Yesterday word spread through the blogosphere about so-called “artsy” T-Shirts being sold at a high-end men’s clothing boutique in Australia – Roger David. The T-Shirts (see above) depict women in positions that suggest, and not subtly, violence – gagging and bondage. After being thoroughly outraged that these T-Shirts were considered fashion, we did our due diligence and discovered that the T-Shirts are the product of Blood is the New Black, an LA based company that marries artwork by talented artists to T-Shirts and then sells those T-Shirts to very high-end stores. So..artwork becomes fashion becomes commerce. Now..a photograph of a woman with a gag around her mouth with the word “Hollywood” printed on it hanging in an art gallery would evoke thoughts of censorship of women in the industry, possibly; however, on a T-Shirt, made for and worn by men, it evokes feelings of exploitation and make us very uncomfortable. We are not in favor of censoring artists. We are in favor of responsible messaging – whether on TV, online, on your cell phone or on your T-Shirt. We are sending a letter to Roger David as well as Blood is the New Black about our concerns and a call to action because we are Actionists®. We are also going to see if anyone from either company will speak to us on camera – if they do, we’ll shoot it and air it here. And that is how we do things!
