In the article,”Two Ways A Woman Can Get Hurt”by Jean Kilbourne the author talks about how ads portray women and men in a way that damages society. Some of the ads with men advertising the author describes them as a betterer or date rapist as he is showing off the product. The authors says men are also encouraged to never take no for an answer and shows them the dominate one over women. The author talks in general how society looks at women needing to be more responsible and not being sloppy, but men on the other hand aren’t looked upon badly or judged if they are too drunk in public of make mistakes. The author talks about young girls that see other girls their ages being models that are skinny, they either try to be like them or afraid of…
Kilbourne claims, “Male violence is subtly encouraged by ads that encourage men to be forceful and dominant, and to value sexual intimacy more than emotional intimacy”(460). Though this may be a valid claim one may agree with, another may also argue as to why the advertisement is to blame, and that is why Kilbourne specifically comments that, “Ads don’t directly cause violence, of course”(466). As we know, there are many different forms and styles of advertising such as television commercials, radio commercials, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and even on city benches; basically anywhere a victim could happen to…
Some would say the power of ads has an immeasurable effect on the world. In Jean Kilbourne’s article “Jesus is a Brand of Jeans,” she insinuates that society has made a negative shift due to ads. She says our culture values products as the ultimate source of happiness, which devalues what would previously be considered as important. Essentially, she says that people no longer value relationships and non-monetary things. For example, one of the ads depicts a man making love to a woman while covering her face with a picture of a car, which show how people are emotionally attached to items. Kilbourne goes so far as to say, “Ads have long promised us a better relationship…buy this and it will love…
The intriguing documentary of Killing Us Softly 4 by Jean Kilbourne, provides for a controversial topic of the basis of advertising in the media and how it affects women directly and indirectly. Consequently, harsh results are perceived from these advertisements. Of all the “factual” statements made by Jean Kilbourne during this documentary, many fallacies arose. The media leaves us extremely vulnerable to assimilating ourselves to all aspects of mass media. I can closely identify myself with the situation at hand because I am a part of a society that is raised up on a pop culture that is ubiquitous. We are constantly consumed in the media every single day with advertisements flooding our brains. In fact, I feel that women are not as materialized, dehumanized, or objectified as they are overpoweringly depicted in Killing Us Softly 4.…
In the article “Tow Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” by Jean Kilbourne, which was published in 1999, describes how women are shown in today advertisements. Sex in advertising has taken a completely bizarre way to advertise about a certain product. Women are usually shown in inappropriate matter to attract consumer’s attention. Most of the advertisements today are based on pornography features. In addition, the use of sex content in advertisements has a negative impact on consumers because it shows women as a cheap tool in business. Those kinds of advertisements indicate that men are always the rulers and women are their easy target. Sexuality plays an important role in marketing and advertising today. Big companies earn…
The increasingly popular obscenities and nudity are infinitely related to the theory of sex sells. It is used to arouse the interest in a particular product, service or brand. The thought process that we follow our primal urges of food and reproduction has been used in advertising for a long time. However, there is also a fine line that can be stepped over and people can be turned off.…
Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women is the newest update of Jean Kilbourne’s examination of the way female bodies are scrutinized, objectified and derided in advertisements. Kilbourne guides the audience through the countless images she’s collected since the late 1960s, mixing some dark humour with her sharp criticism. Though the ads seen in this film offer a wide variety of products, they share an unsettling common ground in the way they use a narrow, unattainable standard of female beauty and sexuality to sell them. The result is damaging to our collective psyches as far as the way we view real women and ourselves.…
In article “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence,” Jean Kibourne argues that advertising encourages sexual and physical violence towards women. One example from her article that supported main argument well is the advertising about jeans. Jean discusses, “The ad that ran in the Czech version of Elle portraying three men attacking a woman seems unambiguous, the terrifying image is being used to sell jeans to women” (583). It a strong use of evidence for advertising encourages sexual and physical violence towards women because in the ad does not show any thing about jeans. Otherwise, on the image, there are three men attacking and having sexual abuse a woman. This ad will encourage men to aggressive towards woman, and let them…
In Kilbourne’s article she explains that advertising is damaging to the public and most often hurts women by persuading them to submit to a man’s sexual and non-emotional needs. The author also contends that the poses, the facial expressions, and the body language in these ads are being taken out of the pornography industry. Advertisement examples such as ties, watches and perfumes are used to establish that men are illustrated as being superior to women, leaving the woman to be degraded and submissive. Through more examples of both women and men in ads, Kilbourne’s states that women don’t exactly mean no when they say no and that men are strengthened not to take no for and answer. The conclusion that such media provokes the increasing of rape, sexual harassment, and battery of women is also what the author narrates.…
In Killing Us Softly, Jean Kilbourne delivers a powerful lecture on the insane pressure that the advertising industry puts on women. In her lecture, she addresses the fact that the severely photo-shopped images found in magazines lowers women’s self-esteem. These advertisements…
Jean Kilbourne is the producer of the film “Killing Us Softly” made in 2010. Through this documentary, Kilbourne argues some important facts of the parlous impact social media has become towards society. One of her mainly points in her speech is how media is mostly unconscious to an individual, though it can have a grand impact in his daily life. Kilbourne also compares the different images media has put over man and woman; men are always met to be successful, have power, and normalcy, however women’s images are only about achieving beauty, become flawless and feel shame or guilty if you don’t accomplish it. Jean Kilbourne also addresses inequality, discrimination, racism, women’s objectification as well as sexualization, and all the consequences…
Jean Kilbourne has spent most of her professional life teaching and lecturing about the world of advertising. She has produced award winning documentaries on images of women in ads, is a member of the national advisory council on alcohol abuse and alcoholism, and is a senior scholar at the Wellesley Center for Women at Wellesley College. Kilbourne has served twice as an adviser to the Surgeon General of the United States. Kilbourne has also written a book which is titled “The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids.” Another one is her book from 1999 “Can’t Buy My Love; How Advertising Changes the Way…
In their study they conducted research and studies on the attitudes of young women in today’s society and how they feel about the ads that portray women as sexual objects.…
Kilbourne, J. (1999). Can’t buy my love: How advertising changes the way we think and feel. New York: Simon and Schuster.…
Women, beauty, sex, money--they may seem like completely unrelated words but when combined together create a powerful driving force within American society. This “driving force” is known as media, though, in this essay, I will be focusing mainly on advertisements. There are a variety of ads being made everyday and can be spotted almost everywhere; billboards, magazines, shops, and even online, just to name a few. However, many of these ads--ranging from food to fashion--have began involving women in them. Not just any women either; these women are the idealized women American society has conceptualized as they flaunt their bodies whilst also implying sexual themes. Individuals, literally and figurative, by into the way these advertisements…