Here are the 3 reasons why American Apparel is still deserving of consumer (that’s you!) boycott:
1. Pedophilic Culture | I can’t be the only one who sees AA’s ads and thinks they look like photographs from an underage sex-slave ring. The brand purposely seeks out young-looking girls for pornographic-looking advertisement, with many of their ads being banned in the UK and USA. Several of the models in their racy advertisement have also been reported to being minors under the age of 18. Unethical and illegal.
2. Female Degradation | in addition to hyper-sexualizing young girls, American Apparel repeatedly objectifies and commercializes all women externally, and degrades them internally: many accounts of racism (one black employee has sued AA due to her manager repeatedly calling her racist terms) and sexual misconduct from employers and photographers (surprise, surprise, right?) have come out of American Apparel’s offices. The women (or should I say girls) in the advertisements are in DIY-porn-like positions photographed at an obviously male-centered perspective.
(In case you didn't know, the founder of American Apparel was accused of forcing an employee to perform sexual acts, kept another as a sex slave, and is accused of several accounts of sexual harassment. Think his ads of half-naked women in provocative poses were meant to be “sexually liberating” for women? Yaaaaah no. Nice try.)This female degradation is clearly marked all over their site and how they chose to express their products—comparing male and female models modeling unisex pieces is a great example
(slightly NSFW):
For a company that is supposedly trying to sell clothing, there is not much of it in their advertisements.
Sometimes, simply being “sweatshop free” to whitewash the offensive and disgusting culture you've perpetuated is not going to cut it, American Apparel~
Elliot