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Grand Inquisitor
United Killers of Benetton
Armando Valle
This is the first one--the first entry of the Grand Inquisitor.
Don't be pissed at any grandiose connotation of this column's title: I'm no better than
anyone else. What I hope this column carries thru is the urgency of asking questions,
thinking for yourself, and finding your own truths in this vast, mystifying universe.
Thus, each of us carry within our own Grand Inquisitor.
Straight to the bulls**t at hand. Just a few days
ago I watched a report on CNN on a certain clothing company who recently began an ad
campaign so reprehensible they actually crossed several lines and ran deep by the length
of several football fields: United Colors of Benetton launched an ad campaign, "We,
On Death Row", on major magazines and billboards around the country. Benetton's no
stranger to taking major risks in the advertising world, having in the past fueled ad
campaigns themed around racism, war in the Balkans, and the AIDS epidemic--one ad placed
us right there on the sickroom of a dying AIDS patient surrounded by friends and family
before the moment of death. The president of Benetton, Carlo Tunioli, explains that the
company seeks to start dialogue. That's all fine and monkeypoo, but I think there's
something deeply perverse about presenting us with a picture of dead man on the street,
blood running down the pavement, body craddled by a grief-stricken mother, and then a
strategically placed United Colors Of Benetton sticker.
How far will a company go to sell a product? How much is too
much? Are we suppose to buy f*****g Benetton sweaters because they present us with some
graphic existential picture? Can you imagine: "Yes, Jane, I bought this excellent
Benetton wooly shirt after seeing that ad in Interview magazine with the gun-toting
terrorist and the gunned-down child!" Bad enough is to pass real-life tragedies as
marketing points but even worse is to manipulate said real-life tragedies to tell
advertising-life fictions. The ads for Benetton's "We, On Death Row" present the
plain faces of men waiting for the Big day on death row. Faces shown in an out-of-context
manner, almost noble, and seemingly innocent.
Nowhere in the ads is there any mention of the crimes for which
these men are sitting on death row. Nowhere are the names of the victims or the way in
which their lives were taken. Look at this picture:
This is Jeremy Sheets.
Young, isn't he? Cute, isn't he? Innocent, doesn't he look? What this picture doesn't tell
you is how this man raped, beat and slashed the throat of a black, young woman named
Kenyatta Bush. What Benetton might be trying to say with this approach would run somewhere
in the lines of: "This human life will be wasted, crushed by the State in a
omnipotent display of Power and Inhumanity." Nowhere has Benetton put in fine print:
"By the way, he's a convicted rapist-murderer who would most likely do it again if
set free." To say the least, the ad campaign seems to have been conceived by people
to which the word Ethics means just a strange kind of hair shampoo. To not mention the
crimes and the victims of the likes of Jeremy Sheets is a slap in the face to the victims'
families and one downright f*****g insult.
I could go on as to how f****d-up I think this campaign is. For
example, they have John Lotter's mug, Teena Brandon's killer, as well as a majestically
well-placed quote from him on the pages of Talk magazine. (Teena Brandon was the young man
from Nebraska who was raped and murdered by his friends after they found out
"he" was really a woman living life as a man. He was the subject of the recent
film Boys Don't Cry.) Even as a modern society, we seem to not have learned the
lesson that the media has the irrevocable power of painting criminals as saints, rock
stars or demi-gods. The pages of Talk magazine serve as the perfect stage for moder
revisionism: Because it's printed in big glossy font it must be true.
Let me tell you, Benetton might make fine T-shirts but I won't
be wearing any of their products for some time to come. If this company knows what's good
for them they will show Carlo to the double-glass-paned door immediately. Just found out
minutes ago that Sears backed out of an exclusive deal with Benetton to sell their clothes
in their stores. The issues of the death penalty, crime, and punishment, are messy,
intense and provocative. If Benetton wanted to make us think about them the least they
could have done was to be responsible in the handling of the subject matter and shown the
victims the respect they f*****g deserve.
Armando
Valle
(Feb/17/00)
copyright 2000
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