Blog Entry 9: Response to Kilbourne Video

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Hi all:

Please type in for this comment your response to the Kilbourne video, "Killing Us Softly..." as viewed in class last Thursday.

"Killing Us Softly 4" is no longer available online; but I think you can get to "Killing Us Softly 3" through this link.


Nick

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I really liked the video in class. It was very interesting. She pointed out a lot of great issues. Especially when she brought up just how much women are seen as objects rather than people. In the advertisements us women are almost always seen as toys, objects, or trophies rather than lovers, companions, or housewives. Most magazines show women with animal make-up, showing that we are more like animals then humans. She says,"Failure is inevitable" and that is so true. We cannot look like the women in magazines or commercials because in reality these girls don't even look like that. Almost all if not all magazines and commercials photo shop these advertisements to make the women look flawless. Advertisements say that if women aren't thin, beautiful, or rich then they aren't trying hard enough. How can this possibly be legal? How can putting such negative messages in the public eye be socially acceptable? Our society excepts these negative advertisements into their lives and really think they need to change their lives. Guys are seen in advertisements and commercials in a manly way. What does manly mean? Well they are seen as fighters, warriors, strong, violent, tough, and dominant. As for women we are seen as objects, quiet, timid, thin, passive, and weak. Advertising to women is absolutely disrespectful. The media is constantly telling women that we shouldn't look the way we do. When women are born usually until age 10, women are confident in themselves. By the time the hit adolescence then all the insecurities come along and low self-esteem starts to develop. Especially because we see the ads that you have to be thin to be beautiful. Also a good saying in one of the readings was,"The more you subtract the more you add", this is telling us the smaller we are, the less room we take up the more beautiful we are. The media shapes not only the way we look at people, but also the way we look at ourselves. Women don't think they are beautiful because media tells them different. Men don't think they can be sensitive because media tells them to be violent. It is devastating to know that this is constantly happening and will keep happening for more years to come.

Killborne’s “Killing Us Softly” video pointed out many negative aspects about advertisements toward women that I was not even aware of. This really worried me because I always thought that when you reached a certain age you knew the intent of advisements and could chose to be influenced by them or not (or at least try not to be influenced by them). I knew that the skinny and pretty girls displayed in ads were supposed to make me what want to be skinny and perfect, but I did not know that everything from the way the girls were positioned to the slogan on the ad had so many insidious affects of society. The video pointed out that many ads feature women with their hands over their mouth, or something covering their mouth. I never thought anything about this until the video pointed out that this simple gesture is symbolic of society silencing women. It promotes that belief that women are supposed to be seen and not heard, and that a woman who voices her opinion is bad. A far more disturbing part of advertisements that the video pointed out was the fact that women are often literally portrayed at objects. One ad turned a woman’s legs into scissors, while another ad turned a woman into a bottle of beer. The video explained that this subconsciously causes the dehumanizing of women, which leads to violence toward women. Women are seen as objects, not as people. I am very glad I was able to see this video, because now I am much more aware of the negative affects advertisements have on people, especially women. I now want to try to reduce my ad viewing.

First of all, I just want to acknowledge Kilbourne's dedication to the issue of women being objectified in the media. It takes a lot of commitment and passion to actually take action to make a difference in a cause. So for her to dedicate herself to research and to the production of enlightening lectures, is something to be appreciative of. With that said, I feel that Kilbourne's argument of the objectification of women was very intriguing. Instead of providing a severely biased view of this issue, she actually talked about how the media doesn't correlate directly to issues that affect women and how men also face objectification. Also, it was enlightening to realize the underlying focus of power in ads. For example, the dominance of white boys over girls and then white girls over black boys in advertisements for children's clothing. It was also eye opening to see how outrageous advertisements have evolved. From the heavy sexual connotations, dehumanization of women, extreme distinction of gender roles, and so much more, it is alarming to realize the media's negatively projected message towards women. The media tells women that they are expected to withhold contradictory aspects of purity, maturity, sexuality, innocence, strength, and also passiveness. So even if people say they are above the influence, we all are affected by the media's expectations of women. If this continues, the effects of the media's objectification will seep into younger and younger generations of girls.

The video "Killing Us Softly" by Susan Kilbourne had a lot of perfect examples as to how advertising has degraded women. She explained how women are portrayed as objects like a beer bottle. Also, advertisements show women and young girls to be always happy, passive, weak, and of course impossibly thin. There was picture I remember of two kids, one girl and one boy. The boy was portrayed masculine and he looked very angry towards the girl. However, the girl just looked up at him and smiled brightly. How would this image affect children who see this? Girls feel that they need to not be aggresive and always be smiling. This supresses girls' true personality and become what society wants them to become. Where is the sense of identity? Furthermore, girls are suppose be silent and "barely there." But why? Why can't girls express themselves like how guys can? This adverisement culture has shaped girls to be so inhuman in that they don't have feelings and don't have a voice.
However, the most shocking example in this video to me, was that women are shown to be overtaken by men. There was a picture in which there were three men beating up a girl in an alley. This advertisement was to sell for jeans. Another picture was that a man was pressing a woman face to a wall and he was also pulling her hair. The wierd thing is that the women pictured were not expressing any emotion of anger, rage or attempting to fight back. Rather, the women just took the men's physical violence. This shows that women are suppose to take the violence and not say a word? This is so wrong in so many ways. Advertising is turning women to be like they aren't even living, they're just there for men to throw around and look at. I really hope that this will somehow change in the future so little girls won't grow up in such a society.

I posted a comment last night and it didn't post:( boooo. Here's my new one,

Kilbourne mentions that "only 5% of the worlds population has the women's ideal body image." This doesn't surprise me. The ideal image that is talked about is the supermodel figure with the flawless face representing it. What is absurd is that this ideal image is posted onto various magazines and billboards where millions of women across the U.S. look at it. This one image of a supermodel can be plastered across the country yet less than 2% of the people who see the image actually look like that. Kilbourne brings up a good point that there is always something in need of fixing on a woman's body. A woman can be too skinny, too fat, too ugly, too muscular, too tall, too short, have bad skin, bad hair, bad teeth, have a scar, a birthmark, have a big nose or not enough fullness in the lips, eyebrows, boobs or butt. There are just too many variables to keep up with. If all the aspects of a woman's body aren't perfect at the same time then the woman is not deemed entirely beautiful. Because the ideal image is so demanding, women often turn to make-up, plastic surgery, diet pills and other extreme stuff. One more point i'd like to add is that it is now more common to see women wearing daily make-up when years ago, make-up was only used on special occasions.

Businesses thrive on the insecurities of women.Businesses make their profits by showing advertisements of flawless women with perfect complexions,perfect body types,etc.,and advertising products that can help the average insecure woman reach ''perfection.''Profit-seeking businesses are willing to do absolutely anything to make money including:showing near nude people of all ages regardless of the fact that their tactics might be looked at as being unethical in the eyes of the public.In their advertisements,businesses create perfect-looking models by using computers to combine different body parts of different women to make the ''perfect woman'',and manipulate other women into spending their money on useless products.Businesses are trying to send a message to every woman out there that the more they spend,the better they will look and feel.This is just not the case.Women need to open their eyes and realize that if something seems too good to be true,most likely it is not true.Women also need to understand that even if those advertisements were true and women really did have perfect complexions and body types,those kinds of attributes are congenital and those women on television were just born that way.Spending tons of money will not make them look ''perfect''like they hope.Women are also susceptible to criticism from others.Since women are always being judged by their looks,they want to try to look their best by spending lots of money.What women fail to understand is that there will always be criticism,and it will never stop.Women can never be perfect in the eyes of the public,because if there isn't something wromg with one part of their body,there is a problem with another part of their body.Women spend so much time and money trying to satisfy everyone around them,that they do not try to satisfy themselves.All women need to understand that they are perfect just the way they are.They do not need to stress out so much about their appearances and about everyone else's opinion.There is absolutely no problem if women choose to go out every once in a while and buy things that make them look and feel good,however they should not obssess over their appearance.Women should always keep in mind that they are all naturally beautiful and do not need any products to enhance their beauty.

Susan Kilbourne mentioned many ways that a woman could be affected by advertisements. After watching this video, I liked the part where she mentioned “Advertising also sells more than just products. It sells values, it sells images, it sells concepts of love and sexuality, of romance, of success, and most important, of normalcy.” This quote gives us a deeper understanding on how advertisements work and gives us a broader view of the areas that could be affected by advertisements. Women are definitely affected by all of those areas that advertisements are selling, especially images. Kilbourne informs that “Advertising tell us who we are and who we should be.” This proves that image is one of the important roles that could influence women. Women could be easily influenced by those advertisements because looking good has turned into a normalcy. Every woman wants to look like those models they saw on ads because they have flawless skin and a nice figure. Even if those ads were computer edited and retouched, women still believes those are the perfect images to have. However, like Kilbourne mentioned, failure to look like that is inevitable because of this absolute flawlessness idea.

the images that i saw in the advertisements here in the video were really shocking. i never really thought about what advertisements were really trying to advertise. this video opened my eyes and showed me that what advertisers are really trying to sell is the image of a person. to women, advertisements always portray a women who is skinny and has these curves that an only be done through plastic surgery or a killer diet. there was an advertisement that was suppose to advertise a product that would make your hair look gorgeous, but the ad talked about how your boobs would never be perfect, but you can have perfect hair with this product. i felt as if this ad was ridiculous because there is no connection between boobs and hair. what also shocked me was the fact that guys are usually not really discriminated in advertisements. guys are not really portrayed as being an animal, as the woman is portrayed in some of the advertisements that was shown. this video also made me realize that women take too much time in trying to be perfect, when in reality, there is no perfect. everyone is different and that difference is what makes us who we are. why is that that being perfect is what women are now interested in? we should value the things that we have. if we have some fat in ourselves, we should be thankful, or else what would keep us warm in the winter time.

I found the contrast between advertising men and women quite interesting in Susan Kilbourne's video, "Killing Us Softly". She mentions that women are often depicted as silenced. Women are covering their mouths or don't speak. This method shows the women as an innocent, passive character. For example, an advertisement for Chanel makeup shows a woman covering the lower half of her face with the collar of her jacket. The model is hiding behind the makeup. She may be shy but she looks beautiful so she doesn't need to talk. Kilbourne then states that advertisements with men show an agressive, active side. A Stetson ad for cologne shows a male on a motorcycle. The man has adventure and freedom while the woman has to stay innocent and stable. I would have never noticed if she hadn't mentioned it. This video should be shown to teenagers to show that companies try to target them. Teens need to know that the companies are doing it on purpose. They just want to sell products. Teen girls will never be able to match the computerized "beauty" shown on the magazines just as teen boys won't be as cool as the male model faking to ride a motorcycle. Kilbourne should continue with her project and make known the intentional advertisements. These advertisements are creating expectations for young people that will be impossible to achieve thus causing low self-esteem. This video opened my eyes to not believe ads no matter what.

Killbourne's video "Killing Us Softly" does portray many good points that i possibly would have not noticed if not mentioned in the video. The depicting made it much more clear that in adverstising woman are meant to be hidden, sensitive, quiet, and vulnerable. Where is the advertisment that portrays all the strong characteristics a woman holds? Woman aren't just objects and advertisments make it seem so harmless to make woman seem as an object. Advertisments don't carry reality in them, it is a world made up that deceives woman, teenagers, girls at such a young age that image is standard. Causing low-self esteem, especially when it comes to weight, now I do see a few advertisment showing girls who aren't neccessairly skinny, or advertisments with plus size models promoting a certain body wash or clothing line. Yet as Killbourne mentioned there is yet still advertisments to change. Like portraying woman as sexual objects, yes simply and object of pleasure exposing body parts of the woman promoting beer, male cologne, or a pair of jeans. The man in the advertisment is the one actually advertising the jeans and the woman as they say in drama calss is simply a prop and nothing more. Then there is showing woman of color as animals or simply silent, there is so aspects that make up how advertising affects woman and their sel-esteems and so unconciously they fall victim to the advertisments. It is inevitable to look a certain way to have that perfect look. Why falsify to be able to sell? It is unfair to womans emotions and to girls growing up in this world where at such a young age you are told you aren't good enough.

I found the video “Killing Us Softly” to be very interesting. Susan Kilbourne statement about advertisements selling not only products, but also values, images and concepts is very true. It is shocking to see the true realization of the affects ads have on numerous young people, especially girls. Various advertisements portray the look for a “perfect” body shape and women. This type of attention towards society begins to impact adolescent girls very deeply as they begin to believe that women are only acceptable and seen as “beautiful” if they have all these physical characteristics. They start to worry about their eating habits and about the way one might look at them which can lead many to diets. It influences them in such a negative way because while they should be enjoying their childhood years they are already beginning to worry about their image and aspect. What advertisers are doing is not acceptable; they try to sell their products by appealing to innocent adolescents who clearly don’t seem to understand the world of advertisements. As this continues, they are being sucked into this world where they think they too can grow up to be that flawless person that are impacted by. They become mentally influenced as they ignore their childhood at such a young age and become anxious to grow up and be able to use, do or portray such a fake image.

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This page contains a single entry by Nick Tingle published on September 17, 2012 10:54 AM.

Entry 8: "The More You Subtract...." was the previous entry in this blog.

Blog Entry 10: Plot Summary of TS. is the next entry in this blog.

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