Inject me: Skechers tries on the stereotypes with Christina Aguilera as "naughty and nice" "nurse"
August 2004 -- In the coming months, shoemaker Skechers reportedly plans to run a global ad campaign called "Naughty and Nice," featuring Christina Aguilera, as part of a long term marketing deal with the pop music star. Ms. Aguilera will be featured in three different ads: as a police officer confronting a woman bending over a car, as a schoolteacher confronting a student sitting at her desk, and as a nurse confronting a patient sitting on a hospital bed. In each photo, Aguilera plays both figures, and there is a strong element of sado-masochism, with the authority figures as the dominants. All figures are dressed and posed in sexually suggestive ways, often with exposed bras and/or short shorts. In each case the dominant wields a symbol of her physical authority in a threatening, if goofy, way: the teacher holds a ruler, the cop some handcuffs, and the nurse is about to inject a patient with something that looks like a huge 100 cc metal syringe connected to an 8 gauge needle. The submissives seem to wear expressions of mock alarm. Although the Christinas are apparently all wearing Skechers, on the blackboard behind the teacher someone has written many times: "Skechers Are Not Part of the Uniform." This campaign will reportedly be run in pop culture and teen magazines and placed in retail stores around the world, and it has already received significant coverage in the business and advertising press. Send this letter to Skechers.
Evidently, someone has a reason to think that auto-erotic and/or sado-masochistic lesbian role-playing fantasies with a touch of petty rebellion sell consumer products. However one might feel about the themes underlying these ads, the nursing image presented here clearly plays into harmful stereotypes that have been a factor in the profession's current crisis. The image of Christina Aguilera (who is, to say the least, closely associated with public sexuality) holding a gleaming silver syringe/vibrator, wearing a sultry look, a nurse's cap with red cross, a white "nurse's" mini-dress that fails to conceal much of her breasts, her red heart-patterned white bra, her near-fully visible garter belt which runs down to her white stockings and white dominatrix boots...well, it's not exactly what we had in mind to attract bright young students, or those seeking a second career, to nursing. This ad simultaneously exploits the "naughty nurse" and the battleaxe/Nurse Ratched stereotypes, setting the nurse up both as an available sex object and a mock-malevolent authority figure, rather than a competent professional. Of course, similar things are being done with teachers and police officers, but those professions are not in the same posture as nursing in terms of gender composition or global shortage, and in any case, they are no doubt able to look out for themselves.
Yes, it's a big tease, but given the role of these stereotypes in fostering a harmful public image of nursing, we strongly object to this ad, which will apparently be distributed widely around the world.
We urge everyone to write to Skechers or send our instant letter to ask that this depiction cease immediately.
We understand from Skechers public relations department that these print ads will be primarily running in European and Canadian magazines. Skechers refused to reveal their "print list" of magazines where the ads will appear. We will be counting on our international members to alert us if you see these ads in print.
See more on the advertising campaign from cherryflava or from the businesswire.
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... August 17, 2004 -- In response to widespread protests... Skechers will discontinue the Christina Aguilera "naughty nurse" ad that had begun to run in markets worldwide, according to a statement released by Jennifer Clay, a public relations official at Skechers' Los Angeles headquarters...
Did Clay or Skechers make a public (published) statement on this?
Tried to locate it and came up dry.
Would like to read their rationale... in their own words. Would be interesting.
Specializes in Vents, Telemetry, Home Care, Home infusion.
The text of the letter which many of the letter-writers received from Skechers read:
Thank you for voicing your opinion on our recent advertisement. Your words were heard by SKECHERS management and the following statement was issued:
"The Christina Aguilera advertisement was in no way meant to trivialize or marginalize the valuable services that the nursing profession contributes to our society. As you can imagine, as a consumer brand, SKECHERS in no way wishes or intends to offend any group. As a result of the valuable feedback given to us by the various nurses' organization, we immediately pulled all United States distribution of the advertisement and discontinued international media buys."
Sincerely,
Jennifer Clay Director of Corporate Communications
It is so ironic- when I did a presentation of the Image of Nursing, featuring pics of various ways nurses are portrayed by the media, my nursing instructor (with a PhD, no less) told me my topic was "irrelevent."
By the way, my instructor had never heard of Nurse Ratchet.
Here is the controveral pic for anyone who has not seen it-
Still reminds me of a picture from some sort of skin mag.
Not to mention it also completely misses the point of advertising SHOES.
Exactly, Marie. She's not really dressed as a nurse; she's dressed as a lap dancer.
Male nurses have no idea how frequently patients "come on" to us as we're trying to do our jobs. (In fact, that'd probably be a great topic for a poll.) It's bad enough that the general public doesn't know how much education, experience, and intelligence go into nursing, or how stressful the work is, or what exactly it is that we do. The protest stemmed from a demand for respect on a professional level. The overwhelming response from nurses, resulting in the ad being pulled, really said it all.
Call me old-fashioned, but I also found the ad to be offensive on more than a professional level. Ads like that teach our daughters to dress like bimbos to get money and attention. It teaches our sons to demean and objectify women. It promotes promiscuous sexual behavior by the target audience--young people--with the implication that if a young pop star can dress like that in public, on the job, it must be ok for them to do so, too.
I don't care what you do in the privacy of your home, but IMHO, ads like this needn't be flaunted on the pages of fashion magazines for impressionable youth to emulate.
I googled this topic, and came up with quite a few non-nursing pages that agreed with the protest due to those very reasons Angie mentioned - giving our sons and daughters a really powerful and damaging message. And, also, I agree that men have no idea. It still happens to me, and I am no longer a "sweet young thing". These images are pervasive and harmful, and need to be challenged every chance we get. Also, I still haven't heard which organization(s) people believe are doing a good job fighting the "right" fights. Is nursing so inadequately represented?
Exactly, Marie. She's not really dressed as a nurse; she's dressed as a lap dancer.
Male nurses have no idea how frequently patients "come on" to us as we're trying to do our jobs. (In fact, that'd probably be a great topic for a poll.) It's bad enough that the general public doesn't know how much education, experience, and intelligence go into nursing, or how stressful the work is, or what exactly it is that we do. The protest stemmed from a demand for respect on a professional level. The overwhelming response from nurses, resulting in the ad being pulled, really said it all.
Call me old-fashioned, but I also found the ad to be offensive on more than a professional level. Ads like that teach our daughters to dress like bimbos to get money and attention. It teaches our sons to demean and objectify women. It promotes promiscuous sexual behavior by the target audience--young people--with the implication that if a young pop star can dress like that in public, on the job, it must be ok for them to do so, too.
I don't care what you do in the privacy of your home, but IMHO, ads like this needn't be flaunted on the pages of fashion magazines for impressionable youth to emulate.
A male nurse i used to work with got propositioned a lot, unfortunately. I'd say that the come ons can go either way, really.
As for the overwhelming response to the ad and the result of it getting pulled, i totally agree, that speaks volumes about what a problem it was.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.
Skechers has pulled this campaign due to all the negative reactions from nurses around the world. Because of production schedules of the various magazines it was sold to, it may appear in one or two that got out before the door closed.
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kevagonia
44 Posts
too bad... nurses are still hot!