Dolce & Gabbana, a brand-name company known for luxurious and expensive products, launched a thirty second video advertisement for their perfume, "Light Blue," in 2001 targeting young adult to middle-aged men and women. On the surface, their campaign portrays a passionate afternoon in the beautiful blue waters of the Mediterranean. However, a deeper deconstruction of the ad reveals a play on dominant gender stereotypes, gender identities, and cultural misconceptions that advertisers take advantage of to see their products sell.
The ad opens with "Parlami D'amore Mariu"" by Achille Togliani playing softly in the background. This 1930's Italian tune alludes to Dolce & Gabbana's heritage while also giving the ad a romantic atmosphere; "a selling incentive for the perfume." Also, it entreats the ad with a sophisticated and exotic feel, especially to an English speaking audience. The volume of the music and intensity of the lyrics crescendos as the ad progresses to its most climatic point, emphasizing the message of frenzied love generated by the fragrance that the ad aims to depict.
The passionate evening starts in a small white boat in which a beautiful looking Italian man is standing, alert and aware while the beautiful Caucasian woman present is lying down with her eyelids closed tight, seemingly lost in a very deep and magical thought. The two models' femininity and masculinity is established immediately in this one frame. As Sut Jhally, a member of the Media Education Foundation, notes, "So while women drift, men anchor and protect"" (Jhally 11). This domineering cultural implication of masculinity and femininity has enveloped and morphed peoples' ideas about gender identity and the manifestation of their masculine and feminine miens.
Pandering heterosexism and the male perspective, the two different messages sent to male and female viewers constructs a fantastical allure assuming that the audience aspires to look and feel the same as the models in the ad.
