines, in books and on television that they would hopefully change in reality too. Corporations caught up on this and so started to portray racial, gender and sexual statements in their adds. My two specific examples that I will show and discuss are the Diesel and Dolce & Gabbana commercials I found online.

The above Diesel add portrays a 'guys camp' where they are all dancing (in a gay manner) in their Diesel jeans to German music. Next they have to learn the 'mouth to mouth' drill where a handsome looking guy steps forward thinking he might be giving a 'hot girl' mouth to mouth and instead has to do it with an old man. As he gives the old man mouth to mouth he is imagining the hot women...the commercial clearly shows him 'blowing' into the old mans mouth with his eyes closed. While this commercial portrays some potential homosexual 'attractions' it at the same time makes fun. All that matters is that Diesel here is doing something different and out of the ordinary and it clearly draws attention to their message.

This 2009 add by Dolce&Gabbana commercial portrays quite the opposite of the Diesel one - it is very revealing and sexual. It shows the girl making out with one man as another one joins them. While it makes the women seem in control and the dominant one it at the same time makes the women seem like an object that anyone can easily 'kiss'.

Either way in both the Diesel as well as the Dolce&Gabbana one they are both portraying something rather shocking while at the same time they can be looked at in a negative light. Certainly they bring attention to these two brands and are telling the public 'to be free' and 'diverse'.