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Killing Us Softly

In: People

Submitted By unspokenwords68
Words 309
Pages 2
Eric Naylor
11/11/2013
Killing Us Softly
In this newest update of her Killing Us Softly series, Jean Kilbourne takes a look at how distorted and destructive ideals of femininity are. The film shows a range of new print and television advertisements to lay a pattern of damaging gender stereotypes, images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. Killing Us Softly 4 challenges viewers to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, and gender violence. Ads portray models and celebrities as being flawless, and as having perfect looks. Being human women want this and think that if they can just lose weight then they’ll be happy. All women want is to be like the people they idolize, yet that is the one thing anyone can never truly have, because no matter how we morph or change our bodies we will never be perfect. Some celebrities are speaking out about the deceptiveness of the media. Supermodel Cindy Crawford, considered one of the world’s most beautiful women, released a statement saying, “‘ I wish like I looked like Cindy Crawford’”(Kilbourne movie). Fortunately she’s not the only one addressing the misconception of the media. Winslet spoke out against a magazine stating, “‘I don’t look like that, and I don’t desire to look like that, I can tell you that they’ve reduced the size of my legs by about a third’” (Kilbourne movie). The media doesn’t show us reality; it shows us perfection and passes it as being realistic. The images and message portrayed within, Killing Us softly 4, are powerful and though provoking. It’s obvious that media imaging is damaging, however the points made in it shows us just how corrupt medial images are portraying a vast array of messages beyond perfection.

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