“You’ve Come a Long Way Baby”
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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