1) The woman is being held down.
2) She is looking away from Mr Top, as if to try and ignore whatever may be going on.

Oh, and Denim Cutoff Shorts guy is just creepy.

And for the record, I think Purple Shirted Android Guy is totally the creepiest.

Why is it a rape scene?

Let me ask another question: when is a gangbang not rape? (porn doesn’t count here).

1% of the time? Less? More?

But your question is “what sorts of combinations of 1-6 would or would not be considered “over the line offensive”?”

And my answer is – what exactly is the point of answering that question? Are you really curious? Does it tell you anything about design?

Before you throw me out let me answer your opening question: “What about this ad is offensive?”

It’s a rape scene Mike.

What makes this scene so hard to process, though, is that it’s like a play being acted and the director is just blocking-out the scene, but hasn’t called “action” yet… so the actors are in position, but sans any emotion.

True – and I get that point. Sexually explicit advertising is certainly pushing limits as time goes by, and we give little by little over time.

So where is the line now? The line is that you don’t show gangbangs with strong sweaty men surrounding a woman who appears to be wishing she was somewhere else. And while I am an atheist to the bone, I pray on this point as a father to a daughter the gangbang line (aka rape scene) will never be crossed in advertising.

When the image was rendered shortly after visiting your blog I had a visceral reaction. I had to check that I was at your blog. Once that was verified I guessed I was about to read one of your delicious rants about this offensive ad.

So my knee jerk reaction was disappointment in not just the seeing the ad, but your passivity towards it I guess. And I admit on this point I’m dealing with my own issues ;)

On that note I will bite:

The iPod guy is actually one of the most offensive. His presence treats the scenario like it is a game, a casual pastime. And in that regard, if only him and Mr. Top were around – I would still find it offensive.

The only combination of men that I would find closest to not offensive is Mr. Top and Unbuttoned Shirt guy. Because in that scene I can kinda pretend/imagine that unbuttoned shirt guy is rethinking the gangbang and might stop it.

So again, it crosses the line because it says rape to me.

2. Perhaps this is just me playing the typical role of “gay guy in design,” but what would happen to this image if a scantily-clad man were put in place of Ms. Bottom? Would this still be targeted as a depiction of rape or simply a homoerotic fashion ad meant to grace the pages of The Advocate?

Better yet, reverse roles: replace all of the men with sexy women and Ms. Bottom with Denim Cutoffs Guy. What does it depict now?

I guess I’m a bit ambivalent because I’m really trying to study it from the directors’ standpoint… from a pure advertising perspective. D&G actually does its own ads without relying on an agency for concepts so that makes their process all the more interesting to me. If you read the Newsweek interview, it’s clear the *intention* here was not to glorify forced sex. No brand that enjoys so much loyalty among women would *willfully* do such a thing. So the question I’m just trying to explore is “where exactly did they go wrong”? Clearly the ad you see is one of probably about 300 shots they took on this shoot. Maybe more. If you have an “raciness scale” of 1 to 100, I’m sure there was at least one shot which fit each number in that range.

As they picked their final shot, they had to think to themselves “what number can we go to and is our favorite shot at or below that number?”

They probably picked somewhere in the 70 range, as many provocateurs do, but the shot they chose ended up being maybe an 80 to a large enough percentage of the world… and so they blew it. They surely tried different combinations and positions of guys, different facial expressions, and different other stuff. They just went over the line in the end.

To answer your larger question about hoping this sort of thing goes away though, I really don’t know the answer to that. Some might argue that this stuff goes in cycles where we get super-liberal for a few decades and then we get super conservative and the cycle repeats. Others would argue that with the access to media, technology, and virtual worlds that we have now, there’s really no turning back and we’ll just see more people desensitized to this sort of imagery at younger ages than we’d ever imagine. I remember first being interested in girls at around age 9. I don’t think I even knew what porn was until age 15… and even then, access was pretty limited. Now any 9 year old with a computer and some creativity can find his/her way to whatever piques their curiosity. Makes me think the “internet parental controls industry” is going to be even more lucrative than anyone ever thought.

But there are many elements that led me to the conclusion that it’s a rape scene.
If the woman was not being held down, for instance, if she was laying there untouched, it would change the whole dynamic of the scene. It would become either a bunch of serious people standing around or a bunch of creepy guys looking at the hot chick. Ogling in an advertisement is commonplace – and it is a cornerstone the fashion industry is built upon.

Alternately, if the other guys were looking away, it could look like two lovers in public. Or if the other guys were looking but the two in the middle were locked in a passionate embrace it could be dismissed as voyeurism.

Or, they could just Photoshop a Twister mat under the woman and change the entire tone of the ad.

I could dismiss a lot of the individually questionable elements on their own: the ogling is commonplace, the various states of undress is standard for fashion, the holding down of the woman could easily be the two fighting or a prelude to a passionate kiss. However, put together, I find the ad offensive and is probably the result of either a series of bad judgement or a repulsive concept.

creepy as hell.

1. Yep, that’s a good point and it’s what I was getting at when I mentioned not being able to dicipher the facial expression. Not sure what she could expect of Android guy though… maybe he could run a Google Map query in his head really quick and tell her where exactly they are.

2. Good point. I think it would still be looked at as pretty racy, but I’m not sure what group would be doing the complaining. Gay culture tends to be much more forgiving of imagery like this.

2a. Even better point. If I’m denim cutoff guy, I’m pretty damned happy with that situation… besides the fact that I still wear denim cutoffs and it’s 2007.