"What the What?" on the bus: A Cultural Studies experience

The other day I was riding the bus to get to class. Trying to exercise my CULTURAL STUDIES "reading" skills I was observing some of the ads on the bus and trying to figure out what they were saying to me. The ad that really stood out to me was one for the Minneapolis Library. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the ad online, but if you are riding the bus watch out for it.

The straightforward message of the ad was that Minneapolis citizens can now rent a vast collection of audio books from the library. The ad suggests listening to a book during commute. The picture or image included in the ad is of a middle-aged, white woman smiling at the reader or audience of the image. She is wearing a sweater that is moderately revealing (but not to the point that she seems skanky). I don't remember her depicting any action that involved any association of her reading or listening to a book. It was just an image of this woman looking pleasant and happy. The aspect of the ad that I found to be most interesting was that the woman was wearing a crucifix necklace, which I read as a sign of the woman in the picture being signified as a Christian. When considering the ad I knew it wasn't a mistake that the crucifix was in their, because when people come up with ads every detail in the picture is meticulously pined over to create the perfect draw for their audience.

I still am having trouble deciding why the religious necklace was included in the picture. It could have easily been any other religious symbol or a necklace without any religious affiliation. Why would the Mpls. public library create an ad targeted at commuters that has the symbol of the cross in its message? Is this supposed to tell us that members of the library are upstanding Christians primarily? Is this the group of people they want checking out books, or audio books?

P.s. - My blog image is of Tina Fey's character, Liz Lemon, from "30 Rock". My only explanation is that I didn't want to post an article without an image, even though it essentially has nothing to do with the article except for the title. ... so that's that.