Dolce & Gabbana forced to pull 'sexist and violent' advertisement
Saturday, 24 February 2007
Print
Email
Dolce & Gabbana are wowing the fashion world on the catwalks of Milan, but feminists in Spain have condemned their latest advertising campaign as sexist and violent, throwing the flamboyant duo into a hissy fit and prompting withdrawal of the images.
The ads, which appeared in Spain on Monday, show a half-naked man holding a scantily clad woman to the ground by her wrists while four predatory hunks look on. Spain's Women's Institute, a government organisation linked to the Labour Ministry, described the scene as offensive to women's dignity and an incitement to sexual violence.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, hailed as the high priests of tart chic, announced they would drop their campaign in Spain and covered their retreat with acid-drenched sneers. "We will withdraw that photo from the Spanish market alone, since they are behind the times. What does an artistic photo have to do with the real world?" If Spanish views held sway, "you'd have to burn museums like the Louvre and all the paintings of Caravaggio", they added.
But Spanish women objected not to the supposed sensuality or eroticism but the image's glorification of sexual violence. "The advert suggests it is acceptable to use force as a way of imposing oneself on a woman, reinforced by the passive complicity of the men looking on," the Labour Ministry said.
This was a complaint consistent with efforts of a generation of Spanish women to resist being treated as sexually compliant airheads. The polemic coincides with increasing awareness in Spain of the seriousness of crimes of violence against females. Ten women have died at the hands of violent men in the past seven weeks.
The day that D&G's provocative photo hit Spain's headlines, Maria del Carmen Valdericeda, from the village of Orusco de Tajuna 30 miles south-west of Madrid, was run over several times by a vehicle allegedly driven by her former partner Alejandro Martin, leaving her mortally wounded. Her family had reported Mr Martin to the police "for insults and threats to run her over". He was arrested on Thursday.
No one argues that the photo and the murder are linked, but the Italian designers stepped into dangerous terrain when they launched their provocative images in Spain. The socialist government recently introduced a law protecting women against sexual violence. And a "publicity law" forbids "any advert ... that presents women in a harassing way, either using their body or parts of their body as mere objects unrelated to the product it is supposed to promote".
Last month, a D&G campaign featuring bloodstained models brandishing knives was banned in Britain after the Advertising Standards Authority received scores of complaints that the pictures glorified violence. The ads appeared in newspapers alongside stories about mounting British gun crime.
The Italian pair, displaying the fashionistas' lofty contempt for concerns in the real world, said at the time they wanted to create only the theatrical aesthetic of the Napoleonic period. They similarly seem to have failed to understand the message sent by Spanish critics. "Next year," the designers joked yesterday, "we'll mount a publicity campaign showing a naked woman on top of a man."
