Balenciaga slammed for ads with children holding 'bondage' teddy bears
WASHINGTON (TND) — Spanish global fashion brand "Balenciaga" is known for its controversial advertisement campaigns and decisions, but a new one that involves children is making some people feel like the company has gone too far.
In an effort to promote new products, Balenciaga staged a photo shoot featuring young children holding teddy bear handbags. The teddy bears were apparently dressed in stereotypical bondage gear, including studded leather straps and fishnet shirts.
This caught the attention of several social media users, including Twitter user @shoe0nhead, who has over half a million followers.
The brand 'Balenciaga' just did a uh..... interesting... photoshoot for their new products recently which included a very purposely poorly hidden court document about 'virtual child porn,'" @shoeonhead said to her followers in a tweet featuring photos from the fashion company's advertisement campaign. "Normal stuff."
@shoeonhead's tweet about Balenciaga's new advertisements has received over 29,000 likes so far, and many of the replies to her tweet call the company's photo shoot "very disturbing."
Twitter itself deemed it necessary to add a "community notes" section to @shoeonhead's tweet. The apparent fact check of the popular Twitter account confirmed a few details.
Although Shoe often makes comments to cause amusement or laughter, this is an authentic Balencia marketing photograph," the community notes read, providing linked evidence.
It contains an except from the US Supreme Court opinion in United States v. Williams, which upheld part of a federal child pornography law," community notes added.
Decided in 2008, United States v. Williams reaffirmed the constitutionality of The Protect ACT, which outlaws sexually explicit images of children even if the content is not perceived by some to be sexually explicit or pornographic.
The PROTECT Act proscribes the pandering of 'any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe' that the material is illegal child pornography," Oyez.org says.
Michael Williams, the defendant in the case, had been convicted of pandering child porn, and was attempting to get the Supreme Court to agree that the PROTECT Act was overly broad.
The Supreme Court disagreed, with Justice Antonin Scalia writing in the majority opinion that the speech of an individual who claims to be in possession of child porn is unprotected speech.
It's unclear why Balenciaga had that specific court case visible in the photo shoot. The National Desk has reached out to the company for comment. If a comment is received, it will be added to this article.
Balenciaga also apparently deleted its Twitter account and removed all of its posts from its Instagram page shortly after the teddy bear advertisements started receiving pushback. While the Twitter page remains offline, the fashion company has started to add new posts to its Instagram account again.
