Advertising

What Some Women Have Done

Sexist and degrading advertising is nothing new. We are constantly bombarded with it in all forms-billboards, newspapers, magazines, calendars, store windows and displays, record album covers, etc., ad nauseum. Sometimes the message is subtle, sometimes blatant, but always the message is the same: woman exists to be used/abused, defined/distorted by males. The motivating factor is, of course, the almighty buck.

Though the targets of our anger are many, a small group of us have recently been directing our anger against the "Black Velvet Whisky” billboards. To begin with, billboards, because of their enormous size and great quantity, are particularly offensive. You turn your head away from one only to have your vision polluted by another. They are everywhere and are not easy to ignore. The Foster & Kleiser billboards of "Black Velvet" show a woman in her most passive posture, lying down. She is wearing what is implied to be a black velvet dress that hints at exposure of her breasts and which is so form-fitting it appears to have been painted onto her body. In some she is wearing a black leather band around her wrist, in others she is wearing black spiked heels, the straps

of which are tied around her ankles. She is lying on a reflective surface, the effect of which is a double image of her exposed flesh, from her neck to where the dress comes together between her breasts. The expression on her face says all: “I exist for your pleasure-take me, I'm yours-sex and whisky go together." The slogan on these billboards is "Touchin' Velvet." Enough said?

The action we've taken against these billboards is to destroy or alter the degrading image. Where they are low enough, we use red spray paint to write: "This is degrading to women," "Stop raping our image," or "Stop your sexist advertising.” This approach not only defaces the ad, but also we hope will make other women think about the way woman's image is distorted/degraded/destroyed by this kind of advertising.

When the billboards are too high to write on, we throw xmas ornaments filled with red paint. As wimmin, red is a symbolic color with which we can easily identify, and the effect of a shattered ornament filled with red paint is one of bleeding. Our implied message is, “Stop making us bleed!”

Our main objective is to put an end to these advertisements. So far, five of these billboards have been changed to advertise other products. But in most cases they are just replaced with the same thing,

which at least is a cost which cuts into profits. The males may not care about our opinions or objec tions, but they do care about money so, as long as they keep putting these billboards up, we'll continue to alter and destroy them. As stated in the book Fight Back: Feminist Resistance to Male Violence, "Remember that men are profiting from our bodies as they use us to sell an incredible number of unrelated products. They rarely respond to anything but economic pressure; it is up to us to cut into their profits-only then will they change.'

This type of action is risky—if caught, it could mean jail and/or fines—but we're willing to take that risk. If you're not, or if you're against our method of protest (destruction of property) but agree with our motivation, you can write letters of protest to the following:

The distributor of Black Velvet: Heublein, Inc., 330 New Park Ave., Hartford, Conn. 06101, Attn: Marketing/Advertising, (203) 233-7531;

The advertising agency: Laurence, Charles & Free, 261 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017, Attn: Black Velvet Acct. Rep., (212) 661-0200;

The billboard owners: Foster & Kleiser, 12222 Plaza Drive, Parma, Ohio 44130, 676-4321; or

The Black Velvet manufacturer: Black Velvet Whisky, Gilbey of Canada, Inc., 400 Kipling, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, (416) 252-5331. (Note: Though Gilbey of Canada manufactures the product, they only supply the product to Heublein, Inc. We spoke with them and although they were apologetic, they said that contractually they have no control over advertising in the U.S.)

The Black Velvet advertisements in the Plain Dealer are very similar to the billboards, so why not include one, altered with magic marker slogans of your own, with your letters to the above.

SING

STOP

RAPE!

March, 1983/What She Wants/l«e [1

1