This image, taken in 2015 at a subway station, shows two juxtaposed advertisements, both with the tagline “Never let go.” The advertisement on the left is for a CW sitcom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, centering around a woman who moves to Los Angeles to pursue her childhood sweetheart. The one on the right is for Everest, a 2015 survival movie based on the 1996 Everest disaster, when a deadly blizzard struck several mountain expedition groups. The image was posted on a social media account.

discussion

What are the similarities and differences you notice in these two ads?

How does the same tagline (“never let go”) take on different meanings in these two advertisements?

How does gender contribute to the meanings and target audiences of these two advertisements? What kind of assumptions might these ads make about men and women?

These ads were posted side by side in a subway station. Do you think this was intentional? If not, do you think its still worth analyzing the comparison? Why? Why not?