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.