Jean Kilbourne 'Jesus Is A Brand Of Jeans'

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Recently I read an article written by Jean Kilbourne entitled “Jesus is a brand of jeans”.
In the article Kilbourne is stressing the Idea that advertising is stripping us of our spirituality, culture is becoming commercialism. Kilbourne believes that because of the way advertisements are deployed they’re changing our values in what I (and I’m pretty sure she) would consider an extremely negative way. Kilbourne talks of their efforts to addict us to consumerism as children and leave us emotionally starved, expecting products to fill the void that they create in us. The culture that comes with these advertisements is turning us into self-indulgent, close minded people Kilbourne sums this idea up quite well bemoaning that “This apparently bottomless consumerism not only depletes the world’s resources, …show more content…

It leads inevitably to narcissism and solipsism”. Kilborune also makes a point about how quickly advertisements can really affect a culture that is not consumerist in nature. Kilbourne notes the Gwish’in tribe, a tribe in Alaska, who were first exposed to television in 1980. Within ten years consumerism had taken over the original culture of the tribe, “Beaded moccasins gave way to Nike sneakers, and ‘tundra tea’ to Folger’s instant coffee”.

I find the Ideas Kilbourne present to be quite disturbing. I can’t even begin to think if a way to stop the advertising giants, but it’s frightening to think, with consumerism spreading like wildfire (maybe a little bit slower) what is going to come of both our cultural values and our natural resources. It’s only a matter of time before outside sources introduce these

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