Jennifer Berger on About Face and American Apparel

Recently I sat down with Jennifer Berger, the executive director of About Face, a media literacy organization, helping girls and women resist harmful media messages. They currently have a campaign against American Apparel's advertising.

I recently sat down with Jennifer Berger, the executive director of About Face.

We talked about her organization and a current campaign they have against

American Apparel.

About Face equips women and girls with the tools they need to understand and also

resist harmful media messages that affect their self esteem and their body image.

I got involved with About Face back in 1997 which was a year before I graduated from

college. And I read about About Face in Bitch Magazine. They were doing an action,

Kathy Bruin, the founder had like put up all these posters everywhere

of Kate Moss reclining and it said "Emaciation Stinks" instead of Obsession.

And I knew at that moment that I had to be involved in one way or another.

So the problem we have with American Apparel's advertising is that it continually

objectifies and exploits the female body for the sake of selling a product.

It may glorify the female body one could say, one could argue in terms of showing

how beautiful it really is, however the pornographic use of the female body

in this case in order to sell the product essentially commodifies the body.

And that also takes away women's agency. It takes away any thought that this could

be a full and complete person and turns her into a set of body parts that are sexualized.

It turns her, it essentially takes her worth and makes it about her sexual self as opposed to

any other parts of her self that may also be wonderful.

And so, our main problem is that, is all of that advertising, however the CEO of the

company is, CEO president named Dov Charney is sort of a notorious slim bag.