At no point in my life have I, or any of my friends, ever considered myself to be prudish. I'll laugh at the dirtiest of jokes. Hell, I'll even tell a few myself. And when most people cringe at an advertisement or commercial for being too risque, I typically shrug it off.
Except for the latest Marc Jacobs ad, which features a tousled-hair, tousled-dress Dakota Fanning sitting coquettishly on a pink floor with a phallic-shaped perfume bottle called "Oh, Lola!" smack dab between her legs.
Yeah, that one kinda sticks with you. For all the wrong reasons.
I first saw the ad a few weeks ago while I was mindlessly flipping through a magazine on my way into work. I paused and raised my brows when I came across it. "Is this really an ad?" I thought. "Seems a little racy. Particularly since it's Dakota Fanning." Then I wondered if I had turned into a prude.
Turns out I haven't. The ad is a little racy. Actually, it's a lot racy, so it's been pulled. The U.K.’s Ad Standards Authority made the decision after determining that “the length of her dress, her leg and position of the perfume bottle drew attention to her sexuality. Because of that, along with her appearance, we considered the ad could be seen to sexualize a child.” Dakota is only 17.
If the photo was styled exactly the same way -- same placement of bottle and all -- but had a different (read: older) model, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Ads, particularly fashion ads, are always vaguely sexual looking. But the fact that it's a young girl -- and she's made up and positioned to look really young -- well, that makes it more icky than provocative. And that's never in style.
Do you think the ad is too racy?
Image via Splash
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Comments 46
She sold out just like every other "sweet" teen girl that grows up in Hollywood.
For all these people saying its whatevs, would you let your daughter do this? What about if she wasnt necessarliy in a magazine, but rather sending a photo like this to a guy? How about to a guy she hasnt even met before?
Didn't think so.
How can we say a pedophile is wrong for sexualizing a child in private, but society sexualizing a child in public is okay?
They have her in what is clearly a little girl style dress, her makeup and hair and lighting is used to make her appear even younger, the whole flower over the vagina thing smacks of "virginity", and the name of the perfume "Lola" is a play on Lolita, the famous book about a young girl who is with a PEDOPHILE! There is a whole Lolita movement in Japan, where girls dress as little girlish as possible, and there is Lolita porn, one step above kiddie porn, as it this tasteless ad!
I don't get whats wrong with it...I mean she's 17, Miley Cyrus was doing WAY racier stuff when she was 17 and no one really cared so...
I don't think it is bad. She could have probably done a better pose but I'm sure she was taking direction. She is not famous to be a role model that is something society puts on these young stars. She is growing up and people just need to deal with that fact. At least she had appropriate clothes on unlike Myley Cyrus a few years ago, now that was just wrong.
I think whoever thinks that is racy is seriously a prude. How is that phallic? I must tell my husband his penis is misshaped. She is just sitting there with a perfume bottle in her lap. Woohoo. Get over it. She looks pretty.
Seriously? I just think it's a badly-composed photograph, exploiting a sophomoric ideal of sexually suggestive. Stupid. A waste of Dakota Fanning, IMO. Marc Jacobs is a dbag.
How can that bottle be called phallic-shaped? Have any of these people seen a phallus?
@cocobeanns: Our minds are "in the gutter" because the advertiser has composed an image designed to direct our minds to exactly that place. This is an ad to sell perfume; they could have just have her stand there- smiling- in a nice dress with the bottle prominently positioned in her hands. BUT THEY DIDN"T. Instead we are given under-age bare thighs, a perfume bottle positioned at the genitals and a "come hither" look with the words "Oh Lola!" Can you really not see that all the stylistic elements of this composition were carefully thought out and chosen for a reason? You should get your mind into some thinking.