Sunday, March 30, 2014

Post #8 (week 9)


Jean Kilbourne’s film, “Killing us Softly 4” surprised me. At first I was skeptical of the film because I’ve heard of sexist ads and know what they are about. I always seemed to deny the fact that they actually affect individuals including myself. I think that because these ads are so common and around us every single day, we tend to just forget the deep message being portrayed, and just brush it off like its nothing. When listening to Kilbourne’s speech, I started to realize that because of these ads, our society has unrealistic expectations of ourselves, mostly in women. I tend to compare myself to other women, in ads or not, and this could be the reasoning for it (the unrealistic expectations). By comparing myself to these “fake” ads, it can sometimes affect my self-esteem, especially if I eat something unhealthy. It also surprised me how fake the ads are with all the in-detail touch ups such as lightening skin, slimming individuals, face touch ups, etc.
I chose an ad that I found on the Internet that I feel is extremely relevant to Jean Kilbourne’s argument about sexist advertisement.

This website has a list of old sexist advertisements, and the one that I found the most insulting was an ad for ketchup saying, “You mean a woman can open it…?” suggesting that a woman isn’t strong enough to even open a ketchup bottle. Ads that degrade women and make them seem weak are purely wrong and disgusting, and after watching “Killing us Softly 4,” I have noticed advertisements like this more and more, and hope to see a change soon.

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