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The images and words chosen in advertisements society is exposed to on the day-to-day impact society. Images in advertisements seem to be almost pornographic and often portray sexual violence and objectification. For majority of her life, author Jean Kilbourne has taught and lectured about the advertising industry. She is also a filmmaker who has produced award-winning documentaries . These documentaries center around images of women in advertisements. She has graduated from Wellesley college. She also has a doctorate degree in education which she received from Boston University. In her article “Two Ways a Woman can get Hurt: Advertising and Violence”, Kilbourne elaborates on how objectification of women and their bodies in advertisements can …show more content…
She believes that advertising has reached a point where bodies are portrayed as objects thereby normalizing mindsets that eventually lead to sexual aggression. Her purpose of writing this article is to bring awareness to the subtle meanings of advertisements and the effects that that have. Also that advertising companies do not need to objectify or even have a sexual aspect to sell products. Kilbourne is speaking to everyone, but more specifically advertising companies. Kilbourne is effective in her article due to her experience in advertising which installs her credibility. Also her usage of terms which grabs the audience's attention and causes an appeal to emotions. Lastly she is effective by her ability to explain the effects advertisements have on men, women, young boys, young girls and society as a …show more content…
Its states, “ It’s hard for girls to not learn self-hatred when there is such widespread and contempt for women and girls. A clothing line from a company called senate distribution included a line in the labels of clothing called ‘Destroy all girls’...” (440-1). Kilbourne feels that it's easy for girls to have self-images problems when there is an atmosphere of disregard for them. She then includes when a clothing line nonchalantly prints ‘Destroy all girls’ on the labels. The phrase ‘Destroy all girls’ makes the audience feel disgusted at the disdain towards girls, thus making it pathos. When Kilbourne brings attention to how easy it is for girls to be self-hating, it makes the audience sympathize with adolescent girls. This is very effective seeing as Kilburne is making the audience solicitous about the self-images issues of young girls. She also makes the readers indignant at the fact that a phrase called ‘Destroy all girls’ can be comfortably thrown around, thus making it pathos. Kilbourne is controlling the emotions of the audience so she has the ability to persuade the readers to take her
In a consumer-driven society, advertisements invade the minds of every person who owns any piece of technology that can connect to the internet. Killbourne observes that “sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women,” (271). Advertising takes the societal ideology of women and stereotypes most kids grow up learning and play on the nerves of everyone trying to evoke a reaction out of potential customers, one that results in them buying products. Another point made
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.
Kilbourne, Jean. “‘Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’: Advertising and Violence.” From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader. 2nd ed. Eds. Stuart Green and April Lidinsky. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2012. 459-480. Print.
Advertisements are all over the place. Whether they are on TV, radio, or in a magazine, there is no way that you can escape them. They all have their target audience who they have specifically designed the ad for. And of course they are selling their product. This is a multi billion dollar industry and the advertiser’s study all the ways that they can attract the person’s attention. One way that is used the most and is in some ways very controversial is use of sex to sell products. For me to analyze this advertisement I used the rhetorical triangle, as well as ethos, pathos, and logos.
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...
...appearance with a sense of revulsion and harshness, which shows the differing nature in which males are able to evade serious repercussions as well as responsibility whereas females are left for judgment. In this way, the text appears to lower the significance and value of having knowledge and being informed while simultaneously highlighting the deceptive and complex nature that lies within each individual.
First, Kilbourne’s research should be praised tremendously for bringing to light the unhealthy impression of true beauty in today’s culture. Kilbourne challenges the audience to reconsider their viewpoints on advertising that is sublime with sexual language. The evolution of advertising and product placement has drastically changed the real meaning of being a woman. According to the movie, every American is exposed to hundreds and thousands of advertisements each day. Furthermore, the picture of an “ideal women” in magazines, commercials, and billboards are a product of numerous computer retouching and cosmetics. Media creates a false and unrealistic sense of how women should be viewing themselves. Instead of being praised for their femininity and prowess, women are turned into objects. This can be detrimental to a society filled with girls that are brainwashed to strive to achieve this unrealistic look of beauty.
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.
The portrayals of men in advertising began shifting towards a focus on sexual appeal in the 1980s, which is around the same that women in advertising were making this shift as well. According to Amy-Chinn, advertisements from 1985 conveyed the message that “men no longer just looked, they were also to be looked at” as seen in advertisements with men who were stripped down to their briefs (2). Additionally, advertisements like these were influencing society to view the male body “as an objectified commodity” (Mager and Helgeson 240). This shows how advertisements made an impact on societal views towards gender roles by portraying men as sex objects, similarly to women. By showcasing men and women in little clothing and provocative poses, advertisements influenced society to perceive men and women with more sexual
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.
4) Kilbourne, Jean. Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women. Dir. Sut Jhally. DVD. Media Education Foundation, 2000.
With so much exposure to this type of media, it is easy to become desensitised to it. With America becoming numb to the violence in these advertising tactics, domestic violence is an increasing problem as brutality against women has become trivialized. Jean Kilbourne 's “‘Two Ways a Woman can get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence’ argues that violence in advertising profoundly affects people in a skewed physiological manner, leading to violence against women. Kilbourne insists that “...violent images contributes to the state of terror...” felt by women who feel victimized by men who “...objectify and are disconnected...” from the women they mistreat (431). She furthers her argument by dictating that “....turning a human being into…an object, is almost always the first step towards justifying violence against that person” (431). So much of the media that America consumes is centered on dehumanizing women into an object of male enjoyment. It is difficult to have empathy toward a material object. Because of this objectification, men feel less guilty when enacting brutality upon women. Violence becomes downplayed because it is seen everywhere - in advertising and media - and this has contributed significantly to the cases of domestic violence in America. America has become numb to violence against women in advertising, leading to an alarming increasing domestic violence in this
Curry and Clarke’s article believe in a strategy called “visual literacy” which develops women and men’s roles in advertisements (1983: 365). Advertisements are considered a part of mass media and communications, which influence an audience and impact society as a whole. Audiences quickly begin to rely on messages sent through advertisements and can create ideologies of women and men. These messages not only are extremely persuasive, but they additionally are effective in product consumption in the media (Curry and Clarke 1983: