"Chick Walker": Woman as a Cultural Object
Jennifer Delfino

Steve Madden, a low-end designer shoe company that appeals to adolescent girls and young women, launched an ad campaign called "Chick Walker"[1] towards the turn of the twenty-first century. These ads (http://www.indiana.edu/~comp/w131aids/images/stevemadden: 2003, http://www.adaholic.com/AdDetail.asp?Id=296: 2003) feature young white females with distorted features: the models have disproportionately large heads and feet (shoed in Steve Madden's then new line) and small, thin, malleable bodies. Their clothing is tight and revealing, thus effectively sexualizing them. They exist in a setting that blends together the absurd and the ordinary. The subjects engage in everyday activities, such as walking a pet, talking on the telephone, or washing a car, yet the hazy background and contextual elements of the ad--the subjects' proportions, the pet chick, the girl washing a car in nice clothing, and the girl running frantically down the airport runway--juxtapose this realism, creating a frame that combines fantasy and reality.

This construction of a highly sexualized, ridiculously thin and vulnerable young white woman (evident from the large head and small, elastic proportions) must be seen as obviously unreal by the viewer. However the ad encourages the target audience to also see these young women as real images by placing them in semi-plausible contexts. It suggests that Steve Madden shoes give the wearer an ideal, fantastical quality in everyday situations, empowering young women to act and look as they please. However the Steve Madden "Chick Walker" ad campaign constructed an image with sexist and racist undertones: all of the models are young, thin, malleable white women who suggest vulnerability and availability in their sexualized poses, facial expressions, and dress. Seen mostly in many of the magazines bought by adolescent girls, circulated more than once, and lasting for at least two years, this ad campaign has the power to suggest valuation and desirability to the public, informing and shaping its notions of gender, race, and sexuality. The public may evaluate everyday experiences in terms of the hierarchy of gender, race, and sexuality that is suggested by the dominant presence of the young, thin, sexually available white woman in the "Chick Walker" campaign, as consumer culture ascribes a great deal of power to ads and images. I argue that although the ad campaign is meant to suggest empowerment and creativity of appearance to young women in association with Steve Madden shoes in the obvious, fantastical constructionism of the ad, it in fact confines the viewer's interpretation to the idealization of a racist and sexualized image.

Shoot Magazine evaluated the success of the "Chick Walker" ad campaign, interviewing the agency art director and the photographer of the models. The writer states that "Their oversized heads, small torsos and oddly proportioned limbs created a unique personality for the Steve Madden brand of shoes" (Shoot Magazine: March 2, 2001). He then quoted the ad agency art director as stating, " 'We were trying to do something that was very distinct so that when you first saw it, you knew in an instant it was Steve Madden" (ibid.). The photographer attests to the unreal and absurd quality of these ads in the same article, saying, " 'We [came to think] it'd be cool to make it look odd and weird.... They're exaggerated people, so their walks and movements should be exaggerated'" (ibid.). Thus the agency art director and the photographer attest to the intended exaggeration of the models' bodies, asserting that this would emphasize the originality and creativity of Steve Madden shoes and presumably in doing so, attract consumers.

In spite of the attempt to encourage originality and creativity, this series of ads constrains the viewer's interpretation in such a way as to perpetuate sexism and racism. All of the models are young white women in sexually suggestive poses and dress, suggesting a vulnerability and availability that construes these women as sexual objects. That the models appear to be more like dolls than people, whose elastic and thin bodies can be easily molded and shaped, also construes them as disempowered objects rather than creative subjects who choose to wear a "cool" brand of shoes. The young women in these ads are the product of an image-conscious culture, in which the thin white woman in sexually suggestive clothing and postures is placed at the top of a gendered and racial hierarchy through magazines and other media.[2]

This ad campaign is empowered to influence the viewer in its success and in its representation in magazines that are popular with adolescent girls and young women. The media, as one of the central forums for communicating social and cultural trends and values in Western consumer culture, shapes and informs the public to an astounding degree. The "Chick Walker" ad campaign thus reproduces a gendered and racial hierarchy in which the young, thin, white woman as a sexual object is constructed as the ideal identity to which to aspire.

Citations and Bibliography

Books

Jhally, Sut. "Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture." Dines, Gail and Humez, Jean M. Gender, Race, and Class in Media. London: Sage, 1995.

Magazines

Armstrong, Matthew. " 'Chick Walker' Moves From Print to Screen." Shoot Magazine: March 2, 2001.

Websites

www.adaholic.com

www.indiana.edu/~comp/w131aids/images



[1] This term implies a sexist double-entendre that I will not give mention to in the body of the paper. However I feel it must be pointed to as a term that connotes a sexist meaning, perpetuating the labeling women as helpless, sexual objects. It is not one that can merely be understood as referring to one of the literal images in the ad campaign.

[2] This need not be qualified, as any "fashion" or "lifestyle" magazine with a largely female readership clearly shows these trends.