Benetton’s ‘Shock Ads’ Indeed Prove to Be Shocking
When I received my March issue of Vanity Fair Magazine I was deeply disturbed and confused by the Benetton ads depicting a car bombing, a dying AIDS patient and refugees jumping from a ship, “Shock Ads: New Rage That Spawns Rage,” (March 22).
What do these pictures have to do with selling wool sweaters, leggings and fuzzy caps? Nothing.
The ads certainly do catch one’s eye, but in a purely negative way. I, for one, am well aware of the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic as well as the other horrific calamities that humankind faces daily. I certainly do not need my consciousness raised by a megabucks Italian sweater manufacturer.
These ads are tasteless, exploitative and a gross insult to humanity. They use other people’s misery--displayed in glossy, slick, living color--to sell sweaters.
BETTE AMSLER
Beverly Hills
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