ABSTRACT
Calvin Klein is at it again, this time with a series of bus and magazine ads showing young teens posed in what look like opening scenes from a porn movie. It is interesting to focus on rule-breaking, rather than the more obvious themes of sex, numbness, and the sensibility of a cheap porno film shot quickly in a motel or basement rec room. But in fact the rule-breaking theme is nearly always more potent in ads today than the sexual themes that draw far more attention. The point is that while everyone is aghast over blatant sex, violent movies, and gangster rap, the ordinary commercial messages of corporate America are probably playing a more subversive role. The drumbeat of rule-breaking slogans has a devastating effect. The commercial culture and the advertising industry are not just at war with traditional values. They are at war too with the possibility that new common values will emerge from the current social chaos.
