What a Collection of Pictures Reveals Vis-à-vis What Is Portrayed
Sarah Asch

This year's December issue of Jane, a shopping magazine for women launched in 1997, entitled "Shocked but not Surprised," is a magazine targeted specifically at the female consumer. Jane is a magazine comprised fully of editorials and advertisements that serve to offer its audience a set or model of what is to be consumed from clothes to accessories to bikini trimmers thereby revealing how its contents can be said to play a crucial role in instructing the [female] body in how to enact gender, whether it be with the clothes they wear or the way they act in social situations. The fact that women consume such a magazine shows that they can, or want to, identify, or at least align themselves, with Jane's contents, whether it be the need to accessorize or the desire to shave the pubic area. These advertisements, which promote alcoholic beverages Captain Morgan rum and Jose Cuervo tequila, I will argue reflect gender ideologies and practices linked to and influenced by cultural ideologies that are ultimately dictated by the more powerful actor. Through an examination of these ads I will emphasize that women by consuming and reproducing the actions that are portrayed to them in ad campaigns they are therefore accepting the stereotypes that are conveyed in them thereby perpetuating the legitimacy of the power structures that create and promote such stereotypes in the first place.

It is important to understand how our attention as both audience and consumer is being directed and to what end in both A (Captain Morgan ad) and B (Jose Cuervo ad). I will now explore the ways in which the audience's attention is directed within each advertisement. This will serve as a background that will enlighten my discussion about the advertisements subversive nature in following sections:

A Since the scene is in black and white, our attention is drawn by all that is red in this advertisement thereby honing our focus on to that which it highlights, specifically the two women on whom there are red Captain-esque mustaches. Because of this the audience is forced to see these women as the subject of, and thus the actors in, the scene. The other colored image in this advertisement is the Captain Morgan icon in the top right corner whose stare is directed at the women further highlighting their role as subject in the ad while at the same time subtly drawing our attention to the two men placed directly underneath it. The final colored image in the ad are the two texts reading "The Captain was here" at the bottom of the scene which again serves to highlight the women as a result of their mustaches, and "Combo in the corner" placed above the women but next to the Captain icon. Because of the former's placement, the audience is not only confirmed that the two women are the focus, subjects, and thus the actors in the advertisement but with the second text the audience can imply that they too have agency in the scenario in which they are framed. The importance of these texts in light of the subversive role of the men in the ad will be revealed later when I explore a different interpretation of the ad in order to reveal certain stereotypes that this ad confirms in terms of gender roles and gendered action.

B This scene is also in black and white with color used to highlight the text. The three women are placed in between numerous rows of bottles of alcohol leading us to assume that not only have been drinking but that they are probably drunk. Two of these women are seated atop two men and all three are engaged in conversation apparently unawares of the men on which they are seated. The audience is meant to focus on the women since not only are they at the top of the ad which it lighter in tone, but that the rows of bottles at either side of the group direct our eye to them. The text across the bottom reads "It Watches Your Back" all in capitals with an asterik leading us to a smaller line of capitals reading "Not True, Only Your Friends Can Do That." This text along with the audiences directed presumptions about the subject of the ad allow the audience to believe that women here are empowered, have agency, and are in control.

Both advertisements call upon feminist struggles for agency and power for women by employing the rhetoric of choice in order to reach the target audience, which in the context of its presence in Jane can be assumed to be women as previously noted. This mode of speech is intended to empower the targeted audience by reinforcing their sense of power of, and in, choice. Now to look at the rhetoric of choice in its specific contexts:

A The Captain Morgan's ad reads "Combo in the Corner?" in red across the top of a black and white scene in which two women in the foreground are playing a game of pool under the observation of two men in the background. Because of the red mustaches on their upper lips, if we are to read the ad in light of its feminist allusions, it is more than likely that the audience is to assume that this suggestion is thought by the women about the men rather than a shot in the game of pool. Because of the sly communicative look on the left-most woman's face paired with the slight pointing of her pinky finger to the men the audience can infer a sense of her agency and power in her ability to exercise choice and also generalize this state of empowerment to her friend who can be assumed to share her friend's suggestion that their feminine duo parley with the duo of men across the room.

B The text of this advertisement targets a woman's choice and her agency in a situation on another front. This ad reminds women what they have been reminded of time and time again once they gain independence, by this I mean once they gain the right to exercise choice. It reminds them to be cautious while at the same time reinforcing the sentiment that women need to work with and for each other, both reminiscent too of feminist sentiments. This aspect of the ad targets women's empowerment through their cohesiveness, one that is apparent in their disregard for the men upon whom they are perched. Their ignorance of the men can either be interpreted as powerful avoidance or naïve interaction. I will explicate the latter in the following section showing that it is in the subversive, opposing side of the two-fold interpretation of ads that models of stereotypical gender behavior are conveyed.

The empowering components in both advertisements that serve to place the audience's focus on the women as agents and thus apparently give them empowerment can actually be subversive to female agency as they distract the audience form the dominating actions and roles of the men. It is in this final section that I will explore how the advertisements may actually be counter and harmful to female claims to empowerment as they reinforce demonstrations of gender by showing this contingent upon those that determine its acceptability.

A The two females in this scene, although seemingly empowered, are not the subjects of the scene in the sense that they are the subjects of the audience's eye if we are to take the use of subliminality to be the dominant tool in advertising. The women here are the subject of the men's observation and are thus too the subject for the consumer framed through the eyes of the men. It is in this way that the advertisement promotes women as objects whose empowered role as subject exists in (as it is determined by) males. It is through the qualities of the advertisement discussed above in light of male subliminality, namely with regards to the text narrating the scene from atop, that the widely understood male fantasy of [sexually] aggressive and/or dominant women is portrayed in this ad.

B The placement, expressions, and actions of the men in this ad are reminiscent of the "little red riding hood" story. The women, in their empowering unit, appear to feel unharmed by the men precariously placed in the scene. Although the men are literally watching (more like peering at) the backs of the women in the group above them they do not appear to be the sort of friends to which the text is referring. Because the text of this ad, as discussed before, taps on feminist allusions it frames the men as predators threatening that cohesiveness and power of the group. It is in this way that this advertisement evokes the male fantasy to domineer and possibly take advantage of innocent, trusting women further accounting for the text instructing that women need to watch out for each other. If we are to interpret these women to be innocent and trusting we can also assume that they would require the guidance of other women to tell them what to do. This last inference can also evoke the male stereotype of women as fickle and easily persuaded. Thus, when viewing this ad in light of its male subliminality, it is easy to see that female empowerment and independence is contingent upon male capacity to respect that space.

While the context in which an advertisement appears shapes interpretations made by its audience context can also blind what is at work beyond the surface. Both advertisements reveal two main camps in stereotypes of women beneath the rhetoric of women's choice. Advertisement A speaks to the stereotype that women are sexually aggressive while B conveys the stereotype that women are innocent, trusting, and fickle beings. Both invocations can be employed to the advantage of male desires not only to see women as sexy but engage with them in a sexual way thereby acknowledging and thus reinforcing power structures of male dominance based in sexual relations. The particular performances of womanhood apparent in these advertisements reinforce static culture norms ascribing gender identity, or roles, to agent-less individuals. The problem is that gender identities, meanings, and representations are fluid, shifting, historically and contextually relevant produced by both actors and non-actors alike. Assumptions about gender behavior propelled by advertisements allow individuals to overlook reality and further gender stereotypes. Women and men are products of, but not reducible to, the structures around them. While individual actors have agency, they cannot act completely independent of their social surroundings. In order to stop cultural, structural, and representational conflict promoted in popular culture constructions of womanhood, or manhood, evoked in advertisements such issues must be recognized and examined, not to be ignored for the sake of aesthetics or production value.