Campaign Overview


Alcohol abuse in the United States has long been a topic of controversy. Countless initiatives have been created to combat alcohol abuse among both the old and the young, such as taxation, advertising regulation, and public service announcements, to name a few. Alcohol abuse is often portrayed as the cause of negative effects in the lives of those who consume it, and in some instances this is the case. Crashes due to drunk driving are one example of this. But in the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's newest advertising campaign against teen alcohol abuse, the target is female sexuality and responsibility. These advertisements vividly and viscerally display the "effects" of drinking and not only produce an image of potential consequences for under-age consumers, but also for their friends. Part of what sets these advertisements apart from others like them is the shocking imagery and the use of the second person. These advertisements aim to wield female sexuality in a way that makes women and their friends responsible for their actions and the consequences that come from them, no matter the situation. A discourse of victim-blaming is created in these advertisements and the idea that occurrences such as rape or infidelity are the fault of the person it happened to and no one else.

In three advertisements and an interactive website from this campaign there is a discursive formation of female sexuality that emphasizes victim-blaming and minimizes the responsibility of others involved in particular situations. These advertisements interpolate viewers by using the second person and placing them into each situation without their consent. Viewers are immediately forced to think of themselves and someone they know in relation to the message of the advertisement and in turn act in a way that reinforces the ideology that the choice made to drink alcohol is the reason why terrible things happen to women under the influence of alcohol. According to Anneke Meyer, in current culture "it has become relatively unacceptable to openly embrace the myth that women are to blame for rape" (26). As a result of this, the message that the fault lies largely with the victim in the campaign's discussion of rape must be enthymematic and understood without explicitly being said.
By presenting these advertisements in this way, the reality created for viewers seems authentic because they can so easily picture themselves within it. According to Collins and Lutz in their article analyzing the reader's gaze in photographs from National Geographic, "The reader's gaze, then, has a history and a future, and it is structured by the mental work of inference and imagination, provoked by the picture's inherent ambiguity...and its tunnel vision" (357). Based on this idea, the viewer's interaction with the advertisement can be better understood and the reality created may be better negotiated.




According to Idisis et. al., "Rape [is] defined in the literature as sexual contact against the will of one of the participants, [and] is one of the most common forms of assault" (103). In the discourses presented in this campaign, rape is used as a tool of fear to subtly (and not so subtly) create a paranoia in women that will most immediately prevent them from abusing alcohol, but ultimately instill a sense of unwarranted threat against their well-being. In the following discussions, it is helpful to keep in mind the pervasive influence of "rape myths" within current popular culture (Idisis et. al. 104). Rape myths are best defined as "false but pervasive beliefs and attitudes aimed at justifying or denying aggression of males against females. Examples of such beliefs include 'If the woman really had wanted to, she could have prevented the rape', or 'deep down she really wanted to be raped" (Idisis et. al. 104). Rape myths are at work in this campaign most prominently in terms of blame attribution. Stahl et. al. asserts that the idea that a woman could hold no responsiblity for the sexual assault she experiences "threaten system justifying beliefs that contemporary society offers 'a level playing field' for men and women" (240). It is easiest for people to transfer blame to the victims of sexual assault because it reinforces the idea that the world is a fair place and people always get what they deserve: "Attribution of blame helps to reinforce the casual observer's belief that the world is a safe, protected place, and that occurrences such as rape can be controlled" (Idisis 114).

Advertisement Analysis

Interactive Website Analysis

Works Cited:

Idisis, Yael, Sarah Ben-David, and Efrat Ben-Nachum. "Attribution Of Blame To Rape Victims Among Therapists And Non-Therapists." Behavioral Sciences & The Law 25.1 (2007): 103-120. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.

Lutz, Catherine, & Collins, Jane. "The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example of National Geographic," in Liz Wells (ed.), The Photography Reader (London: Routledge, 2003), pp.354-374.

Meyer, Anneke. "Too Drunk to Say No' Bing Drinking, Rape, and the Daily Mail." Feminist Media Studies 10.1 (2010):19-34. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.

Stahl, Tomas, Daniel Eek, and Ali Kazemi. "Rape Victim Blaming As System Justification: The Role Of Gender And Activation Of Complementary Stereotypes." Social Justice Research 23.4 (2010): 239-258. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.