Summary Of Jean Kilbourne's Advertisements

Improved Essays
Jean Kilbourne stressed two main points about advertisements in her video (Jhally, 2010). The first one being that ads are creating an unrealistic expectation of beauty in women. The second one was that ads are teaching people to objectify women. Firstly, she believed that ads are creating a kind of unattainable beauty through things such as Photoshop. No woman truly looks like the models in magazines or in commercials. Those models do not even resemble that image. All those models are digitally edited. According to Kilbourne’s research into ads, the perfect women is a tall, skinny, flawless white woman. The average woman or girl cannot reach those perfect standards. That is why ads are hurting women’s and young girls’ self-esteem. In the ad below, the model’s skin is flawless almost airbrushed. Her hair is perfectly curled and she has a slender face. This is exactly the kind of image Kilbourne warns is setting unrealistic standards for women. …show more content…
She states the majority of ads show women as either an objects or some sort of beer or food. This encourages the mindset that women are nothing more than something to be used and consumed. This is dangerous mindset for women. The media’s portrayal of women as objects also does nothing to improve women’s self-esteem. When a woman is constantly seeing women shown as nothing more than objects, she may then begin to think of herself in that sense as well. The ad below is a prime example of the kind of objectification Kilbourne was warning people that it is hurting women and men. The ad shows a woman’s body as a beer bottle in a man’s

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Before the 1940’s, women in the workplace was uncommon and frowned upon; women were to be housewives and specifically designated to the home, until the start of WWII. Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon has forever shaped and changed the role of women in society. During WWII Rosie represented the women that helped in shipyards while the men of the country were out fighting in the war; this still being a time where it’s uncommon for a woman to even be in the workplace. This has given society a new shape for femininity, independent, hard-working women. Women have always been placed in a “public sphere,” meaning that they were not expected to pursue the same interests that a man would.…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Women will always try to measure up to be – or look like an image that is unattainable for even the model herself. With these unrealistic images guiding them, it could cause major self-esteem issues. Males viewing these advertisements will grow up believing that women are objects, or that they are placed here to please men. Men will then believe they are more than women are; example being “you throw like a girl” or “be a man about it”. Men in advertisements are made to look manly or tough, whereas are women are made to sexualize childlike features or make women look mild.…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Kilbourne states that "It is hard for girls not to learn self-hatred in an environment in which there is such widespread and open contempt for women and girls." which means that other females who view this advertisement are also being judged and critiqued to dress a certain way or else fear not being accepted by society. This is why gender issues in advertisements, are such a big problem and just perpetuate the gender gap found between male and female. Kilbourne also goes on to…

    • 1653 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Ultimate Attraction For years turning the page in a magazine, or clicking on a new link in your browser the first thing that appears is commonly an advertisement. Now imagine it’s a couple engaging each other in a very sexual way. Would this steal the attention and make you consider the what advertisement is for? Since the beginning of multimedia there have been advertisements, displays that are used to promote products and services to a wide range of audiences. The conflict of how to sell certain products has always been a struggle however, deciding how to properly place, and use the intended product in a way that would convince the audience and others to purchase or want to purchase the subject.…

    • 1711 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jean Kilbourne

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Jean Kilbourne’s documentary “Killing Us Softly” and article “The More You Subtract, the More You Add” and Susannah Stern’s article “All I Really Needed to Know (About Beauty) I Learned by Kindergarten” shows that ads only sell products and not ideas. But behind the rose-tinted glass, ads show that women are being labeled by marketers. This leads to stereotyping and generalizations of women. When something becomes generalized by the population it is automatically accepted as the truth.…

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Stereotypes In Advertising

    • 1460 Words
    • 6 Pages

    “Kilbourne considers that approach in advertising the most de-humanizing one, stating that representing a person as an object is the first step to justifying violence against them”…

    • 1460 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A promotion is a message imprinted in a daily paper, or show to people, that endeavors to influence shoppers to purchase a particular item or concur with a specific thought. In the article "Advertising’s Fifteen Basic Appeals" by Jib Fowles, he explains that publicists have two ideas in their advertisements: the item data and the emotional claim in the brains of buyers. The purpose of this essay is to show how promoting impacts on our day-by-day lives, self-image, and analysis the methods and strategies that advertisers use to appeal to consumers. To begin with, the appeal that I selected first utilizes the need for sex as the engage persuade men to purchase a particular fragrance.…

    • 1186 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In today’s society, advertisements are everywhere: on televisions, on newspapers, on magazines, on walls, on billboards, and even on buses. These advertisements cover every single surface available in order to catch people’s attention and influence them to buy the product that’s being promoted. The desire to promote products in order to capitalize profit is normal to today’s society and it’s even seen as the norm. Advertisements aren’t bad for they are the driving force in today’s consumer society, but it is what they use in order promote products that caused many debates in regards to female rights. In her “Still Killing Us Softly 4” documentary, Jean Kilbourne drew a line that linked the idea of women in society to how women are being portrayed in advertisements.…

    • 1405 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In today 's society most advertisements focuses on women and their bodies. Women’s bodies are often dismembered in ads and shown in scarce clothing which represents most advertisements. Very often advertisements uses woman 's body in sexualization and objectification way. Sexualization is a common tactic advertisements and commercial uses which to create a frame of what their opinion of “ideal beauty” is. Jean kilbourne argues that ” the pressure on women to be young,thin and beautiful is more intense than before.…

    • 1091 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many may not realize how much their behavior is influence by the cultural expectations of their society. There are certain unsaid expectations that are perpetuated by our society that dictate the social interactions between people, these expectations are based on their sex and social position in relation to each other. In recent times there have been those who have questioned the prevailing norms and expectations of the current culture, and if these norms are justified and must be changed. There is a debate going on about the culture and its norms, what elements of this culture is good or bad, where did these norms originate from, which of these norms cause harm or are good, and what aspects of the current cultural norms must be changed to make a better society. In order to gain a full understanding of how our cultural expectations of interaction between people and how our expectations of gender affect it, we must analyze the full depth and range these expectations and how they affect us in our everyday social interactions.…

    • 1268 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Advertisements are a means of selling and promoting a product for a better profit. Content within advertisements is often a topic of debate. In a lecture on October 17, 2016, to a COMM 1100 class, Professor Braithwaite stated that ideologies are an encouraged way of thinking and often demonstrated in advertisements. This Calvin Klein advertisement specifically demonstrates an ideology of male domination and female subordination to the audience. This is a common trope seen in advertisements.…

    • 1250 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ultimately men who succumb to these advertisements pay companies not for their products, but promises of women. As a result advertisement has built an industry off of objectifying women and portraying them as sexual objects of desire, rather than regular human beings as a supply to the demand of male gaze. What’s even more disturbing is that women are portrayed in situations of submissiveness to the point where they are being abused by men in sexual or violent situations, to an even more extreme extent women are actually portrayed as objects such as tables or even the actual product being sold. Women can even be objectified through individual body parts without being entirely present in the add to further suggest that women are comprised multiple objects of desire, in order to micromanage the image of flawless beauty. “SO occurs when a woman’s body or body parts are singled out and separated from her as a person and she is viewed primarily as a physical object of male sexual desire (Bartky, 1990)”(Szymanski, Dawn, M, Lauren Moffitt, B, and Erika R. Carr) Suggestions such as this leads some women seek plastic surgery to modify their bodies to fit the description of beauty advertisement has created in order to fulfil male gaze.…

    • 1320 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    These ads affect men also by creating false expectations of how women look. The concept of desirable women beauty has been ever changing since the birth of mankind. Healthy and well-nourished was considered to be beautiful and being thin was considered to be unattractive. Suddenly the world saw young girls to prefer a slim figure. They started dieting excessively and end up with health issues.…

    • 3486 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The ones most affected by this ad are young women that are constantly worried of how they look, because society has this ideal way that a women has to look like, tall, slim with big breast and behind. This portrayal of women in society usually leads girls to have low-self esteem, and start to feel pressure that they have to look a certain way. Showing that there still is a problem and it is continuing to grow more and more, and young girls are being portrayed as sexual objects. In a reaerch conducted by Wesleyan University they examine 1,988 adverstimeny from well know magazine and cocluded, “that half of them show women as sex objects. A woman was considered a sex object depending on her posture, facial expression, make-up, activity, camera angle and amount of skin shown.…

    • 2055 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” expresses the subjective views people have on what is beautiful and what is not. What some may see as beautiful may not be agreeable with others. When it comes to women, they come in all diverse sizes, shapes, and colors that are all beautiful in their own way. In America, it is common to see women being advertised for beauty products. However, the main concern lies in the fact they are subjects of the “ideal beauty standard.”…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays