The Skyy Might Actually Be Falling Down

I did not have to look very long to stumble upon a very interesting Skyy Vodka advertisement sending a brief but very clear message. In the visual advertisement I chose, there is a well dressed man standing over a barely covered woman who was tightly grasping the vodka bottle and two martini glasses. The women is positioned between his legs and is looking up at him while raising her sunglasses, with the upper half of this body cut off. Right away I was drawn to the position of the bodies in this ad. This image seems to really revolve around it. Rosemarie Garland Thompson says “within Western thought, female bodies and disabled bodies are viewed as “deviant and inferior,” and this completely comes through in this picture (Kirk, Rey 207). The man’s dominance is immediately established as he towers over the woman, and because his body is so much bigger than her, his face cannot be shown. This image shows him having total superiority over her. With him standing like that she is vulnerable to anything. Culturally this image is a perfect example of objectification, the degradation of something to no more than a simple object (Kirk, Rey 208). It is clear the woman is just there waiting for his directions, she is merely a body and obviously just his body.
The woman in this is not smiling, but she is not resisting the situation either. As the man hovers over her, she simply looks up. I feel that this response to what is happening can be misconceived as how women are supposed to act towards men. The authors of our text say in the first chapter how women are “socialized” to care for them and spare their feelings,” this is exactly what is going on (Kirk, Rey 5). The woman doesn’t seem to have much a choice. This man wants to drink and so she must do as she’s told. For women who see this, a very disturbing message is being sent about about the hierarchy of men and women. Also in this picture, the women’s body is very unrealistic, her pose is very machine-like and flawless, contributing even more to the objectification of her. Her body is perfectly tanned and while you cannot quite make out her face, her breasts are in clear view and are distracting for the rest of the advertisement.
Overall, I find this image to be an extremely negative portrayal of women and men. For women’s body images, this is just another advertisement stocked full of unrealistic beauty standards and culturally, it is furthering the unconscious belief that men are superior to women or that women are men’s simple subordinate. For men, this image is cultivating the dogma of men’s masculinity and their need to strive to be dominant of women. This advisement subtly promotes Skyy Vodka, but to a greater extent encourages cultural and social inequalities for men and women. It defies what feminism stands for by exaggerating the differences between men and women, and in the end makes me personally never want to purchase Skyy Vodka.


Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2001. Print.

Skyy Vodka. Advertisement. The Sin City Siren. 8 Jan. 2008. Web. 7 Feb. 2010. .