Enhancing Media Literacy
Video: Killing Us Softly Three
Content Overview

Introduction

Key Points:

OBJECTIFICATION

"Women are constantly turned into things, into objects. And of course this has very serious consequences. For one thing it creates a climate in which there is widespread violence against women. Now I’m not at all saying that an ad. . . directly causes violence. It’s not that simple, but it is part of a cultural climate in which women are seen as things, as objects, and certainly turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step toward justifying violence against that person." – Jean Kilbourne

Key Points:

Below are two advertisements that turn women’s bodies into objects.

 

 

 

Look at the FrancescoBiasia ad. What do you see?

Look at the Ford ad. What do you see?

 

DISMEMBERMENT

"Women’s bodies continue to be dismembered in advertising. Over and over again just one part of the body is used to sell products, which is, of course, the most dehumanizing thing you can do to someone. Not only is she a thing, but just one part of that thing is focused on.".   Jean Kilbourne

The Dismembering of Women

Below are images of body parts used to sell products.

 
 

Look at the Bacardi ad.

    1. Look at the Aubade ad.
    1. Why do you think advertisers might choose to focus on only one body part?
    2. What is your reaction to advertisers using dismemberment as an advertising technique?
    3. What are some consequences of this technique? On our perceptions? Our attitudes?

      Currently, legs seem to be a particularly popular body part on which to focus.

       

       

      Why do you think advertisers might choose to draw attention to legs?

      When advertisers choose to focus explicitly on legs, do they present a diversity of body types? Why do you think they portray legs the way they do?

      What are some possible effects on young girls and women of constantly seeing images like these? What about effects on young boys and men?

      Sut Jhally says in Dreamworlds II, an analysis of the portrayal of women in music video, that women in rock video are "merely outlines. Just Shapes. Nothing inside matters. . . . They are just legs in high heels." What do you think he means when he says this? How does this connect with the constant focus on ‘legs in high heels’ in advertising?

OBSESSION WITH THINESS

"...the omnipresent media consistently portrays desirable women as thin....even as real women grow heavier, models and beautiful women are portrayed as thinner. In the last two decades we have developed a national cult of thinness. What is considered beautiful has become slimmer and slimmer. For example, in 1950 the White Rock mineral water girl was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 140 pounds. Today she is 5 feet 10 inches and weighs 110 pounds. Girls compare their own bodies to our cultural ideals and find them wanting. Dieting and dissatisfaction with bodies have become normal reactions to puberty. Girls developed eating disorders when our culture developed a standard of beauty that they couldn’t obtain by being healthy. When unnatural thinness became attractive, girls did unnatural things to be thin."

– Mary Pipher, Reviving Ophelia

Key Points:

Below is the August 2001 cover of SELF magazine. SELF describes itself as a health and fitness magazine.

  1. Read the headlines on the cover of SELF. What is the focus of each headline?
  2. After simply glancing at the cover of this magazine, how do you think SELF defines health? fitness?
  3. How do you define health? fitness?
  4. "Health" and "Fitness" magazines often emphasize the correlation between weight loss and health. When are weight loss and health at odds with one another

Below is an advertisement that ran in the August 2001 issue of SELF Magazine. Examine it carefully.

    1. What is the ad trying to sell?
    2. Who is the ad targeting?
    3. What feelings is the ad trying to create? Do you feel it is effective? Why or why not?
    4. What is the ad saying, implying or promising?
    5. How is this ad using the desire for thinness to sell its product

 

 

FOOD AND ADVERTISING

"[In American culture] emotional nourishment is linked with physical nourishment. Many of our words for those we love are food words, such as sweetie, sugar and honey." The association between food and intimacy can be dangerous for women who struggle with binge eating disorders and bulimia, since bingeing often represents an attempt to satisfy an emotional hunger rather than a physical one. Advertisements that support emotional eating and imply that "you can never have too much" encourage, or at least normalize, the attitudes that lead to bingeing. There are many other ways that advertising supports eating-disordered attitudes. Women are sent the message that they shouldn’t eat too much, that it is appropriate to eat only a cereal bar for breakfast, and that they gain power and respect by controlling their bodies. When advertising for food is examined in conjunction with the prevalence of extremely thin models, we discover a recipe for disordered attitudes toward eating.

 

Key Points:

Below are two advertisements for SnackWell’s and Lean Cuisine.

 

 

Look at the advertisement for SnackWell’s, which ran in a recent issue of Good Housekeeping.

Look at the advertisement for Lean Cuisine.

 

WOMAN VS WOMAN

Girls and women are often depicted in the mass media as being in competition with each other for men. This phenomenon can have consequences. If these media depictions are absorbed, they can create suspicion between women, make it difficult for them to form solid friendships and bonds, and undermine trust. It can also isolate girls and women from one another and keep them from finding the strength (emotional and political) found in numbers to question and challenge the status quo

Below are two images, a Valentino advertisement and a fashion layout from Harper’s Bazaar.

 

 

Look at the Valentino advertisement (on the left).

Look at the fashion layout (on the right).

    1. What effects might the story told by these images have on the young women who see these images and others like them? What effects might this story have on young men?
    2. What effect might this story have on feminism and feminist ideas?
    3. Do you see this story in places other than in advertising? If so, where?

 SILENCING: DOES HER VOICE MATTER?

Key Points:

 

"I have lots of opinions about the ideas we talk about in class, but I don’t want to say them out loud because I don’t want the boys to think I’m a bitch."

-- 17-year-old girl (to her teacher)

THE TRIVIALIZATION OF POWER

Key Points:

Below are two advertisements for V05 and Nokia.

 

 

Look at the ad for V05.

Look at the ad for Nokia, which ran in a popular women’s fashion magazine.

Do you feel there is a link between images like these and the negative connotations sometimes associated with feminism? Explain.

THE SEXUALIZATION OF TEENAGERS

 

Britney Spears, age 19, in a Harper’s Bazaar fashion layout

 

In recent years, mainstream media have increasingly traded in the sexualization of young girls and teenagers. More and more, we see teen models and icons captured in seductive poses that draw attention to their bodies. When teenagers emulate the celebrities and models they see repeatedly in media – whether in dress, style, attitude or behavior – they are in effect emulating a carefully crafted fiction that is expressly designed by marketers to be consumed as an object.

Below are three advertisements that ran in the September 2001 issue of Seventeen Magazine.

 

Look at each ad individually, and answer the following questions:

Then answer:
    1. What message(s) do images like these send to young girls about sex?
    2. What message(s) do images like these send to young boys about sex?
    3. Images like these, with models of close to the same age, also appear in popular men’s magazines. The audience of these magazines ranges from age 14-40+. What do images like these suggest to older men about teenage girls? In what ways do you feel this might be dangerous?
    4. How might it be dangerous for young girls to dress and act like the models and celebrities in magazines?
    5. If men have seen sexualized images of teenagers, and they then look at teenagers in real life in a sexual way, are they responsible? Why? Why not?
    6. What connections, if any, do you see between how young models are portrayed in fashion magazines and child pornography?

 

AGEISM IN ADVERTISING:

"Keep young and beautiful if you want to be loved."

Advertisements rarely feature women over the age of 35, and there are many advertisements for beauty products that claim to help women continue to look young, even when they no longer are.

Below are three advertisements for products that fight the signs of aging.

 

 

    1. Who are these ads targeting?
    2. What feeling(s) are they trying to create?
    3. What are they saying, implying or promising?
    4. What point of view do these ads have of age and beauty?
    5. What other points of view exist about age and beauty?
    6. Do you think advertising has helped create the cultural attitude that youth and beauty are synonymous? Or do you think it reflects this cultural attitude? If it has helped to create the attitude, what do you think makes people susceptible to the influence of the media?
    7. What effect do you think this has on the way that women feel about themselves as they age? What effect do you think this has on the way our culture views older women

 

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Despite the alarming rates of men’s violence against women in the United States, women and girls are frequently depicted in the media as victims of violence. Often, the violence is sexualized. Scenes of violent assaults against women are used continually in horror films for entertainment purposes, and some companies use violent images in their advertising campaigns for shock and aesthetic value to help sell their products. Because we see these images regularly and without serious commentary, they become normal. The activities in this section will help make students aware of how media trivialize men’s violence against women.

Key Points:

Body image and issues in the classroom: A Note to Instructors

Learning Objective: Students will become aware of images in advertising that depict violence against women. They will explore the consequences of such images.

EXERCISE 1: The Bruised Look

In recent years, it has become fashionable for advertisers to make up models in a way that they resemble women who have been battered. Below are some recent examples.

 

For each of the advertisements, answer the following questions:

 

IS IT INTENTIONAL????

One of the frequent responses to Killing Us Softly III is "Jean Kilbourne is just making this up. She’s reading into the advertisements too much. The advertisers don’t intend to send harmful messages to their viewers." The following exercise exposes students to more information to help them think more critically about advertisers’ intentions.

Below are some advertisements that ran in Advertising Age, a marketing publication directed toward advertisers. This publication is not intended for the general public, and the ads are very direct.

 

 

 

Look at the ad for HI Frequency Marketing, an advertising agency.

Look at the ad for YM. The ad was too large to scan in entirety. The large print reads, "In a world gone girl, YM is your magazine."

Look at the ad for Bauer Publishing. (Its proper orientation is 90 degrees to the left.)

After looking at some advertisements from Advertising Age, what do you think advertisers intentions are? Why do you think they use ads with thin women, ads that suggest (or directly show) violence against women, ads that objectify women?