Maybe Don’t Mention Rape in Your Black Friday Ads
SuperGurl, a clothing company I’d never heard of until now, is suddenly gaining loads of press—for a fairly unsavory and decidedly un-PC reason.
Last Friday (i.e., Black Friday), the brand’s e-commerce site greeted visitors with an image of a young woman with her eyes closed, mouth agape, and arms over her head. Printed beside her was a command that was presumably meant to convince them to spend their money: RAPE US NOW.
Oh… well, um… no thanks!
According to Dazed, it didn’t take very long for Internetters to get irate, accusing SuperGurl of “mak[ing] light of sexual assault” and “viralling to get more traffic" (the latter of which has most certainly been accomplished with each news item written on the subject).
In an attempt to do some damage control, creative director Jordus Lim took to Facebook to issue a long-winded apology in which he blames the site’s graphic designer (as well as himself for apparently trusting said graphic designer) for suggesting that raping anything or anyone is a good idea:
I am writing this to express our sincerest apologies pertaining to our insensitive action and the choice of word – rape during our ‘Black Friday’ sale.
We do not mean for it to be offensive to anyone, and I extend my sincerest apology for the lack of a better word.
As the director of the company, I have failed to review my Graphic Designer’s work before approving the image to be displayed on our site. I hereby acknowledge that we have made a mistake, and that our caption does not advocate the right values to the young women community today.
Having regretted for what we have done, the team at Supergurl will definitely be more careful with what we will put up in future as this is also a lesson learnt for us.
This is an honest mistake that we have made on our side, and we do know that it is indefensible.
We hope that the public will accept our apology for what we have done wrong.
Sincerely,
Jordus Lim
Creative Director
The question that remains is, why would anyone in his or her right mind think that using the word rape in any supposedly positive or enticing context would be OK?
SuperGurl is based in Singapore, and judging by the several glaring grammatical errors in Lim’s statement, it’s possible that English isn’t his or some of his team members’ first language—so that could explain part of it. There’s also the lesser-used definition of rape, which means to “to seize, take, or carry off by force.” So technically, that could apply to snatching up clothing on Black Friday—but it’s mostly used to describe the violent takeover of land or property.
At this point, the harm against SuperGurl’s brand is already done. Let’s just hope that, in the future, other retailers will take its major lapse in judgement as a lesson.
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.
