Killer Heels
Manolo says, it is not often that the Manolo comes across the shoe image that is so unpleasant that he says “ick” in disgust, however, such is the case with this “Killer Heels” shoe ad.
Happily, the Manolo is not the only person who feels uneasy about this ad.
1This print advertisement for promoting products of NMA attracted considerable opposition in Britain. The advertisement is showing a large black stiletto-heeled shoe, running through on the metal heel was the body of a man and the heel was in a pool of blood. The punch line of the advertisement said, ‘Killer heels by NMA’ and it was published in leading newspapers of Britain. The complainants alleged that, since the advertisement promoted and trivialized violence, particularly against men. The complaints also accused the advertisement for being offensive and sexist and unsuitable for use.
The advertisers argued that the advertisement was a visual witticism on the expression ‘Killer Heels’ and was extremely inventive to make it stand out from other fashion advertisements. They further contended that, to avoid causing offence, they had created the advertisement to appear like a cartoon by showing a heel, which was out of proportion to the size of the man and was unrealistically ‘’spearing’ the man.
Comments
Sharon 17 years ago
Personally I do get where they were going with the ad but I can understand why some people would not take to it kindly or really want to see it wherever they turned.
gemdiva 17 years ago
Gulliver’s Log July 9, 2007. I have just arrived in a land that appears to be inhabited by giant humanoids. I wonder if they are friendly. I wonder if I can AAARRRGGGHHH!
Dear diary, I must have really tied one on with the girls last night. You won’t believe what I stepped in. EEEEEWWWWWWW!
Style Spy 17 years ago
Ew. This is exactly the opposite of the result I’m looking for when I wear a sexy shoe. Ew.
Bridey 17 years ago
It’s not exactly a first-rate Photoshop job, is it? Though I suppose more realism wouldn’t be the best idea, either.
But I do think the “trivializes violence” charge is maybe a wee bit overblown, at least until some guy has actually been done to death by a giant stiletto heel.
roz 17 years ago
he is dressed kind of like my ex husband, so I don’t find it as offensive as I otherwise might
TG 17 years ago
I agree with bridey about the photoshop job… otherwise, I think it’s funny.
JJo 17 years ago
Let them be repulsed by it, maybe super-high and impossibly uncomfortable heels will become unfashionable due to the negative media.
I’d be perfectly content to just wear ballet flats forever.
Signout 17 years ago
What?! An advertisement is trivializing violence against men? Ladies, shoulder your guns–it’s our job to be on the business end of trivialized violence for entertainment purposes! Those f*ckers are putting us out of jobs.
Rob D. 17 years ago
Signout,
I think you’re missing the point. Sexism is wrong whether it’s aimed at a woman or a man.
Now shut up and leave the real thinking to the men!
Noga 17 years ago
The post-modern foucauldian observer would say that what this image conveys is a reversed metaphor for suppressed male anxiety which originates in primeval guilt over the violence of the sexual act which involves shafting and blood. Man tries to assuage his pathological unacknowledged guilt by projecting himself as the very victim of women’s voracious sexuality. One can find the same insecurity turned to sexist violence in hip hop lyrics.
Or, it’s just someone’s comic sense malfunctioning badly.
Signout 17 years ago
Uh, I’m guessing you mean “violence is wrong.” Whoops! Sorry, I almost forgot my place.
Oh my God, you are so right! Sexism is wrong! And that is the point! Everyone totally gives a sh*t when it’s a woman on the receiving end.
lady coveted 17 years ago
i have yet to find a shoe that can both impale an adult male and sustain 10 city blocks before the little rubber tip wears through.
this is obviously false advertising.
deja pseu 17 years ago
What Signout said.
Phyllis 17 years ago
Pretty grim.
retna 17 years ago
Bloody.Stupid.Ad.
la petite chou chou 17 years ago
I think it looks funny. What I find monumentally more problematic is the portion of the article quoted by the Manolo. What horrible writing. I can’t believe that someone paid someone else to write that drivel.
toad 17 years ago
I agree that it looks like an add for a B horror movie……”The Attack Of The 100 Foot Rosie O’Donnel!”
Or perhaps, “Dude! Where’s My Pixie?”
Peregrine John 17 years ago
Never mind the social hooplah about this: it’s repulsive simply because it repulses. It’s gross.
Kimmels 17 years ago
I agree with Peregrine. I am not desensitized at all to images like this. Really gross.
KIWI 17 years ago
My first thought, when I saw the ad, was ”wow” I have shoes like that, not so high, but very similar. I can see why people may be offended, but it’s a shoe ad and not realistic in the least. Its purpose was to attract attention and it sure did! Would people complain if it were a video jacket?
As others have pointed out, real life shoe heels aren’t capable of impaling someone. The man’s size, in relation to the shoe, gives the ad a silliness and so I doubt it would promote actual violence.
Gina 17 years ago
Ad agency staff after a 3-drink lunch:
(Person A): Hey !! I know!! They’re called STILETTO heels, right? The ad could show the stiletto heel used like a real stiletto! Get it?
(Person B): Maybe a GIANT stiletto stabbing all the way through a regular-sized victim.
(Person C): We can photoshop that pretty quickly and get out of here in time for happy hour!
Noga 17 years ago
Actually, having read the comments and thought about it further, I believe the ad could have been indended as a romantic cliche maximalized. What is the most common symbol of love? Cupid and his bow shooting arrows through people’s hearts. See the connection? The woman who wears these shoes will look so beautiful and irresistible, enough to get some man’s heart pierced and bleeding with passion. A variation on “dressed to kill’. A gruesome image, nonetheless. What might have been a good idea gone wrong in the execution of it…
I have heard men admit they find the rhythmic tap-tap sound of high heels on a polished floor strangely arousing, even before they see their wearer.
class factotum 17 years ago
This Glasgow bride had to be satisfied with hitting her new husband on the head with her shoe on their wedding night.
“While wedding guests celebrated at their reception, a Scottish bride was in jail and the groom was at the hospital bleeding from a stiletto heel head wound….
But their first marital spat turned bloody with the groom staggering through the halls with blood spurting from his head where he had been slammed with one of his wife’s high-heeled shoes, The Daily Mail reported Wednesday. ”
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2007/07/11/bride_spends_honeymoon_in_jail/8223/
Kelly 17 years ago
I think it’s a rather artistic ad and was probably meant to be appreciated in that way. If it was a painting, people would think it was brilliant- regardless of whether it’s offensive.
Noga 17 years ago
The post-feminists wouldn’t . . .
Roxy 17 years ago
Blech.
Mike Martlet 16 years ago
I think that it is a great picture and as mentioned by the erudite blogger above certainly does have links with post-modernist philosophy.
For many men it will symbolize the ultimate feminist agenda and perhaps for some third wave feminists too. The image in this latter case represents male corporate power which has dominated western society being destroyed by the very objects that men created for women to wear to make them at once both vulnerable and attractive by emphasizing the visually and subliminally attractive features of the female form that connote “good breeding stock” to the primeval instincts embedded deep in the male brain. Stiletto heels, once seen as dainty and fragile and capable of carrying only a dainty and fragile charge, soon became seen as anything but when the damage that they did to floors, roads, sidewalks, and even aircraft floors became apparent within months of their release to the masses. Having grown up in an era when women wore heels all the time, even to do the housework, I have always seen heels as destructive and symbolic of female power; the stiletto was the archetype of this power.
It is not only men who see women’s heels in this way, – a lot of women do also. There was an article in The Sunday Times’ Style Magazine in the UK about 3 or 4 years ago that discussed the buzz that a lot of British Women get out of wearing shoes that are actually capable of killing people (men in particular); they saw it as being a positive boost to their confidence. This image symbolizes that view with an explicit message of “watch out guys or else”.
In addition to shoe fetishism and the darker side of Dominatrix themed Sado-Masochism, there are also many men with a fetish for the “Giantess” for which this image is a good example of their fantasies; it would certainly not surprise me to learn that the designer was himself such a fetishist.
Personally I like this image, it appeals to my view that under the apparent and traditional loving and caring nature of women, there lurks a tigress capable of inflicting extreme violence on men in retribution for all the wrongs (real and imagined) that men have inflicted on women over the millennia. It thus becomes an apt metaphor for the “Battle of the Sexes”.