MAC pledges ALL global Rodarte profits to Juarez initiative

Beauty bloggers unite. You nothing to lose but MAC's shame.

Public pressure in the blogosphere over the gruesomely marketed Rodarte cosmetics range has finally forced MAC to go beyond its original miserly pledge of $100,000 with a promise to donate all profits to an initiative supporting the poor women of the area who have to live practically under siege from serial killers thought to include members of the power elite.

Solidarity with the women and girls of Ciudad Juarez, the factory town in Mexico where hundreds and possibly thousands have been raped and murdered, was not to be bought for the tiny kiss-off of $100K. A large corporation, part of the Estee Lauder group, has been chastened and forced to give up all the profits made from exploiting their deaths as some sort of entertainment for what they must have assumed was a degenerate audience. MAC has had to apologise to Mexico, and Rodarte has dropped the roadkill monikers. In the bizarre grave-robbing exercise of giving names to nail polish and lipsticks associated with the femicide, the company had demonstrated contempt for the wrong people. It has been highly affecting to see an area of interest normally written off as the preserve of airheads as demonstrating higher principles, and achieving more, than much of the Left — in my experience, anyway.

A lesson to be learnt here, methinks.

More at Temptalia. See also Mizz Worthy's update.

How the blogosphere brought MAC to its senses.

Mac Rodarte range of cosmetics themed on Juarez serial killings of women.
Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy

MAC pledges ALL global Rodarte profits to Juarez initiative

Beauty bloggers unite. You nothing to lose but MAC's shame.

Public pressure in the blogosphere over the gruesomely marketed Rodarte cosmetics range has finally forced MAC to go beyond its original miserly pledge of $100,000 with a promise to donate all profits to an initiative supporting the poor women of the area who have to live practically under siege from serial killers thought to include members of the power elite.

Solidarity with the women and girls of Ciudad Juarez, the factory town in Mexico where hundreds and possibly thousands have been raped and murdered, was not to be bought for the tiny kiss-off of $100K. A large corporation, part of the Estee Lauder group, has been chastened and forced to give up all the profits made from exploiting their deaths as some sort of entertainment for what they must have assumed was a degenerate audience. MAC has had to apologise to Mexico, and Rodarte has dropped the roadkill monikers. In the bizarre grave-robbing exercise of giving names to nail polish and lipsticks associated with the femicide, the company had demonstrated contempt for the wrong people. It has been highly affecting to see an area of interest normally written off as the preserve of airheads as demonstrating higher principles, and achieving more, than much of the Left — in my experience, anyway.

A lesson to be learnt here, methinks.

More at Temptalia. See also Mizz Worthy's update.

How the blogosphere brought MAC to its senses.

Mac Rodarte range of cosmetics themed on Juarez serial killings of women.
Rodarte designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy

MAC Rodarte cosmetics themed on Juarez serial killings

Don't say Marx didn't warn us. Further evidence of capitalism eating itself with this latest insane marketing campaign from MAC cosmetics, part of the Estee Lauder group and very popular with young women. Young women like those who have been killed in their hundreds, some say thousands, in the Mexican factory town of Juarez.

And guess what? The smart kids paid to keep their products in the public eye thought (not that much of what I would recognise as thinking went into this) that it would be a cute stunt to theme their new Rodarte range of cosmetics around the femicide centre of the world. It includes lines called Factory, Juarez, Ghost Town and Badlands. (Rodarte? More like Roadkill.)

The Juarez serial killings marked a departure from the thousands of drug-related murders in the area. They are notorious around the globe for the numbers of poor young women killed, the prolonged time-frame with few convictions, and the conclusion that some members of the political elite must have colluded in order for the perpetrators to escape for so long. Teenage girls are STILL disappearing without trace. Exploited day and night in the factory for poverty wages, women factory-workers are then fodder for murdering sickos. And now, we have make-up companies dancing on their graves, bringing us a step nearer the world of Soylent Green and actual cannibalisation.

Not only that, but to celebrate the mass killings of the very people who buy your product? Is that what they teach in business school? Or does the fact that these poor working-class girls earn £3 per day and could never afford MAC make-up render them not human in some way? Is that the message? That in this system, purchasing power alone gives you status as a human being?

All the beauty sites are in an uproar about this, but the political grooming site, Beauty Mouth, carries a particularly powerful piece which you must read.

What in the name of sanity is INSPIRING about the rape, torture, mutilation and murder of over 400 women (official figures from the Mexican Government - the real figure is estimated to be in the thousands by support groups) I DO NOT KNOW. ... My real fury/shock/sheer unbelievability about this range is this: I know how long it takes to bring something to market. And how many people are involved.

Even worse — oh, much worse — than Body Shop's attempt to stem sex trafficking by bringing out a handcream.

Due to the outcry, MAC has now committed to a $100K donation to "a non-profit organization that has a proven, successful track-record helping women in need and that can directly improve the lives of women in Juarez in a meaningful way." It has also felt compelled to change the name of their range, but a rose by any other name would smell as rotten now we have some insight into the mindset and philosophy of this company. I won't be buying anything more of their products — which alone should put them out of business.

Hat tip: MsKitton

UPDATE: An interesting debate at Temptalia

Rodarte is actually two women designers, sisters Laura and Kate Mulleavy, said to have been inspired by lines of women workers on their way to the factory night shift they saw during a holiday around the Mexico/US border. What's a little thrill-seeking misery tourism? Thanks, sistahs.

UPDATE: Thursday 29 July 2010 — MAC pledges ALL global Rodarte profits to Juarez women initiative.

MAC Rodarte cosmetics themed on Juarez serial killings

Don't say Marx didn't warn us. Further evidence of capitalism eating itself with this latest insane marketing campaign from MAC cosmetics, part of the Estee Lauder group and very popular with young women. Young women like those who have been killed in their hundreds, some say thousands, in the Mexican factory town of Juarez.

And guess what? The smart kids paid to keep their products in the public eye thought (not that much of what I would recognise as thinking went into this) that it would be a cute stunt to theme their new Rodarte range of cosmetics around the femicide centre of the world. It includes lines called Factory, Juarez, Ghost Town and Badlands. (Rodarte? More like Roadkill.)

The Juarez serial killings marked a departure from the thousands of drug-related murders in the area. They are notorious around the globe for the numbers of poor young women killed, the prolonged time-frame with few convictions, and the conclusion that some members of the political elite must have colluded in order for the perpetrators to escape for so long. Teenage girls are STILL disappearing without trace. Exploited day and night in the factory for poverty wages, women factory-workers are then fodder for murdering sickos. And now, we have make-up companies dancing on their graves, bringing us a step nearer the world of Soylent Green and actual cannibalisation.

Not only that, but to celebrate the mass killings of the very people who buy your product? Is that what they teach in business school? Or does the fact that these poor working-class girls earn £3 per day and could never afford MAC make-up render them not human in some way? Is that the message? That in this system, purchasing power alone gives you status as a human being?

All the beauty sites are in an uproar about this, but the political grooming site, Beauty Mouth, carries a particularly powerful piece which you must read.

What in the name of sanity is INSPIRING about the rape, torture, mutilation and murder of over 400 women (official figures from the Mexican Government - the real figure is estimated to be in the thousands by support groups) I DO NOT KNOW. ... My real fury/shock/sheer unbelievability about this range is this: I know how long it takes to bring something to market. And how many people are involved.

Even worse — oh, much worse — than Body Shop's attempt to stem sex trafficking by bringing out a handcream.

Due to the outcry, MAC has now committed to a $100K donation to "a non-profit organization that has a proven, successful track-record helping women in need and that can directly improve the lives of women in Juarez in a meaningful way." It has also felt compelled to change the name of their range, but a rose by any other name would smell as rotten now we have some insight into the mindset and philosophy of this company. I won't be buying anything more of their products — which alone should put them out of business.

Hat tip: MsKitton

UPDATE: An interesting debate at Temptalia

Rodarte is actually two women designers, sisters Laura and Kate Mulleavy, said to have been inspired by lines of women workers on their way to the factory night shift they saw during a holiday around the Mexico/US border. What's a little thrill-seeking misery tourism? Thanks, sistahs.

UPDATE: Thursday 29 July 2010 — MAC pledges ALL global Rodarte profits to Juarez women initiative.

Apple tech hell: please standardise the kit, Steve Jobs!

I am currently in the Circle of Hell reserved for Powerpoint greenhorns trying to get presentations up and running for the first time.

With a performance of Anna May Wong Must Die! promised for next Tuesday, and with time running out, I discover that I am encountering every technical glitch it is possible to meet. It is as if some malign Screenwriter in the Sky has been on Robert McKee's Story course and is now chucking every obstacle at me he can think of in the hope that it will build my character/gimme a catharsis/make me a better person/teach me a Big Secret of Life, or somesuch. Actually, all it's doing is turning me homicidal but he knows that coz he's omniscient and omnipotent. Charlie Kaufman has taken over my universe and is having a right laugh.

I thought my problems at the St Ives preview were due purely to lack of cable connection from my Mac iBook to the projector. So I dutifully trot along to the Brent Cross Apple Store and ask for one.

Such a simple request. Who'd have known the horrors about to be unleashed ...

"Ooh no," says the handsome six-foot hunk in the orange T-shirt. "We can't do that. Too antiquated." But he kindly looks it up, writes down what I need for an iBook — a mini-VGA-to-VGA adaptor — and tells me to find it on eBay or maybe purchase it from the Apple Store on the net if I'm lucky, coz they stock no such outmoded equipment up Hendon way. (My laptop is only a couple of weeks past its third birthday, btw.)

Next up, I show him the Apple remote that's been mouldering in a drawer and ask him if it's a remote for my iBook or the iPod. He confirms it's for the computer. So why isn't it working with my computer? Do I need a new battery? He flashes it at one of their machines which miraculously switches screen. He assures me it's working but that maybe if I get the battery changed at Timpson's up the other end of the Mall, it'll work on mine.

The man at Timpson's tests the battery. It's on full charge. Not surprising as it's never been used. So why, I whimper back at the Apple Store, won't it work with my flashy new Mac iBook Powerpoint 2008 programme (£80 online)? Maybe, opines The Hunk, it's not compatible with Powerpoint 2008, only with Apple's own Keynote application, part of the iWorks package. Desperate to look as slick as a beach once Exxon has got through with it, I buy iWorks at £85 for the family pack.

I return home and order the mini-VGA-to-VGA adaptor (£17.50 including postage) for the iBook. Ain't no way I'm gonna get caught out again by tech gremlins

Next, I decide to kit up Loved One's MacBook which requires, I discover through much Googling, a VGA-to-DVI adaptor in order to work with an external projector. I order one toot sweet. Another £17.50 goes south.

Then, being a sensible sort of a gal, I book an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar. The heroic Marc (blue T-shirt) breaks the bad news that they had the mini-VGA-to-VGA adaptor in store all along (£15). And I learn that the stray remote must belong to the MacBook, not my iBook.

So the Hunk in the orange T-shirt hadn't worked out it wasn't working because the iBook doesn't work with remote control?

And it's quite unlikely that I'll find the USB Infra Red Receiver I need to turn my laptop into the cool state of the art wizardry my beloved project deserves. Indeed, Apple sells no such thing. Neither does Amazon UK. For one giddy moment it looks like Amazon US has one for fifty bucks, but it's an illusion — they're out of stock, no doubt due to the technology being wreathed in cobwebs.

And so I leave another £15 lighter and no closer to operating my show from all corners of the stage like a Powerpoint Nijinsky. But Marc does replace the two missing rubber feet off the bottom of my laptop so it will no longer slip all over the glass coffee table, much as I'd envisaged me tripping lightly over the venue, clicking away, making magic happen on the screen above me.

Instead, I will be nailed to the spot, moving through the slides, music and films with as deft a press of the space-bar as I can muster. But it will look fab and I look forward to seeing some of my lovely readers at the Roxy Anna May Wong Must Die! extravaganza on Tuesday for theatre, film, food and Akashi Sake cocktails.

Facebook details here.

Apple tech hell: please standardise the kit, Steve Jobs!

I am currently in the Circle of Hell reserved for Powerpoint greenhorns trying to get presentations up and running for the first time.

With a performance of Anna May Wong Must Die! promised for next Tuesday, and with time running out, I discover that I am encountering every technical glitch it is possible to meet. It is as if some malign Screenwriter in the Sky has been on Robert McKee's Story course and is now chucking every obstacle at me he can think of in the hope that it will build my character/gimme a catharsis/make me a better person/teach me a Big Secret of Life, or somesuch. Actually, all it's doing is turning me homicidal but he knows that coz he's omniscient and omnipotent. Charlie Kaufman has taken over my universe and is having a right laugh.

I thought my problems at the St Ives preview were due purely to lack of cable connection from my Mac iBook to the projector. So I dutifully trot along to the Brent Cross Apple Store and ask for one.

Such a simple request. Who'd have known the horrors about to be unleashed ...

"Ooh no," says the handsome six-foot hunk in the orange T-shirt. "We can't do that. Too antiquated." But he kindly looks it up, writes down what I need for an iBook — a mini-VGA-to-VGA adaptor — and tells me to find it on eBay or maybe purchase it from the Apple Store on the net if I'm lucky, coz they stock no such outmoded equipment up Hendon way. (My laptop is only a couple of weeks past its third birthday, btw.)

Next up, I show him the Apple remote that's been mouldering in a drawer and ask him if it's a remote for my iBook or the iPod. He confirms it's for the computer. So why isn't it working with my computer? Do I need a new battery? He flashes it at one of their machines which miraculously switches screen. He assures me it's working but that maybe if I get the battery changed at Timpson's up the other end of the Mall, it'll work on mine.

The man at Timpson's tests the battery. It's on full charge. Not surprising as it's never been used. So why, I whimper back at the Apple Store, won't it work with my flashy new Mac iBook Powerpoint 2008 programme (£80 online)? Maybe, opines The Hunk, it's not compatible with Powerpoint 2008, only with Apple's own Keynote application, part of the iWorks package. Desperate to look as slick as a beach once Exxon has got through with it, I buy iWorks at £85 for the family pack.

I return home and order the mini-VGA-to-VGA adaptor (£17.50 including postage) for the iBook. Ain't no way I'm gonna get caught out again by tech gremlins

Next, I decide to kit up Loved One's MacBook which requires, I discover through much Googling, a VGA-to-DVI adaptor in order to work with an external projector. I order one toot sweet. Another £17.50 goes south.

Then, being a sensible sort of a gal, I book an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar. The heroic Marc (blue T-shirt) breaks the bad news that they had the mini-VGA-to-VGA adaptor in store all along (£15). And I learn that the stray remote must belong to the MacBook, not my iBook.

So the Hunk in the orange T-shirt hadn't worked out it wasn't working because the iBook doesn't work with remote control?

And it's quite unlikely that I'll find the USB Infra Red Receiver I need to turn my laptop into the cool state of the art wizardry my beloved project deserves. Indeed, Apple sells no such thing. Neither does Amazon UK. For one giddy moment it looks like Amazon US has one for fifty bucks, but it's an illusion — they're out of stock, no doubt due to the technology being wreathed in cobwebs.

And so I leave another £15 lighter and no closer to operating my show from all corners of the stage like a Powerpoint Nijinsky. But Marc does replace the two missing rubber feet off the bottom of my laptop so it will no longer slip all over the glass coffee table, much as I'd envisaged me tripping lightly over the venue, clicking away, making magic happen on the screen above me.

Instead, I will be nailed to the spot, moving through the slides, music and films with as deft a press of the space-bar as I can muster. But it will look fab and I look forward to seeing some of my lovely readers at the Roxy Anna May Wong Must Die! extravaganza on Tuesday for theatre, film, food and Akashi Sake cocktails.

Facebook details here.