Does Marc Jacobs’s “Oh, Lola!” Ad Cross the Line?

Marc Jacobs’s latest perfume ad, which features seventeen-year-old Dakota Fanning reclining above the words “Oh Lola!” with a flower-shaped bottle of perfume sprouting from her crotch, has been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority for being “irresponsible.” Indeed, it’s not the subtlest imagery in the world. Dakota is not as young as some of the girls that have been featured in other provocative ad campaigns lately (including her younger sister Elle, who is thirteen), but the suggestive nature of this photo paired with the heavy-handed association and glorification of the literary character Lolita (after whom the perfume is named), a twelve-year-old girl who engages in a sexual relationship with a middle-aged man who becomes her stepfather, makes this ad particularly uncomfortable. But maybe we’re being too prudish? The firm that holds licensing to the fragrance said the ad was “provoking but not indecent.” What do you think? Does this ad cross the line, or is the controversy overblown? (Via The Gloss)