Subtle, guys.

Yesterday, I went into a Chase ATM on Myrtle Avenue on the Bushwick/Ridgewood border and saw about two dozen flyers for "ANACONDA Underwear."



Blatant in so many ways.  Let's give a quick list:

Sexual:

• The oiled, well-muscled man has a sexy woman hanging off of him.  She's making eye contact with the camera (acting as the interlocutor acted in Renaissance paintings), as if she's flirting with the viewer rather than the muscleman.
• The "ANACONDA" brandname and logo, to say nothing of the slogan "NOT FOR THE AVERAGE MAN," make it pretty clear that this underwear is being pitched as "only for real men" (more specifically, men with larger-than-average penises).

Cultural:

• Both models appear to be of minority ethnicities (a label so broad as to be meaningless, I know) and look like they're on the 'young, cool and sexy' end of the spectrum of people that you'd see on the street in Bushwick or parts of the Bronx.  She doesn't have a generic 'model' face (her facial features aren't leaning towards Caucasian, as is the case with a lot of non-Caucasian models).  He's got two or three distinct and different tattoos visible:  over his pectoral muscles, a handlettered slogan (LIVE NOW, DIE LATER") and the outline of fire; around his neck and down his chest, a set of Rosary beads and cross.  This implies a  'tough but pious' persona and makes explicit reference to a Catholic background that's typical of Latino/as in America.
• Back to that "NOT FOR THE AVERAGE MAN" slogan:  this could also be read as a statement that the target audience for Anaconda Underwear (Latinos and African-Americans, from the website's photos) has bigger penises than the target audience for other underwear (whites).  This alludes to the longstanding stereotype of more "animal" sexuality (and less intellectualism) which was ascribed by whites to minorities long ago, and which has in some ways been used against the hegemony which came up with the stereotype in the first place (once most people decided that there wasn't anything wrong with being sexual).
  

Graphic: 

• Black, red and yellow is pretty much the easiest, most basic, most high-impact color scheme to use in an advertisement or design.  Red and black is often associated with fascism, and yellow and black is an aposematic color scheme in nature - think of honeybees, snakes, poison-arrow frogs.  Perhaps the waistband, peeking up through a pair of loose jeans, would serve as a 'warning' that what's in the jeans is more than some women can handle?

More info about ANACONDA Underwear (marketing images, photos from the launch party, and ordering information) here.


On the other side of the flyer was this image:

Another ad which uses a pretty, sexualized Latina to sell a product that she wouldn't (necessarily) use:  "cigar wraps" (which are used to roll marijuana much more often than tobacco).  I'll give the copywriter the benefit of the doubt and assume that no connection was intended between the bikini-clad woman and the phrase "PASS IT AROUND."

The blog for this product is pretty remarkable, with such posts as "The slowest burning cigar is the wrap king cigar wrap. Its the best cigar used to roll a blunt.  It burns the slowest compared to other cigars. Slowest burning. " and "If John and Kate plus 8 goes on a date and smokes 3 wrap king cigar wraps that they bought in a local store. With 3 packs of wrap king 3 everybody rolls one"