This 20 second clothing ad, called “Freedom is Basic,” shows us a young Israeli model, Bar Rafaeli, ripping off a niqab she is wearing to showcase her sporty attire underneath (Merrett, 2018). The ad is to promote “freedom,” but instead amplifies stereotypes, islamophobia, and stigma. The ad attempts to make us believe that women wearing the niqab are oppressed and denied freedom. They state that the only way to be “free” is to remove it.

The ad tries to push these ideas in several ways. For example, in the beginning of the ad, while the model is wearing the niqab she is not moving – they make the mood grim, with no music, no colours, and display captions such as “Iran is here” (Newbould, 2018). Once the model takes off her niqab the mood changes drastically. For example, upbeat music, with lyrics such as, ‘“It’s all about freedom, finally breaking the chains, the cost of my freedom,”’ starts to play, while the model seemingly dances for joy, while flipping her hair (Merrett, 2018). This suggests she is “free” once she took off the niqab. The song lyrics are very problematic. For example, the lyrics compare the niqab to chains, which insinuates that wearing the niqab is equitable to being in prison, trapped or confined.

I chose this ad because I remember seeing it in the media after the model first posted it on her social media. People where reposting it everywhere, with captions such as “ignorant and racist” and “my idea of freedom is wearing a hijab and if I want to wear a niqab I will” (@fancydaisiesx and @demodestcoverup as cited in Merrett, 2018). This ad has sparked a lot of backlash and with good reason. The ad is contributing to the negative stereotypes people believe about the Middle East and wearing niqabs, hijabs or other veils. This ad just solidifies people’s conception of the niqab being the symbol of oppression. I will be addressing these problems with my jamming.

When researching for this assignment I saw many different billboards, advertisements and campaigns depicting troubling issues, but this video, which I viewed before, appeared again, and although not an image it stuck out more than the rest and I knew I wanted to analysis and jam it.