Katrina Markowicz
Visual Media Project
2/10/14
The Presence of Sexuality in Visual Advertisements of Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood is a fairy tale that everyone grew up with, and therefore, is a way
for people to relate to each other by having a common cultural experience. This fairy tale has
been incorporated into culture through visual media in political statements, advertisements,
movies, and artistic interpretation such as plays and paintings; this helps the viewer remember
the media source since they already have the fairy tale as a concept in their mind. Campari and
GHD are two companies that have adapted the fairy tale of Grimm’s Little Red Riding Hood to
help sell their product by making a statement about female sexuality. Female modern sexuality
is clearly evident in the advertisements by Campari and GHD through color, body position, and
object presence by incorporating the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood by Grimm.
Color, in each of these two advertisements, reinforces the idea of female sexuality that
Grimm’s story does not draw attention towards. In the Grimm’s version of Little Red Riding
Hood, the color red is only mentioned once when it is explained that her grandmother had “made
her a little hood of red velvet,” (Tatar, 19) and another other time that ‘red’ is mentioned, it is
only when Little Red Riding Hood is being referred to by that name. Both of these two
advertisements use the color red in a way that the eye is drawn to it and it is very vibrant. Tatar
explains that the color red is associated with sin, passion, and blood “suggesting a certain
complicity on the part of Red Riding Hood in her seduction,” (Tatar, 17) however the text does
not reinforce this idea of seduction that the advertisements do visually. In the Campari
advertisement, Red Riding Hood is wearing a long red riding hood over a white dress that is spilt
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at the hip on the left leg. White, the color of purity is being covered in this advertisement by a
red riding hood that symbolizes her seduction; this indicates that Little Red Riding Hood is
hiding her purity in a mask of seduction. It is also important to note that all the other objects in
the photo including the grey wolf, the grey sand, the grey sky, and the tan hearth fade in the
picture while the color red stands out in the picture, thus further reinforcing Little Red Riding
Hood’s sexuality. In the GHD advertisement, red is also the most pronounced color and is also
the color of Little Red Riding Hood’s primary color. It is more ambiguous whether the red in
this advertisement also represents sexuality until you look at the picture as a whole that shows a
clear message on how sexuality can be dangerous; the subtle red lipstick that matches the color
of the blood on the axe reinforces this idea. Like the Campari advertisement, this
advertisement’s most important color is red. The entire set of this photograph is brown, the
props are brown, and the clothing is black, so the red is very prominent in the picture because it
pops out of the background to catch the eye. Also, in both of these two advertisements, the color
red is placed in the center of the photograph, making the argument that seduction and sexuality
are the central ideas of both advertisements.
Body position plays an important role, sending the message of female sexuality in both of
these advertisements. While reading Grimm’s version of this fairy tale, there are no cues as to
how Little Red Riding Hood is presenting her body while walking through the forest, but in these
advertisements Little Red Riding Hood presents herself in a way that suggests she lured the wolf
to her in a seductive and sexual manner. Two very important body position elements are seen in
the Campari advertisement that demonstrates the concepts of sexual dominance and seduction.
The first is arm tension while holding the bottle of liquor, but more interestingly the arm tension
while holding the chain connecting to the wolf. The tension in the arm holding the wolf
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indicates that Little Red Riding Hood is in control of the wolf, and therefore is the dominant one.
The second element is the dynamic line her leg creates while busting out of the white dress. The
leg sends the image of allure and seduction, but at the same time the wide stance is also sexually
suggestive. In the GHB advertisement Little Red Riding Hood’s stance and facial features add to
the overall theme of sexuality through allure and confidence. With a background that is full of
dynamic curves, Red Riding Hood’s straight stance sends a powerful message about her sexual
confidence through the stability of her body position. In addition to her stance, her facial
features with her neck turned to the viewer seems as though she is flashing a quick glance full of
tension that allures the viewer to see her in a confident light that is desirable to both men and
women. In both of these advertisements, Little Red Riding Hood shows her sexuality and
control of the situation, but in different ways either through confidence or dominance, but both
pictures are also alluring. In each of these photographs it is assumed that events leading to the
entrapment of the wolf, either to be kept or killed, were also alluring in nature.
The presence and absence of certain objects in these two advertisements completely
change the Grimm’s version of Little Red Riding Hood. Grimm’s classic version tells the tale of
Little Red Riding Hood going to grandma’s, being tricked by the wolf in the forest, and then
having to be saved by a hunter. The first object to mention in these photographs is that a hunter
is not present, but there are objects that assume that Red Riding Hood took care of the wolf
herself. In the Campari advertisement, Red Riding Hood has the wolf on a chain in front of a
hearth. The chain is a symbol of sexual dominance, and therefore it is safe to assume that Little
Red Riding Hood entrapped the wolf herself without a male helper putting her in control. The
hearth could either reinforce that this advertisement is based on a fairy tale through the idea of
the typical fairy tale reading scene, could indicate that she took the wolf home to be her pet since
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the hearth is the symbol of the home, or could also represent a discussion on women’s typical
gender roles and how in this advertisement the female is the dominant character and the male
wolf is the submissive character. All of these three conclusions either reinforce the concept of
sexuality in this advertisement or are obsolete to the interpretation of sexuality. In the GHD
advertisement, like the Campari advertisement, it is assumed that Red Riding Hood had to get
close enough to the wolf to entrap him. Two important objects to note that help explain the
wolf’s fate are the tail hanging out of the basket and the axe indicating that she was in control of
the wolf’s fate and took his life. Since the wolf in both advertisements is trapped by Red Riding
Hood, the entire story stops at the meeting with the wolf and either stays there like the GHD
advertisement or changes like the Campari advertisement. Tatar explains that the wolf is a
metaphor for a sexually seductive male figure (Tatar, 20), but he loses that seductive nature and
instead Red Riding Hood becomes a sexually seductive female that can control a male in these
advertisements. The change of the sexual seductive character from text to visual media and the
evolving story line explains that the traditional moral of the story about being wary of strangers
from the Grimm’s version is never seen in the advertisements. Instead, the idea that a woman
can show power by using her sexuality is told in place of this traditional moral.
Color, body position, and object presence each play a key role in the overall idea that
Little Red Riding Hood in advertisements shows the concept of modern sexuality women
possess. The color of seduction, red, is included in both advertisements and is the center of each.
Body position in each picture shows how Red Riding Hood can use her sexuality to lure and trap
the wolf. In the both advertisements the viewer is not exactly sure how Red Riding Hood
entrapped the wolf, although from all of the visual elements of each the identity of the wolf being
a trickster is given to Red Riding Hood instead. The text by Grimm explains how the wolf tricks
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Red Riding Hood, but the advertisements send a whole new message that she lured the wolf into
her trap using her sexuality, and thus making her sexuality dangerous. The objects in each
photograph help send the message that empowerment and sexuality go hand in hand, and that a
woman does not need a male’s help, as well as the message that a woman can control a male
character by using her desirable body. With all of this said, the GHD advertisement and the
Campari advertisement use the modern idea that “sex sells,” but it is unclear as to how these
photographs incorporate the fairy tale in any other way than by having the wolf and Red Riding
Hood as characters. Since the story stops abruptly with the entrapment of the wolf and it is
unclear what Red Riding Hood was doing before her encounter with the wolf, these
advertisements are very loosely associated with Grimm’s version of the story and do not share
many common themes. The apparent difference between the advertisements and the text poses
the question of how Red Riding Hood is incorporated in these photographs and also how the
story actually helps sell the products. The fairy tale allusion does nothing more than turn Red
Riding Hood into a sex symbol to show how each of these products can make a person more
desirable and confident. Further thought leads the consumer to wonder why this fairy tale was
chosen to sell these products in the first place, but the reason the fairy tale was picked, along
with any fairy tale in any advertisement, is just to give the viewer something that they can to
relate to.
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Advertisements
Campari Advertisement
Titled: “Dominance”
URL:
http://www.coloribus.com/focus/geroidetskih-skazok-v-reklame/10704955/
GHD Advertisement
Slogan: “You can do anything with your
hair”
Text: “Little Red Riding Hood, neither
timid nor shy. Whilst straightening her
locks, a wolf she did spy, but far from
fainting or running a fever, she started to
laugh and pulled out a cleave
URL:
http://www.adforum.com/creativework/ad/player/34451867
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Work’s Cited
Campari. Advertisement. Coloribus. Campari Brand. Web.
GHD. Advertisement. Ad Forum. RKCR/Y&R.Web.
Tatar, Maria. "Little Red Riding Hood." The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales. New York:
Norton, 2002. 17-27. Print.
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