Sexuality



Which is to say that connotation is suggestive of signification.

The audience for the sign naturally makes associations not only between color and gender in the particular ad, but also attributions to the behavioral states of the entire gender class.

Color serves as a cue toward such states.

These states are clearest, perhaps, when viewing men and women in interaction.

When we do we may see men as drones, at times, suave, at others; but women we see full of spark, passion, energy, and sexuality at all times.


The paradigmatic example of how the color-female sign is employed to connote emotive-physical state is the gAnna-Aka-Rossoh ad detailed in other published work.
A woman checks her red face in the mirror
She poses in her red clothes in front of a red car
She catches the eye of an Italian man sitting nearby
His blood begins to boil.

The steam he emits lifts the woman's skirt

Turning red, himself, he exclaims "Red!"

As the woman struggles to hold her skirt down

She places a finger to her lips.

"Shh," she says "our secret"


Numerous ads, though, reproduce this connotation -- with and without the presence of men.

For instance...



In an ad for beer a woman dashes along a boardwalk, dressed in a red top and a billowing, patterned skirt
Sweating profusely, she douses her head under a faucet
Then shakes out her mane vigorously
Next she lustily quaffs the product in one continuous
In the final frames she reclines on a wooden bench on a pier, staring at the ocean in a kind of stupor
Her ankles crossed, her arms outstretched, she giggles uncontrollably: drunk, giddy, in a state suggestive nothing less than post-orgasmic splendor
Of course, sexuality can bear close correspondence to sexism

as we shall see both in this color section, and then again in the discussion of women and water




Previous

Main Menu

Color Menu

Next