Jean Kilbourne Killing USftly Analysis

Jean Kilbourne is an advocate for women and is leading a movement to change the way women are viewed in advertising. She opens up the curtains to reveal the hard truth we choose to ignore or even are too obtuse to notice. Women are objectified, materialized, and over-sexualized in order to sell clothes, products, ideas and more. As a woman, I agree with the position Kilbourne presents throughout her documentary Killing Us Softly 4: The Advertising’s Image of Women (2010) and her TEDx Talk The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women (2014.) She demonstrates time and again that these advertisements are dangerous and lead to unrealistic expectations of women.

In Jean Kilbourne’s essay, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence, she paints a picture of repression, abuse, and objectification of women. Kilbourne gives an eye-opening view to the way American advertisers portray women and girls. Throughout the essay she has images that depict women in compromising poses. These images are examples of how often we see women in dehumanizing positions in advertisements and how desensitized we have become. Kilbourne implores us to take the media more seriously. She is putting a microscope on society and showing that the objectification of women is acceptable.

In “Two Ways a Woman Can get Hurt: Advertising and Violence,” the author Jean Kilbourne describes how advertising and violence is a big problem for women. Although her piece is a little scrambled, she tries to organize it with different types of advertisement. Women are seen as sex objects when it comes to advertising name brand products. Corporate representatives justify selling and marketing for a product by how a woman looks. Kilbourne explains how the media is a big influence on how men perceive women. Kilbourne tries to prove her point by bashing on advertising agencies and their motives to successfully sell a product. Kilbourne’s affirmation towards advertisements leaves you no doubt that she is against them.

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly surrounded by advertisements. On average, we are exposed to approximately 3,000 ads per day, through logos, billboards, and television commercials, even our choices of brands. But in today’s society, one of the most used and influential tools of advertising are women. But the unfortunate thing is that women are not just viewed as actresses in these ads but as objects for people to look at, use, abuse, and more. In her fourth installment in a line of documentaries, “Killing Us Softly 4,” Jean Kilbourne explains the influence of advertising women and popular culture, and its relationship to gender violence, sexism and racism, and eating disorders.

Jean Kilbourne’s film, Killing Us Softly 4, depicts the way the females are shown in advertisements. She discusses how advertisement sell concepts of normalcy and what it means to be a “male” and a “female.” One of her main arguments focuses on how women aspire to achieve the physical perfection that is portrayed in advertisements but this perfection is actually artificially created through Photoshop and other editing tools. Women in advertisements are often objectified as weak, skinny, and beautiful while men are often portrayed as bigger and stronger. Advertisements utilize the setting, the position of the people in the advertisements, and the products to appeal to the unconscious aspect

For many people in the world to see an advertisement and move past it because they find them rather annoying has become the normalcy of today’s society. However, if people actually paid attention to those advertisements the readers would find that they think some of the ads should not have been allowed. An ad for Miss Dior perfume was presented in a late issue of Vogue with a model who looks to be about twenty-four years old. The model has shoulder length blonde hair, a clear skin tone, and a facial expression that could be considered provocative. The model is naked and only covered by a dress that she holds up which still only covers a portion of her top, middle section, and private area. Despite this dress, her complete right leg, thigh, arm, neck, and shoulders are revealed. In the foreground is a Miss Dior perfume bottle with the words “Miss Dior and you, what would you do for love?”. In Jean Kilbourne’s Killing Us Softly 4, she states that advertisements often send certain messages about women. Kilbourne claims that unrealistic ideas of women are often proposed within ads, such as symbolizing women as objects and not people, or even the idea that if you are not beautiful, then you are nothing. In the Dior advertisement, a few of its aspects uphold statements made by Jean Kilbourne such as sexualizing models to sell a product, emphasizing the idea of looking young and attractive, and placing models in vulnerable positions.

Jean Kilbourne’s video Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women touches on how advertising affects the way women are viewed. Kilbourne a renowned speaker who likes to educate minds about the effects of advertising is portrayed on women receives her degree at Wellesley College and then went and received her Doctorate from Boston University. Kilbourne was appointed to serve on that National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in 1993. While on this council she was recognized to be an expert in media, gender issues, and lastly addictions. She has made many lectures across the United States and Canada to the help educate the students. Along with educating the young minds of students, Kilbourne has won numerous amounts of award-winning documentary films that speak on public health, media, and violence (Jean Kilbourne). With all this recognition and experience that she received throughout her journey, it gives her extensive credibility on this media related subject.

Sexualizaton and objectification in the advertisements we see and the media we watch has become a very strong issue in our society. With the idea that “sex sells”, consumers don’t even realize that they’re not viewing the advertisements for what they are, but for the women (or men) that are being portrayed in a very erotic way, posed with whatever product they were hired to sell. Many articles have been written so far to challenge and assess this problem, but one written by Jean Kilbourne (1999), “”Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence” holds an extensive amount of authority. Using her personal experience with the subject, as well as studies she has conducted herself on the topic of sexualization, she talks about how the amount of sexualization in advertising affects how society views the culture and products consumers buy. She also notes that because of the quantity and prevalence of these ads, the rate of all forms of sexual assault, specifically rape (mostly towards women of all age), increase, as well as other forms of assault. It is important to examine Kilbourne’s use of rhetorical devices, such as ethos, pathos, and logos, and how effective these devices make her article. This way, it can be examined for its validity and her understanding of her own research. Kilbourne’s article is very effective through her uses of pathos and ethos, but at the same time, it loses its effectiveness through her absence of a counter-argument, as well as a lack

Killing Us Softly, a short film produced by Cambridge Documentary Films, graphically and effectively depicts the harm caused by modern day media and advertisements. I was personally affected by this movie, for Jean Kilbourne paints a vivid picture of how advertisement influence individuals perceptions of themselves and the world around them. Kilbourne describes how current advertisements present one type of women; tall, Caucasian, and almost always very skinny. This portrayal of beauty in media and in the fashion industry has set unrealistic expectations for young woman all throughout the country, and has consequently lead to widespread body image dissatisfaction. Furthermore, the objectification of women in these ads has had profound effects on increasing violence against women. I found the information explained in this short film to be thought provoking, and Kilbourne’s analysis was insightful. I find myself now hyper aware of the messages that advertisement agencies are sending out, and the more I pondered the impacts they have on society, the more I realize how large of an issue this really is. Kilbourne mentions early in the film that while her Killing Us Softly campaign began forty years ago, and even though the topic of media literacy has gotten more attention, the issue itself has only gotten worse. The key take aways from this film, such as the impact of a singular type of woman being portrayed as beautiful, the objectification of women, and how that

Also, Natalie MacKay and Katherine Covell in their article titled, “The Impact of Women in Advertisements on Attitudes Toward Women”, say that, “daily, we are exposed to printed advertisements in magazines, in newspapers, on billboards, in bus shelters and so forth” (Covell, MacKay 573-574). The ads are everywhere, you can’t get away from them and with all of these ads exploiting our emotions and attacking the very things that advertisers know will get out attention such as, love and relationships, they easily get away with it because they use what makes us vulnerable. It is also said in “Killing Us Softly 4” that, “almost every aspect of popular culture is really all about marketing”. With Americans seeing thousands of ads a day and all of them attacking some part of our being and emotions it’s easy for us to not even notice that there is damage being done. This is where the advertising companies excel because they know that no one is going to see a commercial for a car as being a harmful attribute to our sexual relationships or a video of a hurt animal affecting our emotions into buying animals. It’s all a game that advertisers play, a game that they are winning, as Jean Kilbourne says, “to a great extent they tell us who we are, and who we should be” (Killing Us Softly 4). They have this subtle yet deadly power over us that’s strong enough to change our own self and most importantly, the relationships we have or will

The average American is exposed to hundreds of advertisements per day. Advertisements targeted toward females have an enormous effect on women's thoughts, attitudes, perceptions, and actions. Most of the time, women don't even realize these advertisements are formulating self-image issues. These ideals surround them daily and they become naturalized to the ads. Advertising creates an entire worldview persuading women to emulate the images they see all around them. In order to create a market for their products, companies constantly prey upon women's self esteem, to feel like they aren't good enough just the way they are. This makes women constantly feel stressed out about their appearance (Moore). Advertising

Women have been hyper-sexualized for a long period of time and up until now women have not been treated well in the media. Advertising tends to shape people’s perceptions and ideals and thusly forms the consumer’s minds to believe that what they see in advertisements is what should be manifested in their own lives. At first glance, people may think that advertising has no long term effects on consumers, when in reality studies have shown that even those short and simple advertisements can have long lasting effects on naive minds. Some of  these simple advertisements include advertiser’s using catchy tunes, the right use of color and boldness, and a good product placement in their advertisements. Advertising has used several different tactics in order to sell their products. One of those tactics is “Through the male gaze, the female body becomes territory” (Ponterotto 2016) and another common tactic is how advertisers use sex to sell their products. More importantly, an advertiser's goal is to try and target the consumers insecurities in order to sell their products. Since the 1980’s, sex in advertisements has increased dramatically and will continue to increase if it means that the advertiser’s will make profit. More specifically, advertisements have directed values that state women should look a certain way in order to live up to societies standards. Up until now, women have been taking these advertisements negatively and buying into the idea that they need to look a certain way in order to be considered “beautiful.” We now hypothesize that the negative connotations that have once been associated with women in advertising and is taking a drastic turn and turning into a more positive connotation.

Gender issues are reflected very heavily in today’s advertisements. Often, these advertisements will propagate a number of negative stereotypical practices, including overtly sexual portrayals and violence against women. The way the media attempts to convince women to act is often outright dangerous to their wellbeing, and focuses on training them to be appealing to men. As stated by Jean Kilbourne, a noted activist, these kind of advertisements “dehumanize and objectify people, especially women”.

In today’s society, it is almost impossible to go a day without seeing some sort of advertisement, whether it’s on the radio, television, or walking down the street. According to Jean Kilbourne, "the average American is exposed to at least three thousand ads every day and will spend three years of his or her life watching television commercials." (pg. 90). That number is only going to increase with the way social media is today. Ads like this one feed on women’s anxieties and insecurities. These women set unrealistic body images with the way they look and stand. Although people may think that they are not affected by these advertisements, they get into people’s minds without them even realizing it, and most ads have more than one meaning behind them. Although you may not realize that as you just quickly glance at them.

Television ads primarily focus on trying to promote an event or sell an item. It was found that the commercial ads within an hour span from 2009 to 2013 has slightly increased from “13 minutes and 25 seconds” to “14 minutes and 15 seconds” (Flint 2014). Meaning that in just one hour we view on average just 29 television commercials. Despite them being small 30-second commercials, they still can make a big impact on individual’s unconscious mind. Today in most advertisements, we see food, beer, or beauty supplies. A strong portion of these commercial advertisements either use women to sell their products or are directed towards women. These ads tend to scrutinize women sexually by objectifying their bodies, persuading them to subject to a beauty standard, and by reinforcing their oppressive gender roles.