Protesters Rally Against American Apparel

Women want to feel sexy around men and other women—nothing new, it's been going on for millennia.

Ever see those vodka ads on the backs of buses that is just a bottle of booze and a bikini lady with no head? What does that even mean?

Oh Georgi Vodka.

Here is the real kicker that's the CEO's daughter....

"Here is the real kicker that's the CEO's daughter...."

Really?? Yikes!

I still like the old school Georgi ads from 1970s/1980s w/ the photo of the bearded guy winking that I used to see on the subway.

AA is selling clothing to women, but their ads appeal mostly to men? That's pretty bogus marketing strategy.

just don't get rid of the velvet add. i've clicked on it sooo many times it's sad

while we're on the subject, REVCOM (Taylor's party) are a bunch of wannabe--communist-cadres who want to pull an Animal Farm on everybody

i wouldn't mind seeing Sunsara Taylor in one of those AA advertisements. she may be a dirty commie, but she has her good days now and then

Message to those reading these comments who have an inkling of concern about humanity, including what it means to be a woman in this world (and from the content of previous posts, this is definitely a small minority of readers), then find out what Bob Avakian is actually about by checking him out for yourself at www.revolutiontalk.net

Also, as a corrective to pathetic disinformation, you could also read Avakian's well-reviewed memoir "From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey From Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist"

Joan,

Now let's be clear, I'm glad you guys did the buses to Jena for the Jena 6 rallies (well, bus the first time - van the second) and I'm glad that I went with you guys to the second rally (I really liked counterdemonstrating against the Klan in the middle of the deep south - it felt meaningful)

And, for the record, "From Ike to Mao" is actually a pretty good book. It leaves out a whole lot of the story and is very much an "official history", but for what it is it's good. And, unlike most of Avakian's stuff, which is long winded and boring, it's actually a good read (on the real, you guys really need to understand that Avakian is the kind of writer who needs a strong editor or his stuff will be unreadably boring).

But, you guys are truly the oddest group on the left (and I've worked with lots of others - CPUSA, CISPES, PLP, LRP, Critical Resistance - I've even done stuff with NAN) and, of all the folks I've worked with over the last 30 years, your internal culture really creeped me out the most.

As a writer, it's part of my job to have experiences and I'm glad Lucero talked me into helping you guys out so I got to have the RCP/"Revolution Clubs"/WCW experience - thank her for that next time you see her

I don't know when that will be, cause she left your group too! Good for her - I always thought she was way too smart and way too nice to be with your group!

In a decade when many many many folks left you guys, she was yet another defector, and a very valuable one - quite a loss, considering how many folks left with Mike Ely and his Kasama Project

Well, at least you still have Will and Jimi selling "Revolution Newspaper" on 125th St!

And, of course, the underwear store protests....

Good luck with that!

Joan Hirsh, you've met me face to face on numerous occasions and you know who I am.

We even went to Jena, Louisiana together in that white van during the second Jena 6 protests (I read the map for you while you drove, cause I don't have a license).

Yes, I'm that Gregory A. Butler.

So you know every word I wrote is true.

Cult!

In Indonesia, protesters literally sew their mouths shut (#) This "rally" is not protesting, this is a transient, mild inconvenience, regardless of whether or not I agree with them.

yea, you are so right that you changed my mind!

What they're doing IS only

"transient" and a "mild inconvenience". What they should do is "get serious" and start blogging about bands and music!

Wow, really? Thanks! Have a great day, Spook!

I'm thinking my night will be better than my day, but thanks!

It would be interesting to know if some progressive (aka real men) took part in the protest?

At least one of the protesters was a man - he was dressed in an Afghan-style burka.

You know what? I think people who don't want to see this stuff up on giant billboards have a great point. I read a piece once, written back in the 50s, that pointed out that, unlike magazine or TV ads, which are the price you pay for the articles or shows, billboards are just shoved into your environment and your eyeballs w/o your permission. Having it be softcore is even worse. I approve of porn, but not giant, involuntary porn!

You know what? I think people who don't want to see this stuff up on giant billboards have a great point. I read a piece once, written back in the 50s, that pointed out that, unlike magazine or TV ads, which are the price you pay for the articles or shows, billboards are just shoved into your environment and your eyeballs w/o your permission. Having it be softcore is even worse. I approve of porn, but not giant, involuntary porn!

whoa when I was little, I remember we had a cat that used to do that with this wretched mwrroaaaiioo mwrroaaiioo noise and she'd pee all over the place. But it's okay, afterward she got a job writing a column for the NY Post.

American society needs more explicit wang shown in mainstream films, magazines and scantily clad men in these bullshit American Apparel ads, as well as those insufferable PETA ads. Then we can ALL get over blaming "ugly, fat" feminists for ruining your good time. peace.

I agree. There is a severe shortage of wang.

She looks like she's ready to take a pounding from behind! Love it!

leave american apparel alone, i love the ads.

We need more progressive protestors like this especially when New York elected officials and their aids beat and cut women as a pass time. I have watched American Apparel ads get continually worse because every body stays silent, except in New York.

More Fun Facts. That chick in the picture is Faye Reagan. She is just about the HOTTEST porn girl working right now. Her "puffies" are insanely beautiful....and she is just so damn bendy!!

Eww, it's like a frat house in here.

As a lady, I personally hate American Apparel. It's run by a pathetic pervert (Hi Dov!) who exploits young girls who think their main asset is... you know, their butts. Which is fine, I guess, if you think a world full of mindless women and drooling, macho men is something to aim for.

But seriously? They sell sweatpants and tacky lingerie you could find at Crazy Fantasy World on 6th. And plaster my city with softcore photos of "future models" with low self esteem. It's a scourge! A scouuuurge!

To see self-described communists protesting raunchy ads, makes me wonder what other moral crusades they have in mind. In the Soviet union, homosexuality was also seen as bourgeois and unnatural.

the best butt contest had a category for men too! i'm a woman, and i like their argument's basic concepts, but american apparel? come on. that store's all about vanity, not exploitation.

These "insert penis here" ads are ridiculous.

Thank goodness, in a world where billionaires control governments, millions of humans are enslaved and oppressed and the climate is collapsing, that some people know what the *real* problem is: boobies!

they're all porn *stars* with vajazzles up the wazoo

These hoes need some dick ! And fast !!!!!!

Wasn't Sunsara Taylor a member of Bob Avakian's "World Can't Wait" protests? She's a brainwashed loser.

Sunsara Taylor is actually one of Bob Avakian's spokespeople. He's in "exile" you see (because he got acquitted on a misdemeanor trespassing charge in Washington DC in 1982 - after he beat that case, he fled to France, and then he returned to the US in 2002 (although he's still "in exile" - at least that's what he tells people).

Avakian, the son of a federal judge from Berkeley, CA [where else?] and a former school crossing guard high school basketball star, is also the chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA and has been since 1978 - Taylor, naturally, is a leader of that group too, and a writer for their newspaper "Revolution"

Two years ago, when Avakian published his latest book, a poorly researched pro atheist polemic "AWAY WITH ALL GODS unchaining the mind and radically changing the world" it was Taylor, not Avakian, who did the book tour, what with it being hard to do a book tour from "exile" (even if you're "in exile" in your own country like Avakian is).

Also, Taylor is young and pretty, while Avakian is an elderly man.

And, Taylor's bright, witty, a good public speaker and is very good at engaging with the crowd at a public event.

Avakian, on the other hand, is long winded and does not handle questions from the public very well at all (unless those questions only come from RCP members, and have been put in writing and carefully pre screened by his RCP handlers).

Despite their claims to represent the working class (or "proletariat" - as they so quaintly put it) to my knowledge neither Avakian nor Taylor have ever had an actual job other than working for the RCP.

I meant school crossing guard and high school basketball star

Woah, all this is true, and I've had to work alongside the RCP. Either you have, too, or that was some damn fine research.

I've been a far left activist in New York City since i was in middle school back in 1980 - and yes, I've done political stuff with the Avakianites (most recently, around the Jena 6 case)

And the RCP is very much a special case.

They have this odd mix of 1960's leftovers and confused kids (they tend to attract kids with fucked up family lives who are looking for a second home) - fortunately, a lot of the kids around the group tend to "grow out of them" and go back to leading normal lives after a certain point (basically, after they get burnt out of selling "Revolution Newspaper" on the street!).

The RCP is at once very adept at organizing publicity stunts - and lying to prominent academics and liberals to get their support as a cover - side by side with a very slapdash put-things-together-at-the-last-minute way of operating.

Also, the Mao Zedong-like worship of the God-king Avakian is really creepy, especially when you hear it from otherwise intelligent and good hearted folks!

And the cultish internal culture - they have some of the volunteers who staff their bookstore and various front groups living in "rev houses" - communal style apartments scattered around the city.

That's very creepy and always made me uncomfortable - and, again, they are the only group on the New York left that does that kind of crazy 1960's throwback shit (everybody else knows why folks stopped doing that in the 1960's - having your people living in communes tends to attract police raids even if you are not doing anything wrong!)

They also have the contradiction of being a "militant atheist" group that has most of their public meetings in churches - St Mary's Episcopal on 126th St is a favorite of theirs - I never understood that at all!

Finally, they really need to stop with the Avakian in exile bullshit - he's been back in the US since 2002!

The most revolutionary thing I ever saw the RCP do was graffitti their initials all over the Union Square Park wall in the 80s.

That's not being revolutionary; it's being revolting.

The ads are depraved, and should be banned. AA clothing is also pretty ugly and should be banned on aesthetic grounds as well. The owner should be arrested and taken to a labor camp.

When someone describes themselves as a "controversial young communist" you know that Harvard Business School is the next stop.

These people are contradicting themselves at every turn.

Communist, huh? So she's in favor of a woman's right to control her own body, but the government's right to control the woman? Bizarre.

If she truly believed in the 'collectivization of the means of reproduction' as described in Sir Karl Marx-a-Lot's epic manifesto, "Dov This!", we would all be standing in line for our "click through" in her commie cooch.

Before reading them, I knew the 31 comments would all be in support of the American Apparel ads. Personally, they don't bother me in the least but I think they are all laughable. And it certainly is not an advertisement I would want to see my daughter in one day.

LOL..guess i need to put parental control on the gothamist now..lol

(a self-described “controversial young communist")

This story is like going back to the 1970's

No other ladies here tonight? I think that picture is pornographic, but that's just me, a woman, talking.

There is really something wrong with overly sexualized pictures of women and girls being displayed everywhere. I do not want my young daughters to think they have to be splayed out like that to be worthy of male attention.

It is just gross, and you men posting here disgust me. May you never get laid!!!!

Just like felix abusing the words 'animal cruelty', if you call that picture 'pornographic', you're removing the power that word has when describing pictures that show wide open vaginas with penises approaching them. The picture above is not pornographic at all, even though it has a porn star in it (Faye Valentine or Faye Reagan). A bit over the top? Yes. Pornographic? Certainly not.

"pictures that show wide open vaginas with penises approaching them"

That's the new McDonald's billboard right?

No, it's (pink) Taco Bell.

I think so! From the dictionary--

pornographic-- 1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement.

I rest my case.

Too bad your case would never go anywhere because of one word in the definition you gave - "intended". You can't prove that picture is "intended" to cause sexual excitement.

animal cruelty is not subjective unlike photos. it is just that you are so infantile and mean.

Sorry felix, your comment makes no sense because you're trying to use the English language when you have no grasp of it. Try again.

never? :(

Uuuuuggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

You realize that American Apparel advertisements over sexualize both men and women, right? I don't look at an ad showing a guy with a six pack and a sock down the front of his underwear and feel like thats what I need to impress women; this is because I have a brain and understand how advertising works. If your daughters don't have the perspective to understand the difference between advertisements and real life, I propose that is a failure in educating your children, not the fault of sexual advertisements.

American Apparel ads border on kiddie porn... I support any and all boycotts of their shitty marketing and merchandise. Just because their garbage is made by illegal aliens in a non-sweatshop environment in Los Angeles doesn't mean their advertising tactics are any less scummy...

ACTUALLY THAT IS A LIE, THEY HAVE FACTORIES IN MEXICO, ETC. THEY'RE FUCKING LIARS.

And how are men portrayed on your planet?

let me guess she's probably a vegan too

Were they hot?

Ahh, the silly hypocracy of feminists. Fought so long for women to be able to make their own decisions and choices, yet do this stupid shit.

This protest is the opposite of feminism.

"Taylor (a self-described 'controversial young communist)...'"

This gives me a cringe-pocalypse, cringe-maggedon, and a cringe-tastrophe all at once.

Fun fact, the american apparel model in the picture above is a pornstar named faye valentine, should you like to investigate what she looks like when she's not wearing evil anti-feminist chauvinistic clothes.

that fact makes this pic a little less appealing...

Au contraire! I'm off on a video search right now.

Uuughhh, whiney fatties.

Click on the link to the newspaper above and check out the organizer.

She's not a revolutionary. She's just revolting.

That's actually Alice Woodward in the pic - not Sunsara Taylor.

I would lick all o' dat

generally, whenever i meet people like this, they are often fat, go to grad school throughout their 20's and 30's, have all of their bills paid by their parents, and in some cases have ivy league educations to guide them along their career as a waitress at some sort of vegan restaurant...

american apparel is way over priced.

ima pee on that.

generally

Isn't the use of the word "generally" an acknowledgment by the person using it that they're generalizing? In general, I mean.

These chicks need to get laid more often.

That's original.

my sentiments exactly. dried and puckered i'll bet.

That's just how I like them.

I'm glad to see Velvet Aoki gone. She was beginning to bore me.

"american apparel: we're so good, our latest fashion trend is 'the nude.' for $19.99"

g'damn. anyone else imagining what the other side looks like?

These people aren't feminists. They're just annoying brats.

PS...The burka is actually rooted in Islamic and Arab feminism, despite what conservative morons assert.

I think you mean the hijab, which can be rooted in feminism if the woman chooses to wear it voluntarily. However, the burqa is almost always a symbol of masculine religious oppression.

Aren't both items a reflection of Arabic society before Mohamed was born and therefore non-Islamic in origin?

The hijab is - because it's of Arab origin.

Burqas came out of the culture of the Persian-speaking Pashtos of Afghanistan and Pakistan, who are not Arab at all.

But, basically, you have the right idea.

Women for the Ethical Treatment of FUPAs.

winnar

Oh baby, stroke me please.

These people make me laugh.