TV show poster analysis - Semiotics



This is a promotional poster for the television show "Dexter". It's uses vivid imagery to represent the premesis and story for the show. At face value, it's simply a man with a baby on his shoulders, most likely his son. The son is carrying a cup of juice as well, which is common for a baby. However looking closer and taking into account the tagline "World's Most Killer Dad", it definitely makes one wonder if something is not as it seems. The juice has drops on the father's face, possibly representing blood which in turn represents danger or death. Expanding on that, the colour red for the baby is juice, which boils down to innocence. While the red on the father is blood which as I mentioned earlier, represents danger and death. With coupled with the blue background creates a contrast between the two colours, safety and danger. Blue is also a male dominated colour, and there's no females in the picture which is something that the viewers might note, increasing interest. This is a use of juxtaposition in the poster.

The baby on the father's shoulders at face value simply represents a father caring about his child, but looking deeper the blood on the father's face definitely represents unease and something out of the ordinary. This also backed up by the father's facial expression which doesn't look especially friendly, and is also amplified by the blood on his face. It looks somewhat mischeavous and again could represent that the father is not so ordinary. The baby's face however is a common and well known face, which could mean that the baby has nothing out of the ordinary about it yet.