In an Australian advertisement for Lee Jeans, renegade badboy American photographer Terry Richardson was paid $200, 000 to capture this dirty, pseudo-pornographic, "got milk" image. Although the public has been assured that no actual sex occurred on the shoot (unlike some of Richardson's other projects), and beyond the mere infractions on animal rights (which surely has a collection of PETA advocates up in arms), one has to wonder the appeal of merging commercialism, mass commodification, apparel (aimed at a 15-30 age range) and overt and unapologetic "beastiality". In the highly competitive denim market, Richardson has become a hot commodity, charging big names (such as Gucci and Levis) big bucks to "smut up" the denim market with ever-escalating visual depictions of unapologetic, raw and animalistic (taken to the next level with an actual cow in Australia), sexuality. Harkening to culture scholar Laura Kipnis and her work on Desire and Disgust within Hustler Magazine, one is forced to ponder the use of the abject, in the selling and mass commodification of an object (jeans). It is my belief that Lee Jeans is presenting a counter hegemonic stance in its corruption of classical and bound bourgeoisie sexuality (which I shall assume traditionally does not involve cattle) and is fusing this transgression of the social orderings of sexuality with their bottom line. Unlike, what one may refer to as the "elitist" brands of denim (such as Seven's or True Religion) which cater to a market above $100 range, Lee presents a host of products aimed at a far less affluent crowd. In its sale of trendy yet affordable, it has reveled in its "crusade for explicitness" (Kipnis, 222) showcasing pubic hair, body fluid, tattoos and (a distinct absence of denim wear) images which glorify the social settings of lower-class living. This is a sexuality that is far from normative, and appears largely unromanticized (minus the airbrushing). Mimicking and showcasing the styles and trends of higher-priced brands within a setting of explicit sexualized class antagonism and transgression, Lee is commercially "giving the finger" to an elitist commercial market (a gesture which models in Lee campaigns have explicitly done). Commercialism has thus found an outlet in the "transcoding between bodily and social topography" and elevated sexually explicit intersectionality to the level of mass commodification. To me, Lee is to True Religion what Hustler is to Play Boy, and is constructed in direct opposition not only to the classical body, but also the classical brand. Yet it must be admitted that as middle class white men read Hustler, so to does Lee draw its commercial basis from a wide societal spectrum. As well, brands such as Gucci (The top image) which boast style alongside their astronomical price points have also deployed a cornucopia of libidinal ocular interplay. One may thus view Jeans as a premier outlet for the new carnivalesque. A traditional uniform staple of the working class which may now be found in the closets/ hovels of millionaires and paupers alike, jeans are a medium of apparel which offers both rebellion from and momentary entrance into the realm of fantasy and class transgressing festivity. Marketed as such, they are clothing which is emblematic of the "raw". If in the modern era, as delineated by Peter Stallybrass and Allon White in their article "Bourgeois Hysteria and the Carnivalesque", the carnival has been sublimated, perhaps Jeans have become an odd materialization of that sublimation. Serving as spectacle, indulgence and anxiety for numerous societal strata, Jeans, have become the clothing conduit for carnivalesque. It is in their advertising that the carnivalesque and abject element of denim wear has been thrust into public consciousness. Bought under the pretense of partaking in the ad's encapsulation of lust, lechery and social indecency, denim becomes a manifest article of the carnival which is worn throughout the day and accompanies the wearer throughout their travels within the circumscribed realms of social hegemony. -----Perhaps a Stretch? Well the basic underlying tenents remain... denim is marketed and sold to an ever-increasing degree within an ever-sexualizing world of marketing with the utmost in sexual extremes. It holds the remarkable capability to be ubiquitous to the point of cliche whilst retaining its rebellion.
