Killing Us Softly Essay

Killing Us Softly is a movie we watched in class on women and men and how they be portrayed in the denote world. Jean Kilbourne is the speaker she started collecting advertisements in the 60s because of her involvement with the womens movement, her refer in the media and through her experiences as a model. I actu bothy found this movie to be style more informational than I first thought it would be I thought it would be all almost statics and less about the image of advertising. What type of advertising environment surrounds us? Here argon some facts that might answer that question. In the past 40 years Kilbourne believes that the advertising image of women has become worse. advert in the United States had turned into a billion dollar industry. The average American will be exposed to over 3,000 daily and will spend about two years of their life honoring commercials on television. Advertisements ar everywhere, they are at sporting stadiums, billboards, bus stops, and elevato rs etc., we cannot escape them. Advertising creates an environment wiz that makes us believe that we need to be healthy and beautiful.We know that ads sell much more than products. They are trying to sell us values, images, love and success. They are telling us who we are now, and who we should be in the future, this is powerful especially if we are still finding our way in life. There rarely is a exposuregraph of a beautiful woman that has not been photo shopped in wizard way or another. Women of color are considered beautiful only if they meet the white ideal which is lighter skin tone, flat hair and Caucasian looking features. A good example of this is the singer Beyonc. In all types of advertising womens bodies are turned into an object. One area on the body that advertising companies emphasis on is the breasts. There has been an increase in cosmetic surgeries in recent years. Ninety-one percent of all cosmetic procedures are done on women.The society that we live in loves to make fun of celebrities who chance on a little weight down, we are obsessed with thinness. Models are becoming thinner and thinner. The sad reality is that if they are not thin enough in a photo shoot then they are photo shopped to make them look thinner. Some of the ads we see today encourage unhealthy attitudes which can lead to have disorders. Advertisers target women with weight loss products. It has been found that many of these products do not work, with 95% of dieters regainingthe weight back. An interesting study was done among Fijian women soon after the television was introduced to their country. The study found that at that place was a rise in eating disorders. The U.S has the highest rate of teen pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases in the positive world. The sexualization of girls has become extreme there are padded bras and thongs for pre-teen girls that are sold on department stores. Ads are catered for heterosexuals.Gay men hardly exist outside the publications that target them, and the way they depict lesbians is if it comes straight from the filth world. Over the years men have been featured as being bigger, stronger and more powerful than women. hands really dont live in a world where their bodies are scrutinized, criticized or judged in the same way as women. Boys are growing up in a world where entail are shown to be perpetrators of violence and encourages toughness and insensitivity. The most dangerous image that can be seen is the one that eroticizes violence against women. These images could feature women in bondage, being battered, or worst having been murdered. Advertising affects us all whether we control it or not. It does not matter if we are rich or poor, young or old we are all slaves to it in one way or another.