There are just so many problems with this, so it's impossible to know where to start. And where to stop, because AHHH! It looks like a SNL spoof, but these shoes with hidden two-inch lifts are legitimately produced and sold. And the ad — obviously aimed at preteen and teen girls — is so creepy-sexual and ridiculous. Why did they stop short of showing a tween girl giving a 70-year-old man a lap dance? Or was that cut for artistic integrity?
And as a piece on Babble points out:
It Panders In the Worst Way.
Between the white chick in the Daisy Dukes, the sneaker called "Gimme Mucho Dinero," and the African-American girl with the gold knuckle duster ring, I just can't even.
Ugh.
And what's with the hidden two-inch lifts inside these $80 neon pleather sneakers? What does that have to do with spending daddy'$ money?
Is the message "Here, 12-year-old, manipulate cash from a man so you can buy some ugly-ass shoes that make you look taller and skinnier and well, different, than you are."? Consume and become a product of consumption, child!
Or maybe it's just a dying brand desperately trying to reinvent themselves as cool, and the only way they know how is by creepily marketing shiny pleather high-tops with lifts to tweens? Perhaps I should just start filling hot dogs with jack cheese and then folding them in pizzas and selling those on street corners? Cheesy Blasters Consumerism!
[via Babble]