In my jammed ad, I sought to maintain the original components of the ad, while introducing additional elements to satisfy my aim. In the unaltered version of the ad, one observes a towering, imposing bottle of vodka. Beside the bottle is a martini glass, stopped in freeze frame to create a blurred effect. The glass suggests three things. First it represents the mental and physical affects of alcohol: slowed motion and distorted perception. Second, the martini glass functions as a social symbol, the typical cocktail of flirtation, embodied in the gesture of man-buys-woman-a-drink from across the bar. Thirdly, the glass represents, as it appears to bend itself toward the bottle, the sexual yearning of attraction in the traditional female/male exchange of interest in affection: the one giveth and the other taketh.

The entire composition, therefore, insofar as the bottle looms large over the glass, can be deconstructed as a structural division of power between man and woman, an analogy for the terrible consequence of alcohol as outlined above. Hence the additional elements I introduced into my jammed ad, designed to preserve and exaggerate this metaphoric relationship: the helpless girl passed out on the ground and the accompanying slogan, namely, that anything goes. In my estimation, these additions strike at the heart of a complex network of issues surrounding rape culture, drinking to excess, and using the latter to justify and excuse the former. Alcohol, though it be often an expedient to foolishness and bad behavior, ought never to be also the exculpation of this behavior. Overall, my ad shifts the focus from the potentially positive effects of alcohol to alcohol’s most dastardly, in order to demonstrate that alcohol should not serve as a scapegoat for any contravention of human rights.

The advertisement I have elected to examine is from an old Absolut vodka campaign, the principle characteristic of which campaign was the use of a particular vague but provocative noun following the word Absolut in the slogan. Some examples include: original, envy, security, and perfection. The ad I have chosen uses the word attraction, which I regard as harboring a specific, problematic message by way of an implied double meaning.

It is a curious fact about our culture, that alcohol as one of the most symptomatically dangerous drugs is also the most readily accessible. There is little doubt that alcohol can be and often is, especially among youth, the staple basis of a good time, at home with friends or out on the town. But often, too, this good time is accompanied by something far more sinister: bad decisions, the various manifestations of the darkest parts of ourselves, violence, memory loss, all of which obtain license from the disinhibitory effects of drinking.

The darkness masked in the ad of attraction is among the worst consequences of drinking, namely, the complication and misdirection of sexual energy to the point that the sanctimony of another individual is violated. One cannot in good conscience proclaim that alcohol is the cause of what we now refer to as rape culture, but in those instances that are so described alcohol is central to the discussion, too frequently as a vindication and an excuse for the heinous act. The word attraction, extolled in the advertisement, likely as a substitution for disinhibition, conveys the subliminal acceptance of this possible consequence of alcoholic indulgence. The very same disinhibitory effect of alcohol that loosens the tongue and contributes to the ease of interaction is also the feature that quiets the morals, dulls the understanding, and obfuscates our notions of consent and respect.