jewlicious.com...

It’s called Hamas and Sperm.

- I’m not sure what you mean?
I didn’t ask for money . . . fonts are as free as music these days, I just wanted to know the type face, so that I too, can make some fake ads like everyone else and poke fun, becuz I doubt Mr. Charney has the time or concern to bother with this web site, or any other site that isn’t affiliated with AmericanApparel.Com!

You’re not Dov, you’re some guy probably pretending to be Dov.

But thanks! I tried the Helvetica and it doesn’t seem to be working, oh well!

a) Separate out questions of the retail side from the manufacturing side. If they aren’t separable, say why.

b) Separate out questions about Dov Charney from questions about the company. if they aren’t separable, say why.

c) Come to an agreement about whether or not it is legitimate to question a company for its practices even if it does better than other companies (especially on the manufacturing end of things).

d) Separate questions of personal taste from what we can reasonably call offensive: this is especially vis a vis the ads. Say the ads are just a big depiction of Charney’s sex life. So what?

e) Stop making half baked accusations and assumptions about eachother motives and affiliations. As has been well known to philosophers for quite a while, the person and the argument are two separate entities, and attacking the former does little to address the validity of the latter.

f) Try to recognize that anecdotal evidence is worth dick all if you want to have a real discussion. CK has a friend who likes the ad, VIC has a friend who doesn’t. Give me half an hour and Muffti will find you as many different Islamic opinions as you likes on campus. It’s not hard.

g) Try to agree for once on whether or not allegations of misconduct are evidence before the trial is finished.

Muffti isn’t saying this because he dislikes either of you; he likes you both very much and enjoys what you guys have to say. But when a conversation has few shared data points and no ground rules for procedure, which seems to be the case here, things go all haywire. Muffti thinks there are some interesting things to say on this issue.

Does that help at all? And VIC, grant Muffti a request: there are a few posters at Jewlicious and it is a tad rude to include them all (which, perhaps unwittingly, you do) when you accuse JEWLICIOUS of various things. As CK likes to stress, we are not a monolithic entity.

P. G. Wodehouse, RIGHT HO, JEEVES (1934)

But seriously – don’t you guys feel this kinda post-disengagement feeling of ennui and numbness? I mean after months of arguing and hypothesizing on the impact the disengagement would have on the survival and the very soul of Israel, everything afterwards seems kind of bland? Frankly in terms of Israel, I may need a decompression period before I can get excited again.

As far as Dov Charney goes, like I mentioned above, the fact that his detractors use many of the same disinformation techniques employed by anti-Israel agitators helps me fix my jonesing for argumentation and discussion. Heck I am even reading “Culture Jamming” by that dude that started Adbusters!

Anyways … I’ll try to be more multi-faceted. I did post about that yummy Herzog wineries tour though! It’s not ALL Dov Charney …

c_ _k, you’re debating with a shill.

They are definitely pushing some buttons. The fact that you view a harmless depiction of an Islamic woman as provocative is telling. Very telling indeed. It demonstrates the extent of your biases to me – your bias against Muslims and your inexhaustible and unbelievably self-righteous bias against American Apparel. You also exhibit a tremendously condescending paternalistic “I know better” attitude against people of color and Muslims. I mean if a Muslim is insulted by the imagery, let them say so themselves. Do they really need you, a presumably non-Muslim, to defend them? You are similarly dismissive of voices within AA, be they store staff or factory workers or models who have piped in and contested your one-sided depiction of the company.

So our friends disagree. That doesn’t make the spoof any less suspect. You’re either being disingenous or quite charitable to claim that using a Muslim woman wasn’t meant to score rhetorical points by invoking cultural biases.

I think the way it invokes cultural biases is brilliant! It seems to invoke the cultural biases of the AA critics. Pure genius!

Yeah, one of my co-workers happens to be a white Muslim. But you’re still dodging here. Jasmine has dark skin. And then well…there’s that name…Jasmine. It’s of Persian origin. Sorry CK, but Jasmine is a person of color. An Arab.

Hmm. You do know that Persians are not Arabs, right? Sorry VIC, you lose again. You continue to completely misunderstand the point I was making. And besides, had they used a lighter colored person then the spoofers would be accused of what? Co-opting Islam? Being culturally insensitive? I suspect you’d find offense with anything they did. So you changed your tune and now claim the ad is anti-Arab. Whatever. Your claim is still nonsense. A simple depiction of a person of color or of a person of a particular religious orientation is not prima facie objectionable.

But of course you know that this facet of Islam is not “PC” in the eyes of most feminists. This is why the image is intended to tweak critics of AA’s ads.

And in that respect the spoofers succeeded. Nothing wrong with that.

The ad is a caricature CK. Both of feminist critiques of advertising and of Muslim women. You’re spinning here. Dizzy much?

It’s a caricature of stupid feminist critiques of advertising. I see nothing here that insults Muslim women. In fact your offense at the simple portrayal of a woman wearing a Hijab is what I find most offensive.

And a man with no free time doesn’t obsessively mine his referrer logs or take tours of corporate offices just to research a blog post.

I have a responsibility to give my audience what it wants. My referer logs tell me that there is a tremendous interest in Dov Charney. Also, I have friends that work there and so I happen to have good access – why not take advantage of that? I also write about loads of other issues (which you’d know about if you read the rest of the blog). There’s nothing suspect about my behavior. Yours however is seriously a little whacked. I mean do you spend the same amount of time knocking the other advertisers who promote far more problematic images? Who make use of 3rd world sweatshop labor? Who don’t have issues with unionization because they manufacture overseas? Maybe you do, I don’t know – but I sure haven’t ever seen it. Is it any wonder I can’t take your sincerity seriously?

And again, I never said you worked for Allred. However, you are not the only anti-AA voice out there. It’s possible that some of the others had a direct pecuniary interest in maligning AA. It’s possible. I never said that that was in fact the case. Just speculating. Also, Allred’s clients are not the only ones with an anti-AA interest here. Fink’s client has one, as does anyone contemplating a future law-suit and anyone working for the Union. This is after all a high profile story – there is great interest in manipulating the facts.

And what do you make of the article in which Dov demotes the NYC retail staff “for not being attractive enough?” Did the journalist make that up?

I never said that. But I have in the past stated that a store owner is well within her rights to demand that employees respect a certain standard of appearance. The article never stated that the employees in question were not thin enough!

I coulda sworn we were talking about a socially-responsible clothing company that didn’t exploit its workers.

We were. You thought the porn star model was relevant and you brought that up. I think the company is to a large measure very socially responsible. Anything a union would bring to the factory workers they already have and more. The models used in the ads are REAL women with looks that are realistically attainable. The porn star you took umbrage with earlier weighs over 150 pounds! Please show me any other fashion company that uses 150 pound women in their ads and presents them as sensuous and attractive? AA also has a fleet of bicycles that it offers to its employees for free to be used as transporation to and from the factory. Given issues we have with the burning of fossil fuels, that’s amazing! I could go on and on, but I think if the AA business model were followed at more companies, we’d be better off. They may not be perfect, but they’re doing a pretty good job I would say. And again, there are other companies far more deserving of criticism and critical attention.

Well, I didn’t come hear to discuss the Middle East, Palestinian statehood or Zionism. And from the sound of things, my opinions probably wouldn’t be too welcome. But I’m really not sure what you’re getting at. If you’re calling me an anti-Semite, just come out and say it. Otherwise, could you please leave the baggage from that other, more weighty political debate behind?

I’m not talking about the Palestinian situation. I am talking about disengenuous propaganda techniques used by anti-Israel agitators. Your opinion on the Middle East conflict is always welcome – Jewlicious is not a monolithic entity. But if you’re going to spout unenlightened, self-interested stuff, regardless of the subject matter, be prepared to be pounced upon.

So no, I never said or implied that you were anti-semitic. For all I know you’re Jewish. All I said was that you used techniques that I am very familiar with, similiar to those used by the lunatic left when dealing with Israel and Zionism. I could not help but see the similiarities in technique and that’s what set me off about the whole anti-Dov Charney thing – too much bullshit and not enough reliance on facts. So do you understand now? I am not saying you are anti-semitic. I’m not even saying that any criticism of Israel is anti-semitic. I’m just taking umbrage with your techniques.

That was supposed to read “AFAIK ‘hijab’ refers to a head covering (which has only been around since the ’70s; IIRC, some Shi’ite guy came up with it as a way of identifying its wearers as Shi’ites so they wouldn’t get shot/raped by the various warring factions in the Lebanese civil war). The full body coverning is usually referred to as a burqa in the Western press.”