Response 4, Artifact Analysis part II

[conus322]

*** I realized while I was writing this that there were too many things to write about my artifact so after class today, I narrowed it to the two shirts: the boy's "Paris Is So Hot!" one and the "Rick Shaw" one

Comments

[brooke83]

Good close analysis of your artifacts. I would like to see a more in depth analysis of the "Culture" blurb that AF puts out promoting its AF and Abercrombie kids clothing lines. AF claims to only target 10-14 and 18-22 year olds - where do the 15-17 year olds fit in? I think you do a good job of noting that a majority of AF buyers are high school students, aged 14-17. If possible, it would be good to get ahold of a demographic study that shows this to be the case. Do you think that AF is able to sell t-shirts with less-than modest messages on them because they claim to market to older people (young adults)? Is it "cool" to slander Asians and promote sexuality? Is this what the AF brand is all about? One more thing: what is "additional lifestyle reinforcement"? I have no idea what AF is trying to achieve through that phrase.

[grammargal]

Like Brooke, I think that your analysis so far is on track. My recommendation would be to integrate more theoretical positioning into your actual analysis. For instance, you identify the 'rick shaw' tee-shirt as racist, but why is it racist? Because it promotes a stereotype? If this stereotype is perpetuated by the dominant group in society, then relating this to Hodge and Kress would be a good directions to go.

[il_penseroso]

I know we talked briefly about the possible sexual significance of the "Rick Shaw" shirt, but I think it is so intriguing I had to post on it. The idea of the hoagie as a phallic symbol (and an American one at that) really plays into the traditional relationship between the West and East Asia. Europe and America were seen as the dominant males, while Asia was the submissive female recipient of their 'civilizing influence'. If you could go into these historical influences using some Cultural Studies theory and even reference "Madame Butterfly", which dramatizes this cultural relationship on a more personal level, I think that would make for a really interesting analysis.

[mattralston]

Abercrombie is definitely marketed towards an elitist golfing, wine drinking, armchair racist fraternity brother audience. They got in trouble about a year ago for a tee-shirt that made fun of asians in that it had an asian person on it and it said something about running a laundromat, but i can't remember the specifics. Anyway, they quickly got rid of it when some people questioned their stereotyping. "I help the pour" probably summarizes the current fellowship of seventy dollar khaki wearing drones - in that the magazine has become increasingly elitist, and marked towards a white audience, and in fact, has become increasingly associated with the fraternity community in itself - who are usually homoerotic trustfunded blockheads who get their information directly from mainstream sources and talk in cliches to the point where a conversation simply consists of a cut and paste session. Anyway, if you can find some kind of demographic information about who actually buys abercrombie, that should feed you with all the material you need