COMM 330 (Kilbourne)

In the video killing us softly, Jeanne Kilbourne, discusses the misrepresentation of women in the media, in which she studies and examines ads from the 1970s and on that portrayed women in a negative light, with men in the patriarchal position and women the inferior. She noticed, as I too noticed that the representation of women is getting worse. I just recently saw an advertisement at a bus stop for Smirnoff vodka, where the ad background was yellow and the bottle was blue, and the women, with her body wrapped around the bottle, was wearing red. Because of all communications courses I have taken, I of course, felt obligated to analyze the advertisement and interpreted it as an advertisement definitely for men.  The red, yellow, and blue are overtly the primary colors of the color scale, therefore, symbolizing that Smirnoff is the primary vodka for men.  This ad does only say to the viewer that this is the primary vodka to drink but you can have sexy women to wrap around you. The advertisers had to have known that by putting her in red, it symbolized sex, as society usually associates the color red with sex and/ or prostitution.  Jeanne Kilbourne would have a hay day ripping this ad to shreds.