So reads a new Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt that makes SF Chron columnist Joan Ryan really angry.
I'll confess that the shirt slogans made me laugh when I read them, but when I think of 15 year olds wearing them I feel guilty for laughing.
Ryan's beef: with many teens killing themselves by binge drinking, teen meccas like A&F commit particularly heinous offensives when they glorify drinking. Do legal drinkers shop at A&F? Sure. But more often it's the teen - or even tween - set forking over mom and dad's hard earned dough for cheap, hole-ridden shirts and shredded jeans.
Does A&F owe any kind of fiduciary duty to teens as creators and purveyors of pop-culture?
Do parents owe any kind of duty to their children and the community generally to, um, parent? Who's footing the bill for these fashionistas? A&F can be pricey for me - imagine what a bite it takes out of the average teen's afterschool job.
Is it foolish to blame the free-market-lovin' Fitch?
4 comments:
Dont' forget the (in)famous "Two Wongs Make it White" Chinese laundry shirt and the (GRRRRRRRRRR) "West Virginia: It's all relative" crap.
NOT an A&F fan, to say the least.
Right, I remember the Two-Wongs shirts and the fallout there. You'd think they'd learn their lesson.
And of course - I hate all WV haters.
Go Mountaineers!
No specific tee-shirt, no matter how bone-headed, bothers me as much as the general principles behind A&F. Not just "please let me pay you thirty bucks for one of your tee-shirts," or "make your logo as big as possible, I want to pay you to advertise your product," but the way it teaches teenage girls that "homoerotic is good, openly gay is bad." Or as my 13-year-old cousin put it, "eww."
And let's not forget simply playing bad techno at 50 decibles in the store. That alone is damnation-worthy.
All that said, in the final analysis, you have to simply let people make up their own minds. What are you going to do--Ban tee-shirts? That's so much worse it's not even funny.
If you have style and class, you don't shop at A&F. That settles the issue really.
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