Friday, November 04, 2005

T-Shirts For Tits



Abercrombie&Fitch used to be this weird store with stuffed rhinoceroses and toys for very rich middle-aged men, all served on antique mahogany counters. Now they sell to the teenagers. What they have recently tried to sell is t-shirts which make fun of Asians, but that didn't work out so brilliantly, so they decided instead to focus on making fun of women, mostly. This should do well as women are the ones buying most stuff.

An example of these t-shirts, which I have stolen from Amanda's post on Pandagon (where you can go to see the whole spread of available jokes) is this:





A deep statement. It could be taken at face value (in which case the breasts should be a lot bigger and preferably false) or it could be seen as a satirical joke on the society and its way of assessing women. Then there is the totally different question: How will it be taken by others who see the t-shirt around a real live wearer? That's the really important question, and I bet that most of those others will take it at face value. Or tit value.

Some of the other offerings in this line are worse, a lot worse, and some are better. But all of them are peddled by a firm for money. Abercrombie&Fitch doesn't care about women's rights as long as those include some pocket money for teenage girls.
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A Post-Script: A&F have pulled the shirts off the market because of the protests linked to above.