Calvin Klein, Tattoo
In an unusually controversial Calvin Klein campaign made to look like child pornography, youth are asked revealing questions by an unseen man from behind the camera.
The male interviewer says, "Do you live on the streets? Why don't you take that jacket off? Do you work out? You've got a natural body then, huh?" The commercial ends with the interviewer saying, "Well you look good, do you think you can act?"
While the other ads in the campaign included women, a number of boys were also asked by the man to remove clothing, perform and answer probing questions as well. Some of the young men are uncomfortable while others appear to be street-savvy.
Fashion advertising is usually about sex but Klein has many times created media storms over his ads. This campaign may have taken the title: President Clinton even derided the effort -- when he had his own better moral standing. Klein not only relented, he even issued a statement of apology.
Amazingly, the Justice Department was convinced to conduct an investigation to see if the models were "under age." This is ludicrous, since there is no age limit to being a model or actor -- the age investigation implied that the ads were actually pornographic.
Nonetheless, such advertising efforts are disingenuous, since their intent is to incite publicity, and are not unusual from fashion advertisers with small media budgets such as Klein, Diesel and Benetton.
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