Cigarette advertisements have a significant role in the construction
             of gender images through the media. While people may be most familiar with
             the Marlboro Man cowboy and Joe Cool camel which create a masculine ideal
             that can supposedly be reached through smoking, cigarette ads also
             penetrate the ideal image of women in order to sell the product. Take, for
             example, a recent ad released by Virginia Slims. This ad features the
             silhouette of a woman of African descent in an evocative leaned pose
             against a bright red background, and with a hand seductively seeking her
             throat. The text of the ad reads: "Never let the goody two shoes get you
             down. Virginia Slims. Find Your Voice."
             The visual and textual message of this ad is meant to have several
             subconscious messages. First, the red background is meant to appear
             revolutionary, as the Communist and Anarchist revolutions have always
             featured red flags as the symbol of their fight. The image of the Black
             woman is also very angular and posed in such a way that it is reminiscent
             of the modern neo-African art movement, which is focused on the fight for
             and preservation of freedom. These visual elements combine with the text
             to create a feeling of triumph over the implied oppressors through the
             Second, the pose is also very sexual in nature. The woman's head is
             positioned in an inviting manner that implies a readiness to insert a
             phallus into her mouth. In this case, the desired phallus is meant to be a
             cigarette as opposed to a penis, but the message that is implied is that
             the way for a woman to find the "voice" hiding deep inside her throat is
             through the act of pseudo-fellatio, which plays on the ideas that a woman
             is nothing without a male figure to speak for her. A cigarette can
             therefore provide this needed masculine force, and let the woman be an
             independent speaker without relying on a man, as long as she is sm...