Mr. Finch

English 11 AP 25 November 2013

Semiotic Analysis of Diesel Jeans: Be Stupid There was a time when people were encouraged to be modest; that is not what we see today. We are familiar with images of exposed beautiful women and sometimes men as these images are found in most magazines. But lately, we are becoming familiarized with something even worse: a new, controversial ideal for the contemporary youth that is being set by bombarding advertisements. Take a look at this girl. We cannot see her face, yet we know she is attractive. She is skinny and she has long beautiful hair. She exposes herself voluntarily without considering the consequences; she does not care who is watching. If we know that what she is doing is wrong, why is it so tempting? It is not her exact actions that I want, it is her recklessness but in my own way. I want her courage, the courage that allows her to do what she wants, when she wants. I almost want to be her; a slender outgoing girl who gets her way through her lack of mindfulness. Through her obviously inappropriate behavior, she is able to make a statement. But is it a statement that defies some ideal that is set in society, or a statement that shows her adoption of a new social norm? More importantly, is it even a statement worth making? And, what is her goal through this statement? This advertisement, one of many found in magazines which are directed at teens, guides the youth towards a new ideal which expresses boldness and even stupidity, as stated on the advertisement, that is created only to contradict the previous generations’ ideal of modesty and intelligence. This advertisement provides the audience with many denotations. To begin with, on the left side of the image, there is a brick wall which is painted a slightly red color. In the middle of the wall, there is a black line which appears to be two strings that follow the entire brick wall. Above that black line, on the right side of the brick wall, there appears to be a white stain. To the right of the white stain, we see a white camera with a thick silver wire underneath it. Next, we see a ladder that is painted a red color; the steps of the ladder are painted a silver color, and the tip of the ladder are painted a golden color. The tip of the ladder appears to have bolts lining the lower part of it. On the ladder, we see a girl with both feet on the first step of the ladder; she is wearing green sneakers with white shoe laces. There appears to be a red line on the sneakers as well as a blue line lining her shoe laces. She is also wearing blue skinny jeans that appear to be torn and do not go down to her ankles, and what appears to be a white bra that is not on her breasts but above them. Her arms are at shoulder height. Her head is bent backwards and her brown and yellow hair is not touching her back. Her arms, back, stomach, breasts, and a part of her lower leg are exposed. Next to the ladder there appears to be a black cylindrical pipe on which there is a red sign with white letters written on it. Towards the bottom of the image, we see the top of a chain link fence. Then, on the right side of the image, we see the foreground, which is writing that uses a large sized bold font with pink coloring that states “SMART MAY HAVE THE BRAINS, BUT STUPID HAS THE BALLS.” On the very bottom right of the image, we see writing in a bold but not a very large sized font with pink coloring that states “BE STUPID” and next to that writing, a small red sign on which there is writing in bold, white letters which states “DIESEL.” This writing, although small, also appears to be the foreground. On the very bottom left of this image, there also appears to be white writing in cursive that states “Shop online at Diesel.com.” The background of this image is black. The jeans that are worn by the girl in this image are what allow this girl to “be stupid.” We see that the white camera indicates that someone is watching and the red ladder represents the climb towards a new goal or a higher status. The jeans, the camera and the ladder are all individual symbols, but when grouped together, they create the statement that the advertisers are trying to make. The ladder in this advertisement pairs perfectly with the camera because many times, when a person is shown on camera (television, for example), it means he is going up on the social ladder. In her case though, she is not on television, but it is important to note that she is standing only on the first step of the ladder. The first step of the ladder does not signify a high position. With the social ladder in mind though, let’s consider that when people are shown on camera, they tend to act more professional or sophisticated, and sometimes, even more modest because they want to appear as intelligent and credible people; however, this girl climbed the ladder to get her face shown on camera, only to act in a way that is not considered acceptable in society. She exposes herself and acts “stupid.” This girl ignores not only the ideals of society, but also the values that every individual has. By doing so, she is not being considerate of the person behind the camera as well; there is a possibility that the person behind the camera did not want to see her exposed body. As well, she is not considering the consequences of the way she is acting. Or maybe she is. After all, it is common knowledge that cameras are set up to prevent crime and inappropriateness from occurring. Her acts could make a person the victim of her sexual harassment which could get her in trouble and she may know that. Maybe, if she was not wearing DIESEL jeans, she would not act in an inappropriate way. But, it was her choice to put them on so that she could become courageous and make a statement. So, the point the advertisers are trying to make is that every person has daring traits in their personality, and wearing DIESEL jeans will bring those traits out. The big statement they are making is that youth should go against the standard that society has set for the behavior of our teens and be themselves by doing what they want. It seems though, that teenagers are adopting these messages so well that this kind of behavior is becoming an idea that every teenager should behave in a reckless, careless way; it is becoming an ideal.

There are other ways to interpret this image as well. The girl in this advertisement may not even be trying to make a statement. She could just be acting “stupid” as the advertisers are suggesting to not only her, but their entire audience, which is mainly teenagers and young adults. “Smart may have the brains, but stupid has the balls” is a phrase used often by DIESEL jeans. So, what does it mean? “Stupid has the balls” is a phrase that is popular not only in the American culture, but also in many others, it is just worded differently in every language. This is the beauty of this phrase; it can be understood by nearly everyone, it is a cultural code. “Having the balls” usually means having courage. What the advertisers are suggesting by mentioning this in the image is that stupid people tend to have a lot of courage, sometimes even more than smart people. DIESEL jeans encourage everyone to be stupid, and have courage, like the girl in this advertisement. This advertisement also suggests that wearing these jeans will help a person act stupid and have that kind of courage. But, even without over analyzing this image, it is still evident that the advertisers are challenging the ideals and philosophies of society in this image. For many people, one of the main priorities in life is to be smart; the priority is to go to college or a university, get a degree that will earn a higher status, and actually have knowledge of some sort. DIESEL jeans on the other hand, argue that by encouraging their audience to “be stupid” and almost suggest that the “stupid” have more credibility than the “smart.” Through this statement, they are not only challenging a major philosophy of life, but also an ideal. Intelligence is always respected in society, as it opens up new opportunities for a person. People are expected to be intelligent in society and that is why all students in high school are encouraged to continue on to college or a university. But, according to this advertisement, being stupid will give a person more “balls” and that is all that matters. One of the very interesting things about this advertisement is its design. If this image is interpreted without close analysis, we see a clear simple philosophy: have fun because you are young. Unfortunately, upon analysis, we understand that this statement is not as harmless as it sounds because of the way it is presented in the image. To begin with, the advertisers argue that stupidity is better than intelligence by using words such as “may” and “but” (“Smart may have the brains, but stupid has the balls”). This explicit argument hides many logical fallacies, the first being the fallacy of composition. It is true that an intelligent person has knowledge, but stating that a “stupid” person has courage, especially phrasing it in such a way that implies a “smart” person does not have courage, is completely incorrect. The statement used in the image appeals to the audience in an interesting way because a person may actually assume that the entire statement in the image is correct because the first part of it is. Another logical fallacy used in this argument is questionable analogy. In the image, we see a girl exposing herself voluntarily to a camera; this part of the image is supposed to defend the argument that the “stupid” have courage. Why is that an act of courage? We do not even know if the camera is actually on or not. This analogy is definitely questionable because many people would not agree that unreasonable sexual exposure is an act of courage. As well, the advertisement’s message is difficult to understand. Are the advertisers promising their audience that they will be brave and live the exciting life that the girl in the image looks like she is living if they buy DIESEL jeans or are they simply telling them to “be stupid” and buy their jeans? The advertisers are targeting the insecurities of their young audience as they try to convince the audience that their life should be lived in the same way the girl in the image is living hers. By doing so, the advertisers manipulate the youth into buying DIESEL jeans. What is more interesting about this image is the tactic the advertisers use to persuade their audience into buying DIESEL jeans. To begin with, the writing in the advertisement states “stupid has the balls” which is obviously an ambiguous phrase. Not only can having “balls” be culturally referred to courage, it can also refer to a male’s sexual organs. With that being said, we can infer that the person behind the camera is a male who is attracted to the girl in the image. She has power over him as she is getting his “balls” although he has power over her because she must desire him if she exposes herself to him. We can also infer that the advertisers are promising that with the purchase of their jeans, their customers will become “stupid,” courageous and also get attention from males. The logical fallacy here is implicit, yet very obvious: buying DIESEL jeans will not automatically make males attracted to you. As well, a female does not need attention from males to be strong and courageous; however, the advertisers manipulate their audience into thinking that females do need male attention by showing a beautiful girl who we can assume is getting “balls.” But what is so engrossing about this advertisement is understanding that the advertisers know what they are doing. It is obvious that the creators of this image are not stupid. It seems that the advertisers became “the stupid” in order to sell to the “stupid.” Media portrays the youth as reckless individuals. Bombarded with such images, teenagers believe that that is how they need to act, dress, be. And DIESEL jeans knows that, therefore, they create an advertisement that further targets the insecurities of young individuals which is the greatest source of manipulation. So, it is safe for me to assume that the advertisers know all that is wrong with this image, but they also know what is wrong with society, and their call to stupidity is just another way of making business. This advertisement is very simple yet so thought provoking. It explores everything that is wrong with youth in contemporary society which includes the desire to be reckless, spontaneous, beautiful, and so on. There is nothing wrong with being spontaneous or beautiful, however, after being bombarded by advertisements, the youth of our society accepts lies; so many of us try to be someone we are not. We tell ourselves we have to be like what we see in the media, and then criticize ourselves if naturally, we just are not. And many advertisers know that most of us are insecure so they create images like the DIESEL jeans advertisement. I do not agree with anything in this advertisement, however I enjoy knowing that this image is secretly reflecting the society we live in and even mocking the culture of it. The writing in this image directly tells its audience to “be stupid” because whoever decided to place this phrase into this advertisement knows that the cultural definition of stupidity is beginning to change as many teenagers and even young adults think that it is their duty to be reckless and radical because they are young. The younger people want to rebel without any necessary reason so the advertisers of DIESEL jeans created an image into which they placed a girl who is rebelling against the ideals of society and then literally called her “stupid” for it but then found a way to make the definition of stupid better than the definition of smart. This appeals to the young audience which results in their purchase of these brand name jeans. These advertisers cannot even be blamed for any negative impact they have on society because the people in our society need to deal with their insecurities rather than trying to fulfill them with lies; lies that make us believe we need to be something we are not. To improve these unhealthy characteristics, the people of our society need to stop fearing being a little different. The individuals in our society are encouraged to be original to the point where everyone is trying so hard to be their own that once again results in another group of insecure people. It is time we all forget about what we want to be and create goals that are based on our own desires and not someone else’s.