I Never Paid Attention By Jean Kilbourne And Katz

Although most of us who pursue higher education are intellectually well aware of the extensive effect of the media, Jean Kilbourne’s and Jackson Katz’s documentaries brought the whole new awareness of stereotype advertising, to which I never actually paid attention. How often do we really take this fact into account while assessing a client? The truth is that “I never paid attention” is utterly the complete opposite of what is happening. Indeed, what I did not realize is that I always paid attention to the advertising; however, this type of advertising is so perpetual and is seen everywhere that this extreme stereotype advertising clearly became normal to me over the years. It is almost like the procedural memory. If I were trying to learn how to ride a bicycle for the first time, I would obviously be attentive to every part of my body so that I would not fall from the bicycle, as it would be a new experience. But we all know that this new experience that required so much of our attention eventually becomes normalized and requires much less attention to perform as we practice over and over.
The stereotype advertising seems to me almost like this procedural effect. The repetitive exposure to the advertising is so profound and widespread that this stereotype may become the normal perceptual background, which we unconsciously
learn to acquire when we see the world. It is unquestionable that many of us can recognize the sexual provocativeness of the current advertising, especially when we consciously scrutiny the commercial individually. Something that seems so outrageously different from how it once was is now everywhere that we do not see it as outside of the norm. This phenomenon simply explains to us how extensive the effect of stereotype advertising is. Especially in this society where the lives of people tend to revolve around the digital media, the effect must be tremendously more than what it was decades ago.
In fact, the repercussion of the advertising is unmistakable. The other day, my 5 year-old daughter was coloring a book that contained a princess-like girl. This princess-like girl appeared on the front cover of the coloring book, and she had a long blonde hair with sparkly blue eyes. Although my daughter never flipped back to the front page and examined how this princess-like girl was illustrated on the cover, she causally and, without taking much time to think, chose blue for this girl’s eyes. As a mom, I wanted to know why she picked the color, so I asked, “Why did you pick the color?” She instantly replied, “I like blue eyes.” I am certain that she does not know the precise reason for which she likes blue eyes, but I remember I felt the same when I was little. For reasons unknown, I always imagined that the ideal appearance of a girl was someone who had blonde hair, blue eyes, and long skinny legs. I knew no one taught me, but the cartoons and everyday advertising taught me so.
Of course, I do not forget the importance of educating my children that beauty is merely philosophy of how we embrace the concept of “what beautiful is,” and this concept does not have to consist of the elements, such as blues eyes, blonde hair, and long skinny legs. Likewise, I believe that the concept of “how men should be” is basically developed the same way. Essentially, these concepts largely vary by the nature of environment, to which one is predisposed in my opinion. However, one thing that older generations did not have that the newer generations have is the influence of the digital social media that penetrates cross-culturally. We certainly cannot prevent children and adolescents from being exposed to the digital social media, but we can definitely educate them to see the world through the lens that contains less color and less bigotry. I believe the true benefit of pursuing this doctoral program in clinical psychology is that it makes me think about this type of social phenomena, gives me an opportunity to explore the ideas surrounding the phenomena, and let me recalibrate my perceptual scale. The social construction of an idea is quite fluid, as a belief system within particular microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, as well as chronosystem, to which people belong, unconsciously yet infinitely dictate the framework of the idea. Surely, everyone does not believe that “men should not cry because men are strong, and because crying is for girls,” but it is unquestionably the common notion. Just as many girls and women of all ages are hopefully and hopelessly aiming to become the ideal image of this woman that never exist, men are also forced to think and appear as this strong masculine guy who demonstrates personal qualities that are normally possessed by a fictional superhero. It is truly unfortunate that innocent lives are lost too many times, solely because of the unjust social perception, to which people develop in a myriad of ways and hold on. Again, it can become difficult to realize that some socially constructed concepts are biased or even dysfunctional, because we are constantly exposed to the misshaped ideas.
So when someone challenge the concept, I hope we are open enough to accept the challenge, explore the ideas surrounding the socially constructed concept, and reconsider the meaning of the construct. I believe that it is crucial for a clinician to be able to openly accept and critically examine challenged constructs, as we should be the ears for those who are suffered by the maladjusted social constructs and the mouth to educate those who are not aware of the
consequence.