by RUSSELL MORSE
Last week, a group of activists visited American Apparel’s iconic downtown Los Angeles factory to protest the clothier’s recent advertisement featuring a Bangladeshi-American model topless with the phrase “Made In Bangladesh” across her breasts. The ad debuted in March (warning: explicit content) with accompanying text that does not mention the 2013 Plaza Rana tragedy that killed over 140 Bangladeshi garment workers, which many believe the ad means to invoke. The text of the ad focuses instead on the model, identified as Maks, and her personal biography:
“She doesn’t feel the need to identify herself as an American or a Bengali and is not content to fit her life into anyone else’s conventional narrative. That’s what makes her essential to the mosaic that is Los Angeles, and unequivocally, a distinct figure in the ever expanding American Apparel family. Maks was photographed in the High Waist Jean, a garment manufactured by 23 skilled American workers in Downtown Los Angeles, all of whom are paid a fair wage and have access to basic benefits such as healthcare.”
Most of the anger stemmed from people’s perception that the retailer was trying to capitalize on the tragedy in Bangladesh that killed scores of people, offering the American Apparel domestic manufacturing model up as an alternative to overseas sweat shops with dangerous and exploitative practices. Using a young, attractive, topless woman to convey the message further complicated things.
Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed, a 34-year-old LA-based writer and activist, wrote a critical open letter to the model in the ad on the South Asian blog “The Aerogram” that received 54,000 unique views in 24 hours. As a result, the Asian American activist organization 18 Million Rising approached her about creating a petition asking for American Apparel to donate money to an organization called Bangladeshi Center for Worker Solidarity. The petition gathered 443 signatures and the aim of last week’s action at the factory was for Ahmed to deliver the petition to American Apparel executives.
Bleakonomics was able to reach Ahmed to ask about the issues at play here, among them sweat shop labor, bare breasts, and migratory capitalism.
The image at the top of your piece contains the phrase “American Exploitation”. I assume this alludes to American Apparel invoking the Rana Plaza tragedy to highlight their domestic manufacturing policies as an alternative. Why is that problematic?
Tanzila Ahmed: It is morbid, nationalistic and xenophobic. It commodifies the death of brown women with the image of a naked “acceptable” brown woman: about as problematic as it gets.
Presumably, “exploited” also refers to the model. Are you concerned that saying Maks was exploited denies her agency?
TA: I don’t particularly care what Maks decides to do with her body. In this era, though, where the politics of having the female brown body policed for being either too Muslim or not Muslim enough, the statement behind a bare-reasted brown woman has the potential for artistic impact. But this wasn’t an art project. This was an advertisement. And I question companies that use sex to sell products. In this case, Maks was selling a product. Her free will to reveal her breasts should not be confused with using her breasts to sell a product. So, really, what kind of agency is there?
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