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There’s nothing Rihanna won’t do these days—except, of course, release new music. As such, for her latest foray into the world of high fashion (including an on-again, off-again partnership with LVMH for Fenty), she’s opted to let Christian Dior use her 2016 track from ANTI, “Love on the Brain.” Specifically, in the new ad campaign that has officially let the world know that Charlize Theron is no longer looking as much like her long-standing print ads for the J’Adore fragrance as she used to (though that hasn’t stopped Dior from letting Johnny Depp continue to be the face for Sauvage). And no, it certainly doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the brand has decided it’s time for a “fresher” face (though Gen Z wouldn’t call anyone who’s thirty-six all that fresh) just as Theron has entered the last year of her forties (having turned forty-nine in August of this year).
Because, unfortunately, it’s already been deemed “generous” enough that women have been “permitted” to keep “feigning” youth in their forties of late—but to “let” them continue to do it in their fifties would be too much for most (read: the patriarchal powers that be). Naturally, many would argue that Theron has been the face of J’Adore (which first launched in 1999) for the last twenty years, therefore it’s perfectly acceptable to pass the torch to someone else. And yet, the shift to “younger model” Rihanna still feels somewhat icky, like Nina Sayers taking over Beth MacIntyre’s lead in Black Swan. Even so, Rihanna is game enough to take up the mantle, paying homage to one of the original ads by reappearing against the backdrop of Versailles (still the height of French opulence) for what is sure to be the first of many commercials in promotion of its L’Or Essence de Parfum and others that might come up along the way. Particularly if Rihanna is planning to stick around for as long as Theron did (though they likely wouldn’t allow her to since she’ll be over fifty in the next twenty years—an unfathomable thought indeed).
Incidentally, when Theron became the first celebrity face of the parfum, John Galliano was still Dior’s artistic director, having not yet gone off the rails with his antisemitic rant in 2010, which soon got him fired from Dior in 2011. When Theron was announced as the parfum’s “ambassador” in 2004, it was also said by then CEO and president of LVMH Perfume & Cosmetics, Pamela Baxter, “Ms. Theron was chosen because she represents modern femininity and embodies the spirit and energy of Dior. She is a classic beauty.” Rihanna, then, seems to signal an about-face for what the perfume “means” and who it’s catering to. Because, although beautiful, Rihanna is not conventionally so. Indeed, Steven Klein, the director of the commercial (being billed as “J’ADORE, THE FILM”—despite having a one-minute length) remarked upon “Rihanna’s incredibly contemporary beauty” as opposed to her “classic” kind. And, to be sure, the euphemism here seems to be that—gasp!—Rihanna is Black. A “quality” that high fashion houses have only recently “gotten around to” considering and including, with Rihanna’s partnership mimicking how Coco Mademoiselle tapped Whitney Peak to be their parfum’s face after years of the likes of Kate Moss and Keira Knightley in spokesperson roles. The sudden revelation of being in the twenty-first century, wherein “white girl beauty” is no longer the ideal, also seems pointedly timed for a moment when the world is braced for the U.S. to welcome not only its first female president but its first Black and Indian president.
So it is that the tonal shift in terms of the “catch phrase” said at the end of Theron’s versus Rihanna’s commercial is also marked. While Theron opts to strip away her glamorous trappings (namely, all her jewelry pieces and her dress), Marvin Gaye’s “A Funky Space Reincarnation” plays in the background as Theron pronounces, “Gold is cold. Diamonds are dead. A limousine is a car. Don’t pretend. Feel what’s real. C’est ça que j’adore.” “Realness” continues to be a motif in Rihanna’s catch phrase as well, telling the audience as she walks on water at the end of the “film” (in a visual that harkens back to Madonna’s 2004 “Love Profusion” video, which was recreated for Estée Lauder’s Beyond Paradise commercial [also directed by Luc Besson] when it used the song in its ad), “Your dreams. Make them real.” It’s a tagline that appears to encourage people to retreat further into their delusions rather than acknowledging anything real whatsoever. As for “just” making dreams happen, well, it’s easier said than done, naturally.
Needless to say, the implication here is that one’s dream is to live decadently while wearing J’Adore. Except that we all know Rihanna is likely wearing her own fragrance, Fenty Eau de Parfum—which actually sells for more on average than J’Adore. Evidently, no one seemed to feel this was a conflict of interest, assuming that Rihanna’s fans must have plenty of extra pocket money to support both fragrances. Besides, it’s not “cannibalism” if it isn’t the same brand (not like Starbucks opening within a half-mile radius of another Starbucks).
What’s more, all is fair in love and capitalism. Two words that go hand in hand, especially with Rihanna choosing to wield “Love on the Brain” as the “film’s” song choice. Thus, once an earnest, hopelessly devoted power ballad, its new context has made it as base as any other song that gets tainted by use in a commercial (see also: The Beatles’ “Revolution” being featured in a Nike ad)—positioned as just another means to sell something. And what Rihanna and Dior are selling here is not just a certain lifestyle, but the aspiration to a certain lifestyle. As though trying to convince people that capitalism isn’t a failed system that we’re all still going through the motions of. Back in 2015, when Rihanna had her first entrée into a Dior commercial (part of the brand’s Secret Garden series), with the campaign also shot by Klein, it was easier to believe in such things. After all, that was arguably the last year before the U.S. truly let all veneers slip away, with Trump becoming president in 2016 (a few years later, Rihanna would deem him “the most mentally ill person in America”).
Though that reality wasn’t made to sink in until the end of the year. Which is why, even for most of 2016 itself, there was still a more aspirational air to the U.S. Like in January of ‘16, when ANTI was released—its first single being “Work,” a song less about paid work than it was about the kind of work people have to do for love and orgasms. Of course, that didn’t stop the masses from making it their “every day I’m hustlin’” anthem. Which is why it was on the polar opposite spectrum for Rihanna’s fourth and final single from ANTI, “Love on the Brain,” to be so unapologetically about l’amour. More to the point, l’amour abusif. Something Rihanna has been almost as good at romanticizing as Lana Del Rey.
In a way, however, abusive love is the only kind of love there can be with capitalism involved. Maybe that’s why, in this J’Adore “film,” there’s a certain violence to the way Rihanna abruptly ties her corset and then practically chokes herself with the signature gold choker necklace that Theron once wore for these commercials. To be sure, gold is the word that best describes the ad’s look (even if Theron formerly told us that “gold is old”). Unless, of course, one wanted to be more realistic and add “fool’s” to the front of it. Because there is nothing less realistic than being instructed, “Your dreams. Make them real.” It’s on par with the other capitalist credo that goes, “If you want it badly enough, you’ll find a way to get it.” Even if that means begging, borrowing, cheating or stealing to do so. This often being what happens when someone realizes they can’t “win” at capitalism. With no one ever taking into account that the celebrities who tout that they worked hard and made their dreams come true are part of either one of two categories: 1) an example of the one in a million chance that managed to penetrate the system or 2) born into wealth and/or a family name that could help them get ahead.
So it is that most people have, that’s right, an abusive relationship with capitalism. And yet, Rihanna and Dior still seek to glamorize its frills. Perhaps that’s why they opted to leave out the lyrics from “Love on the Brain” that go, “You love when I fall apart/So you can put me together and throw me against the wall” and “It beats me black and blue, but it fucks me so good/And I can’t get enough.” For these are the sentiments that best describe the toxic dynamic that most people have with le capitalisme.
It is also because of capitalism and its fundamental promotion of homogeneity and the status quo that, despite Rihanna being a “new” face for J’Adore, there is nothing actually new about this imagery. And, funnily enough, when Theron starred in Dior’s The New Absolu campaign in 2018 (which featured Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights” [mind you, after he had already shown his true colors with support for Trump by wearing a MAGA hat throughout 2018]), it looked very similar to the imagery Rihanna had already shown fans in her ANTIdiaRy. Namely, being immersed in an opulent bath while staring directly into the camera.
Perhaps, in some way, unwittingly grafting Theron’s mise-en-scène from that ANTIdiaRy moment foreshadowed Rihanna’s eventual welcome into the “Dior family” as an official brand ambassador. Either way, the final result only serves to prove what Fredric Jameson said in The Antinomies of Realism: “society has ever been as standardized as this one, and the stream of human, social and historical temporality has never flowed quite so homogenously.” Even if “hidden” behind a shiny new face.
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Genna Rivieccio
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