Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 9, 1995 TAG: 9509110099
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICK HAMPSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
\ The FBI is investigating whether critics of Calvin Klein's latest hot-blooded ad campaign for jeans were on to something when they branded it kiddie porn.
The TV and print ads, some showing young people striking suggestive poses in little more than underwear, were dropped under pressure from the public and the retail industry Aug. 28 after running less than two months.
That seemed to lay the matter to rest. But Friday, Justice Department spokesman Carl Stern said the agency began investigating shortly after the campaign started to see whether the ads had broken child pornography laws.
At least one model, whose mother liked the ads, was a minor.
John Russell, spokesman for the Justice Department's criminal division, said the probe is in ``very preliminary stages'' and the FBI hasn't even questioned Calvin Klein officials.
A Klein spokesman said only: ``We are confident that we have not violated any laws.''
Klein has long been known for risque advertisements, such as a 1980 spot featuring a 15-year-old Brooke Shields cooing, ``Nothing comes between me and my Calvins.''
In an interview appearing in next week's New York magazine, Klein said, ``We're not trying to shock, and we're not trying to create controversy'' with the latest campaign.
He said his ads ``convey a strong image about the product. ... If you're talking about underwear, I create the underwear to make people look sexy.''
The latest ads were shot by Steven Meisel, who also took the photographs for Madonna's explicit book ``Sex.'' One ad showed a youth dressed only in a denim vest and underwear. Another showed a young woman in a short skirt with her legs spread and the crotch of her white panties showing.
On a TV commercial, a young man is asked by an older, unseen man, ``You think you could rip that shirt off of you?'' After he does so, the older man says, ``That's a nice body. ... Do you work out?''
Federal law prohibits ``lascivious exhibitions of the genitals or pubic area of a minor,'' according to Patrick Trueman, a former head of the Justice Department's child pornography and exploitation division, who now works for the conservative American Family Association. He wrote his former colleagues last week to urge them to investigate.
One federal appeals court has ruled that the law may be broken even if a child is clothed. But several defense attorneys said the government would not have a strong case.
``The government is bowing to political pressure and misusing the child pornography laws,'' said Norman Siegel of the New York Civil Liberties Union. ``There is no evidence that the models were sexually abused, and the ads, whatever you think of them, don't descend to obscene.''
Noach Dear, a New York City councilman who wants to ban sexually explicit advertising from buses and subways, thought otherwise.
``There is no difference between pedophiles-pornographers ... and advertisers like Calvin. Both are peddling porn, and both should be subject and held to the same laws,'' he said.
Genevieve Waite, whose 15-year-old daughter, Bijou Phillips, appears in one ad in a tight tank top and jeans, leaning against a ladder, enthusiastically supported the campaign.
She told the Daily News that she and Bijou's father, pop star John Phillips, founder of The Mamas and The Papas, saw the photos before they were published and ``were all just so proud of her and thrilled.''
by CNB