Consider this the (possibly) final chapter of the t-shirt trilogy that started here and then continued on here. For a start, I should probably preface this rant by saying that I actually like Uniqlo, and own a garment or two of theirs. Their clothes are reasonably well-made and surprisingly affordable. But...
There's an ad campaign for Uniqlo that is currently plastered all over the East Village these days featuring a blinding montage of images. Dubbing their 2009 t-shirt collection "UT MEGA CULTURE" (whatever that might mean), the clothes on offer display a dizzyingly colorful array of designs that largely cater to the store's retrophillic hipster demographic. That's fine and all, but there are two images on the ad that really bug me for some reason. Firstly, I think we can all agree that the gent pictured above in the "Kill Your Television" t-shirt is in strenuous need of a rigorous beatdown. This has little to do with the t-shirt (a Ned's Atomic Dustbin allusion?), but more just because he's clearly asking for it. My bigger issue, however, lies with the image below; a black t-shirt featuring the Black Flag bars. Inside the bars is a pastiche of images from the Japanese animated series from the mid-70s, "Battle of the Planets."
I can't quite say why this bothers me. Is it because, hey -- I'm an old poop and was a slavish fan of both Black Flag and "Battle of the Planets" (I can easily rattle off the names and key characteristics of each member of G-Force if you're not entirely convinced of the latter)? Do I bristle at the seemingly blithe appropriation of Raymond Pettibon's iconic design for the Black Flag logo (and, for that matter, is Pettibon, Greg Ginn or SST Records getting a financial slice for the usage?) I suppose it's technically no different from Shepard Fairey using various images from Punk Rock in his ongoing campaign of Obey Giant street art, but I know for a fact that in Fairey's case, he utilizes those visual elements with profound respect for the artists and the music they represent. More to the first point, I'm probably more bothered by my own presumption that the malnourished whippersnapper wearing the t-shirt in question probably hasn't the first clue about either Black Flag or "Battle of the Planets." I'm not sure why that should matter, let alone bother me so much. But it does.
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