Popular Culture Review Vol. 17, No. 1, Winter 2006 | Page 89

“You’ve Come a Long Way Baby” 85 decapitation ads, handbills, lobby cards, and billboards—mirror a national trend, exclaiming that women still do not own or control their bodies despite the marketing gimmicks and jingles and television commercials that assert that women are free agents. In addition, Celine Dion’s figure in this marketing strategy is standing on a sea of flames. I am certain her fans would assert with conviction that Dion is a “hot” property in many respects, and I do not contest this idea, but a woman with superior financial stability, with many media connections, and in a position of power like Dion whose main feature of power is her voice should be concentrating her advertising on emphasizing the freedom of female voice in the contemporary world rather than on images that connect the female populace to women burned at the stake for their religious beliefs (or because society labeled them a witch) in times past or to the east Indian practice of suttee. The sea of fire is also reminiscent of the Miltonic version of Satan’s fall in Paradise Lost tied to the image of Eve’s relationship with Satan in the Garden of Eden that caused the original sin and fall of mankind. Eve’s appetites and those of her descendants were thereafter controlled by men. Although Celine Dion and her marketing staff may not intend for these meanings to be attached to her show marquis, nonetheless the subtext is there. There are many other debilitating ads with female images in Las Vegas. There is a billboard for the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, whose marketing is always overtly sexual, that has a woman lying face down on a casino poker table, propped up on her elbows and eating as her male partner rests his poker hand on her sweaty, naked body. I pass this billboard every time I round the Thomas and Mack arena so that I can turn on Harmon and do research in UNLV’s Lied Library. It is in an area that has an extremely high volume of traffic to McCarran Airport and UNLV. The ad’s slogan reads “Keep your mind on the game.” Indeed, the game in Las Vegas advertising is to make as much money as possible from denigrating pictures of women used to sell products and services and to keep the public’s “mind” on their average lives that are not full of sexual adventure and risk. Another noticeable example of decapitation advertising is a local billboard that has been in prominent display in Las Vegas for a number of years which markets the topless revue Crazy Girls, performed at the Riviera Hotel and Casino; a chorus line of girls wearing nothing but thongs are shown photographed from the back so that their faces are hidden with the accompanying slogan “No IFs, ANDs, O R . . . ” The exotic dancers’ sexuality (their “butts,” luscious manes of hair, long legs, and high heels) is the main focus of the advertisement; on a television program showcasing Las Vegas dancers called Las Vegas—Adults Only, Karen Raider, the production manager of Crazy Girls at the Riviera, explained that the girls are judged and chosen for the topless revue based on whether they have what the industry considers to be a beautiful body. The billboard originally appeared on Flamingo Road, but when the casino purchased billboard space near City Hall, it became an issue. The