Function Ranking in Vodka?

The advertisement above is for Skyy Vodka, which was featured in the Maxim magazine in October 2010. Maxim magazine is a national magazine that targets the audience of males. When looking at the ad, you see a woman by a fashion forward chair while a man is sitting in it holding a drink. A person also sees the city at night behind them and the bottle for the vodka in front of them. With an untrained eye, you see the woman interested in the man’s comment, but you cannot see the man’s face.

This advertisement uses the “function ranking” method, which Erving Goffman, creator of the method, describes as men and women contributing in equal activity, the men usually are the executor of the activity while women are supportive, or a woman does the job that is “feminine” while men do nothing. In this ad, the woman is the person who is doing the task of making the man a drink due to having the drink stirrer in her hand. She is also looking deep into the chair where the man is sitting, which gives the viewer as she is focused on pleasing the man’s wishes. Normally, the person who is doing the most work would be the dominant person, but by the stance of the woman, the lack of importance of the rest of the man’s body, but how the legs and drink is shown, it shows that the woman is inferior.

The man’s grasp of the drink shows that the mission is complete. The man also holds the drink with firmness, which depicts his dominance. His legs are also together and firmed, while the woman’s legs are over the man’s. Her shoes are shining, which shows less solid things which would be considered “feminine”. The woman’s legs are bent with a dress with a slit that rises close to her private area. This shows the sex appeal. The nightlife and the woman are secondary to the man and the drink, even though they are all equals in the activity of enjoying themselves. The bottle and the drink on the table show that if you have this strong, “manly” vodka, you can get great “manly” drinks from women. This shows that it doesn’t matter what guy it is, the same can happen and the night can end the same, which the man is superior of the woman in the nightlife.