In my sociology class we watched a commercial on how toys for children are advertised in specific ways for boys and girls. Even commercials tended to sexualize young girls so this ad isn't surprising or new.
I think you can learn a lot about media in general by looking at ads like these. Reality is very distorted.
One possible perspective on this ad could be that little girls often idealize their mothers as role models and want to look and behave like them. In real life this is probably the reason girls try to wear dresses like their mothers and high heeled shoes.
However many times people get the idea that little girls are mature beyond their years and want things that older women seek (such as sex).
In general I think it all depends on how you look at the ad. A little girl looking at this ad may see another girl trying to look pretty like her mom. On the otherhand a teenage girl or a young adult woman may look at this ad and see a little girl trying to look appealing to men.

you also forgot to point out that the girl is blonde, too. Blondes are apparently more beautiful than redheads or brunettes. duhhhhh.

seriously as a dark skinned Indian child growing up in England in the 1980s I felt so ugly and rejected because we were constantly bombarded with images of blondes and white girls who were said to be BEAUTIFUL. My only solace was old Indian films where there were beautiful, dark Indian women clad in sari's and bangles.

And she's still having her show-stealing moment in the kitchen. Won't those Louboutin shoes look lovely with your apron someday, darling?

Interesting image of her mother, blurred out in the background. White dress, blonde hair.

The fact that those are Louboutins also indicates some class assumptions. Those are not shoes that are accessible to the vast majority of people - even in my family, which is middle to upper middle class (and my parents are currently in the middle of a kitchen remodel) we never spent much more then $50 on a pair of shoes. And $50 was expensive...

Is the mom blurred in the background naked in the shower? Does "stealing the show" mean we should want to see the naked woman but instead we gaze on the girl?

Thanks for sharing this with your readers. I never would have known about the red-soled shoes.

This commentary is not entirely wrong, especially when it compares the white child in the ad to an hypothetical black one.

Nevertheless, I don't see a difference between a little girl trying on her mother's high heels, a symbol of adult womanhood if ever there was one, and her trying on her mother's pearls or make-up, something about which no one would bat an eye. Additionally, sorry to say, but this kind of experimentation--yes, experimentation that involves sexualizing oneself--has to be normal. Whether we like it or not, sex is no longer the mystery it once was, and children growing up today know more about it than previous generations of children would have. Even so, however, I'm not sure a little girl in this situation would see high heels as a symbol of sexualization so much as one of adulthood. I think the treatment of this ad is a bit too harsh, though it most certainly is deserving of criticism.

That the shoes she's trying on are louboutins, however, does seem a bit over the top to me.

Of course, we also have an egregious grammar goof. "Who" cannot be the subject of a statement.

Oh man, too semiotic for me to digest. I dislike this posts that are based on highly elaborated subjective intepretations that also end up showing some biases of the one making the observations in the first place. Let your feet touch the ground instead of building castles in the air.

Interesting post. I find the advertisement very disturbing because the image of the child is too "sexy" in my opinion. But, I have to defend Louboutin as an artist and designer. His expensive shoes may in many ways indicate richness and the ability to afford them but...I am a black college student, artist, have a work study job and I am middle class and in an ivy league school only due to financial aid and I have a pair of Louboutins because I love his shoes. And when it comes to good heels, you really do get what you pay for. I know that designer labels have the ability to charge ridiculous amounts of money simply because of the social aura surrounding them but it was a splurge for a designer that i respect.

Great analysis. thanks for the post

Look up the 'PURE DKNY' perfume ads for the best example of an all white, all blonde, all wearing white family being used to sell 'purity.' Eeeeew.

At work, so can't youtube it, but saw it on the tv and was a bit shocked.

- Jenni, UK

Lisa,

I can personally attest to the accuracy of your analysis. I worked for this very company for about a year. You've not only perfectly captured the overtly sexual, misogynistic, racist and classist undertones of this particular ad, but you've described the corporate culture with startling accuracy — or at least the culture that I experienced in the corporate offices where the marketing department operated. I didn't have anything to do with this particular campaign, but what I can testify to is that the hangups you describe go far deeper than just this advertisement, in my opinion.

Some of the things you point out in your analysis were intentional. Specifically the overt desire for their product to appear "premium", the innocence of the child in white, and the photo manipulation of the shoes to appear to be Louboutin. All of that was on purpose. The rest is unintentional but endemic to the company culture and persisted into this piece because no one in six strata of management saw anything wrong with it. They didn't notice, in my estimation, because the misogyny, racism and deeper classism reflected in this ad are such an everyday part of the culture that they'd sooner notice the blinking of their own eyes.

The sexualization of the little girl wasn't intentional, but it didn't raise any red flags because of how, in my observation, the women of the office were passively sexualized by the corporate culture at nearly every level. The overwhelming majority of women employed in the marketing department were very attractive and, in my opinion, were hired at least in part because of it. It was often even joked about. There's a creepy, paternal sexual tension that pervaded that office full of beautiful women — none of whom in my observation, sadly, were actually empowered to make any real decisions without paternal oversight. It's a level of misogyny so deeply rooted that it, like many of the company's other disfunctions, had become the water all the fish swam in, the women included. It's a culture unashamedly obsessed with outward appearance. Your work attire mattered far more than your contributions to the company every time. It was a running joke with no punchline.

The racism aspect is a bit more insidious. I attended the company's national sales retreat in 2009 where the entire sales workforce came to town for two days of meetings. At one point, the owner and CEO began introducing the company management from the top down for the benefit of new employees. A few strata in and it struck me that there was not a single woman in the top three or four levels of management. That gave me pause to look around the room of 350+ people. In the entirety of our professional workforce, a little less than half were women. But more surprisingly, there was only one non-white person in the entire room — an attractive asian american woman from one of our west coast districts. The longer I was employed with the company, the more obvious it became. From "good lo' boy" lunch room jokes about both race and sexual orientation, to the complete lack of diversity practices. We didn't even try to fake it in our marketing photography, as you can see in this ad. The little girl in the ad is actually a company kid, which would at first seem an easy excuse as to why there isn't any diversity shown in the ad. But that falls through instantly as there are not, in fact, any non-white company kids to be had. It's precisely the kind of racism that fails to realize, let alone acknowledge, the racist nature of the "color blindness" of which they are even proud. If pushed, management would argue that they treat all people the same, regardless of color — failing to realize that this is precisely what makes them racist.

What you describe in your analysis of this ad is a large part of why I left the company. Had the economic climate been more favorable, I would have made my exit much sooner than I did. Regardless, I'm thankful now to be away from that environment, and thankful to you for calling them out independently on the horror of their value system. Let me say that most of the folks I worked with were very pleasant, even kind people, but the company culture there is a monstrous thing and this ad but scratches the oily surface.

Well...

I wore my mom's shoes when I was little. It made me feel important because, hell, they were my mom's!!! It's a natural process of identification with your mother. There is nothing perverse about that.
I think sometimes we can read a little too much between lines. For me, this ad is more about a little girl wanting to be like mommy (yes, mommy is a "privileged" blond woman who excludes the rest of us D:), than about over-sexualizing a girl because of shoes. I suppose sometimes interpretations say a lot more about us than about the subject we are analyzing.

Also, I love black shoes with red soles.

I know this is an old post... but quietly disturbing... I'm a creative director in a ad agency in Sao Paulo - Brasil... And sometimes at the creation dpt we just choose the image because it's beautiful to our eyes and because it fits in the concept. The girl seems kind a sexy in the ad but that's an image I would ask for my art director to choose if my concept would asking me first for a little blond girl with her sweet foot inside a louboutin shoes... which, in my opinion, it was a bad and unclear concept in first place. and for sure this never would came out of my work team. But I'm more than secure to ensure you that the creative double guys never got these deep sociological purposes or studied it in any level... The pic was choosen cause the girl were cute... and that's it.

Still relevant five years later. This is an example of the sort of "free" child porn that pedos enjoy -- no going to the deep web for any of that, no dangerous downloads. Just so-called norms that support the sexualization of children for profit.

I think this ad image does exactly what it intended to do: all things being white,including the little girl's dress and hair, that together with the white counter top, represents purity, though without offence to darker-skinned people! The girl may well wish to be wanting to be sexy and appealing to older men,knowing that wearing these expensive, desired,sexy heels will empower her to attract fellas!Also,attract white counter-topped customers......

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