Op-Ed

 

the other press

Wanna Bite of My...
Candies?

Jenn Farrell

OP Contributor/Print Futures Alumni

 

I was persusing the magazines
at my local drugstore a few
months ago when I noticed the
latest issue of CosmoG/RL!. Ah,
CosmoGirl The curious mutant
offspring of Helen Gurley

femininity and
Seventeen magazine-style naivete.
But it was this issue in particular
that rocked my sense of irony.
Against the neon pink back-
ground, behind taglines like:
“Swimsuits that'll make him say
hell-lo!” and “Be a guy magnet—
here’s how” was the cover girl,
Tara Reid, ubiquitous starlet of
such teen film fare as American
Pie. Reid was doing her usual
sexpot routine, with a come-
hither smile and a wedge of skin-
ny midriff on display. Nothing
new there. But she was wearing a
tight white cropped T-shirt with
this sparkly slogan: “Be SEXY. It
doesn’t mean you have to have
sex.”

It took me a long time to fig-
ure out what that T-shirt was
supposed to mean.When I did
draw some preliminary conclu-
sions, I cussed at such length that
even the pimply chap oogling
Maxim beside me blushed. Turns
out, this garment was not a one-
off for the magazine shoot. The
T-shirt, along with others bear-
ing similar slogans, is sold by an
organization called the Candies

Brown-style

 

Foundation, and can be ordered
on their website.

Candies got its start as a shoe
manufacturer. You might
remember the original 1970s
Candies shoe—picture a Dr.
Scholl’s sandal from the bad part
of town—a leather instep
secured to an impressive heel.
(My neighbour's mom had a
pair. She used to wear them with
her cut-offs, making the other
moms jealous of her lithe, sun-
tanned legs.) Since those early
days, the Candies brand has
grown to include a full line of
fashions and accessories, as well
as fragrances for both men and
women.

In recent years, Candies has
been taken to task for their con-
troversial print ads. The compa-
ny’s products are aimed at two
demographic groups: the
18—34’s, and their younger coun-
terparts, the “tweens”—girls
who read YM, Teen People, and
good old CosmoGIRL! Candies
print advertising mainly employs
sassy b-list celebs like Carmen
Electra and Alyssa Milano. One
ad showcased former Playboy
model and MTV presenter Jenny
McCarthy sitting on the toilet. A
Candies fragrance ad featured
Sugar Ray frontman Mark
McGrath smirking for the cam-
era as a scantily clad model strad-

dled his, ahem, computer moni-
tor.

But underneath all that mar-
keting sauciness beats the vigi-
lant moral heart of the Candies
company. They want teenagers
to know that although they use
sex relentlessly to pitch their
products, it doesn’t mean that
they condone teenage sexual
activity. No sir! Armed with
desire to deflect responsibility for
a nation’s slackening virtues,
coupled with a kinder, gentler
post-9/11 media climate,
Candies picked the perfect time
to mate benevolence with good
old-fashioned marketing savvy.
And so the Candies Foundation
was born, the “charitable out-
reach ” arm of the company. The
Foundation’s mandate is to “help
educate the new generation of
self assured, powerful girls by
spreading the word about the
consequences of teenage preg-
nancy...utilizing every form of
media and advertising to get the
message out to teens.” This
includes the Candie’s
Foundation Website, where users
can learn about morality and
shop.

A trip to the website is a
colourful and baffling experi-
ence, with more pop-ups and
flashing banner ads than your
average porn site. The site does
not serve to actually provide
much statistical information in
and of itself. There are some facts
that surprise no one:
America, always proud to be a
world leader, holds that honour
for teen pregnancy: nationwide,
about a million teenaged girls
find themselves with one in the
oven every year. Unfortunately, a
state-by-state breakdown was not
available. The site has a link to a
teen sex quiz put together by
Teen People magazine, and there
are pages of links for teens and
their parents. The content and
quality of these information
sources vary considerably, and
Candies is careful to note on
every page that it is not responsi-
ble for, nor does it endorse, any
particular site. It's a good thing
too, because it’s a wing-spanning
smorgasbord, from the birth-
control-promoting — Planned
Parenthood to eerie,

will

the

Falwellian overtones of the
Abstinence—the Best Choice!
program site. And not that I
propose this as a solution to teen
pregnancy, but the word “abor-
tion” was conspicuously absent,
even as a source of data.
(Intrepid researchers will find
Statistics Canada a much more
useful source of information in
this regard.)

And when all the links and the
facts page have got you searching
for some real answers, you can
click your way to the retail thrust
of the foundation. This is street
outreach—Candies style. Buy! A
shirt that tells the world youre
independent. See! Fashion model
Willa Ford wears a Candies t-
shirt that says she’s
(Funny, I’ve never heard her say a
thing.) Wonder! At how pasting
together a Destiny’s Child pub-
licity still and the line “Be a
Diva” constitutes a public service
announcement.

There’s such a paucity of male
celebs in the Candies
Foundation, that one might
think there’s some kind of sinis-
ter immaculate conception at
work, that teenaged girls are so
darn sexy that they're magically
impregnating themselves.
Almost none of the ads are tar-
geted specifically to boys, and
the ones that are tell them to use
protection. Nowhere is it sug-
gested that boys refrain from sex-
ual intercourse. For girls, it’s a
“just say no”-fest the likes of
which Americans haven't seen
since the Reagan administration.

But why would they, and why
should they? Teenagers, just like
the rest of us, are subject to feel-
ings of sexual desire that they
may or may not act upon.
Candies’ idea of solving the teen
pregnancy epidemic is telling
girls to say no to these feelings
but yes, yes, yes! to inspiring
them in others. Although it’s no
longer 1957, the mainstream
media continues to define a
young woman's sexuality as not a
natural part of her evolving iden-
tity, but as something “precious,”
borne of virtue that separates her
from the baser needs of her
penis-toting peers.

So we have the Britney Spears
solution: to avoid sexual inter-

vocal.

september 11, 2802

course on the basis of moral
goodness and purity, but to
derive power and pleasure from
the display of a sexually inviting
but unavailable body. This is the
legacy of Girl Power in 2002: the
choice to be sexy at any cost, the
choice to adopt an outdated
moral code, the choice to do
exactly what society tells you to.
Get thee to a shopping centre.
And pick up a tube top while
youre there.

Think of a teenage girl’s sexu-
ality as her “brand,” and partici-
pation in the sex act as the “prod-
uct.” We all know how much
marketers love brand recogni-
tion. It’s the promise that the
brand provides, and the truly
modern advertiser knows that
whether the product actually
fufills the promise is, in many
cases, irrelevant. What Candies
and CosmoG/RL! tell girls is to
increase their sexual capital by
building the brand and generat-
ing enthusiasm for the ultimate-
ly withheld product. “Keep that
nasty vagina under wraps ladies,
but buy the very prettiest wrap-
ping that you can. And for your
convenience, we just happen to
sell that wrapping right here!”

We all want to protect our
daughters, and hope they make
good choices. But I’m more
afraid of what they learn from
groups like the Candie’s
Foundation than what they learn
in the backseat of a car. I learned
plenty by having sex as a teen—
and sure, a lot of it was painful—
but at least I learned good les-
sons, and built some knowledge
and self-awareness. I couldn’t
pick that up from a goddamn
shoe company. So here’s a new
message for a T-shirt: “Ignore all
this stupid media crap that tells
you what's sexy—it doesn’t mat-
ter. What does matter is your
choice to dictate how, why, when
and with whom you have sex.
Make sure that you both enjoy it,
and for cripes sake make sure
that you and your partner are
organized enough not to get
knocked up by mistake.” But
that’s probably way too much
information to put on a T-shirt.
Tara Reid would never be able to
carry that logo across her tiny
ribcage.

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