Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

The High Life in Rum Ads The images that we have to look at day after day in advertisements invade our conscious minds are overpowering. These images eventually begin to control how we feel about others and ourselves. In their book Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, authors Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon state, “…there is perhaps no better field for semiotic analysis than advertising, for ads work characteristically by substituting signs for things, and by reading those signs you can discover the values and desires that advertisers seek to exploit (123).” Exploit is a perfectly chosen word because exploit is exactly what advertisers try to do. They prey on innocence and try to make superfluous desires appear necessary. The largest three desires that advertisers commodify are class, race and sexuality. While searching for an ad to complete this assignment, I found one that attempts to sell all three of these images. Imagine yourself at the largest and hippest social venue of the season. You arrive at an upscale condominium complex in your best cocktail dress waiting for