Killing Us Softly Questions
1) The advertisements that Jean Kilbourne discussed in the video encourage men to look at women as sexual objects and that “real women” idolize the edited model look. The advertisements that featured women were very edited and all had a similar Caucasian appearance. The ideal look that advertisements give to women are very unrealistic and can only be obtained through photo editing or surgery. The unrealistic waist size, enlarged breasts, and slim faces then very often become sexualized in advertising. For example, a lot of men enjoy beer and Kilbourne showed advertisements that have women’s bodies transformed into kegs of beer bottles. It’s more than just the beer advertisements, unfortunately. Kilbourne uses many
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Rich states early in her essay that “we are the emotional and sexual property of men.” One advertisement that Kilbourne used was about feminine odor, and it was a poster of a man and woman that said “feminine odor is everyone’s problem.” Why would the way a woman’s armpit smell be anyone’s business besides her own? Because the way heterosexuality disempowers women, it makes the smell of her armpits part of her husband’s business due to the fact she had become an “object” in their relationship. A second point in Killing Us Softly that supports Rich’s thesis about the disempowerment of women in heterosexual relationships was an ad that supported women to see themselves only as eye candy for their man, and not who they are. The ad said “My boyfriend said he loved me for my mind. I was never so insulted in my life.” This woman felt ashamed that her boyfriend liked her for more than her looks! It is so sad to think that society had made the way a woman looks more important than her brain and who she is. Is there really anything more disempowering than taking away the power of a mind and brain from someone? Rich and Kilbourne have similar connections of how women are overtaken and brainwashed by men and
This is another commercial where we can directly see how the advertisers are overlooking gender stereotypes, by it being ranked number one it proves that when gender stereotypes and gender bias are not incorporated the advertisement becomes effective and
Kilbourne includes various advertisements where the woman is the victim and target. The advertisements and media depicted women being overly sexualized, they promoted or glorified date rape, sex is the most important aspect of a relationship, fetishizes various products, and made men believe these were the correct ways to view or treat women. The audience these advertisements are appealing to are men because media depicts women as always being the victims. Men are lead to believe that they should buy certain products as portrayed in media or advertisements because they will get the attention from the ladies. “The violence, the abuse, is partly the chilling but logical result of the objectification” (Kilbourne 498). When women are so used to seeing themselves as objectified they soon start to believe it. Women become more vulnerable because it shows men that anything is possible with just a spritz of perfume or a certain brand of an alcoholic drink. Industries do not think twice before making an advertisement because they are not the victims. Violence is the main problem that arises due to advertisements. “Women are always available as the targets of aggression and violence, women are inferior to men and thus deserve to be dominated, and women exist to fulfill the needs of men” (Kilbourne 509). As long as industries make money, nothing is off limits to put on advertisements even if it is making someone a victim. No remorse of any sort is shown because as long as money is present nothing else matters to the
Thus, we can assume that the audience itself, the members who believe in the content of ads and its sincerity, as well as, people who agree with the portrait of the women that is being created are the only prisoners in this particular situation. “To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images” (Plato 868). On the other hand, according to the Jean Kilbourne, author of “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” what is not mention to the public is the fact, that many women from the very young age during the process of finding out the truth and being blinded by the “light” are fighting with depression, low self-esteem, eating disorders and sexual harassment. “I contend that all girls growing up in this culture are sexually abused – abused by the pornographic images of female sexuality that surround them from birth, abused by all the violence against woman and girls, and abused by the constant harassment and threat of violence” (Kilbourne
Socialization and the Power of Advertising is an article written by Jean Kilbourne about the influence of advertising. In it, she focuses on the impact advertising has on people, especially young people, to buy. In her film, Killing Us Softly 4, Kilbourne changes gears and talks about advertising’s image of women. In both the article and the film, the message is the same: advertising seeps in to our environment and influences us, whether we realize it or not.
This is a stereotype, which has been engraved into heads of men, women, and children. By plastering the world with models who seem to have it the genetic jackpot, Dove set out to discredit this cultural cast created by our society. Body image, to some people, is the first part of a person they notice. A study conducted by Janowsky and Pruis compared body image between younger and older women. They found that although older women “may not feel the same societal pressure as younger women to be thin and beautiful…some feel that they need to make themselves look as young as possible” (225). Since women are being faced with pressure to conform in ways that seem almost impossible, Jeffers came to the conclusion “they should create advertising that challenges conventional stereotypes of beauty” (34) after conducting various interviews with feminist scholars. The stance of Figure 1’s model screams confident. She is a voluptuous, curvy and beautiful women standing nearly butt-naked in an ad, plastered on billboards across the globe. Ultimately, she is telling women and girls everywhere that if I can be confident in my body, so can you. Jessica Hopper reveals, “some feel that the ads still rely too heavily on using sex to sell” (1). However, I feel as if these are just criticisms from others who are bitter. With the model’s hands placed assertively placed on her hips, her smile lights up the whole ad. She completely breaks the stereotype that in order to
In “Still Killing Us Softly,” Jean Kilbourne points out that advertising and media are partly responsible for the behaviors and attitudes expected of women.
The documentary Killing Us Softly 4 discusses and examines the role of women in advertisements and the effects of the ads throughout history. The film begins by inspecting a variety of old ads. The speaker, Jean Kilbourne, then discusses and dissects each ad describing the messages of the advertisements and the subliminal meanings they evoke. The commercials from the past and now differ in some respects but they still suggest the same messages. These messages include but are not limited to the following: women are sexual objects, physical appearance is everything, and women are naturally inferior then men. Kilbourne discusses that because individuals are surrounded by media and advertisements everywhere they go, that these messages become real attitudes and mindsets in men and women. Women believe they must achieve a level of beauty similar to models they see in magazines and television commercials. On the other hand, men expect real women to have the same characteristics and look as beautiful as the women pictured in ads. However, even though women may diet and exercise, the reality...
In a brilliant update of the Killing Us Softly series, Jean Kilbourne explains the dangers of advertisements and how they objectify women. Advertisements intelligently portray women in a sexual and distorted way in order to attract the consumers’ attention. Media sets a standard on how young women view themselves and puts them at risk for developing an eating disorder. Kilbourne’s research has led her to educate those who have fallen victim to achieving the “ideal beauty” that has evolved in today’s society.
Jean Kilbourne’s “Two Way a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” is a section of a book titled: “Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power of Advertising” that was originally published in 1999. It is about the images of women that advertisements illustrate. The central claim or thesis of the document is that: “advertising helps to create a climate in which certain attitudes and values flourish and it plays a role in shaping people’s ideas” (paraphrase). The author wants people by all genders and young children to acknowledge a right attitude towards what is shown in the advertisements so that the standards of behavior will not be influenced. As a result, it enables the negative contribution from the advertisements to be limited or eliminated.
...r young, impressionable mind will have been exposed to more than 77,000 advertisements, according to an international study. Last week, it confirmed the link between the images of female perfection that dominate the media and increasing cases of low self-esteem among young women..” (Shields,2007). The propaganda techniques such as liking, sex appeal, and celebrity endorsements are used in advertisements constantly. Commercials on television, billboards, magazines, and various other advertisement types are everywhere you look in America, and sadly it has become very important for women of all ages to try to be perfect. We come into contact with these messages every day, and the beauty industry is getting bigger and bigger. Propaganda has molded our worldly perception of beauty and will only continue to hurt us and gain from our lack of self-esteem if we allow it to.
To sum up, it is often said that advertising is shaping women gender identity, and some have been argued that the statement is true, because of the higher amount of sexual references of women that advertisement show and the damages that occur on women’s personality and the public negative opinions of those women. As well, the negative effects that those kinds of advertisements cause to young generations and make them feel like they should simulate such things and are proud of what they are doing because famous actors are posting their pictures that way. Others deem this case as a personal freedom and absolutely unrelated to shaping women gender identity. On the contrast, they believe that, those sorts of advertisements are seriously teaching women how to stay healthy and be attractive, so they might have self-satisfaction after all.
The Tiger Beer advertisement shown in the appendix is a clear example of the objectification of women in advertising. The Tiger Beer advert was made to appeal to men from the age of 20 to 60. The advert seeks to get a cheap laugh from the target audience with the image of the woman in a sexual pose and the picture of the beer. The ad promotes the idea that beer is the most desirable thing in the ‘Far East’ and that beer is much more important than women. It also openly laughs at the South East Asian sex trade by putting a prostitute in the middle of the ad. The ad also implies that women in the ‘Far East’ are only good for sex (dressing in revealing, sexual clothes designed to make the woman in the ad seem more desirable).
4) Kilbourne, Jean. Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women. Dir. Sut Jhally. DVD. Media Education Foundation, 2000.
However, Olivier regards her resistance as “ridiculous” because she “[does not] need to work” (Sunèe 216). Men are considered the breadwinners (Espiritu 15); therefore, a female attempting to assume a man’s role is “ridiculous,” further belittling the status of women (216). Sunèe emphasizes that women are expected to sit and watch from the sidelines, allowing men to assume authority. The act of standing aside suggests that women are incapable of accomplishing tasks that are qualified for a man. When women relinquish their freedom to male superiority, men acquire more power over the relationship, which heightens their masculinity.
The most recent ad to come out of the campaign is the “Dove Real Beauty Sketches” video. In the clip women are asked to describe what they look like to a forensic artist while he sketches them. A second sketch was done of the same women by having an acquaintance describe their features . Towards the end, the women are shown the two sketches side by side and in each case the self-described sketch was less attractive than the one where they were described by someone else. The video ended with “You are more beautiful then you think”. There are many things wrong with the video. First of all, the sample size does not match the population correctly. It mainly focuses on fairly young, white women who could be seen as traditionally attractive. In fact, out of the whole 6:36 minutes of the clip, people of colour were only shown for 10 seconds. Furthermore, the video only focuses on the beauty of the women. The ad actually promotes the importance of beauty. Instead of having the people judge each other on their exterior, they should be judging them on their personality. Having one sketch be portrayed as unattractive and the other as attractive was a bad ide...