This image of Carl Lewis by Annie Liebovitz was shot for a Pirelli ad campaign conceived by London ad agency Young & Rubicon and aired in the 1990s.
I love this because not only is it brilliant advertising, it uses a strong visual and has a great line, written by Ewan Paterson, that encapsulates everything you would want a tyre to do, ie give you control yet it also works as a gag at the expense of Lewis.
The ad relies on the on disrupting the gaze via the mechanism of the stiletto heels removing the ability of Carl Lewis to transmit his famed running power to the track to gain traction. Despite the shoes rendering Lewis’s power impotent he isnt a figure of ridicule, he’s still powerful in his stance and gaze to camera. He could have been shown with a whimsical look but maintaining his ‘brand’ would be important to him and also important to the ad because its only the shoes (bad tyres) that are preventing his usual performance, even on the wet track.
Establishing whose gaze this image ‘should’ appeal to or be directed at is interesting, the shoes render Lewis as a figure of fun used in this context, in another context, say in an image being worn by a glamorous woman the shoes could be seen as sexy and decadent. Here theyre hopelessly suited to the task. The colour choice of red is interesting.
Red means different things to different cultures, in China it represents good luck and prosperity, in American culture, red often means sex & passion, along with red roses, red lipstick, red lingerie even the “red-light district.”
So if red is being associated with sex here then does Lewis look sexy? Maybe, again it depends who is looking. So this ad relies heavily on a gendered gaze but subverts it to highlight the proposition.