...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)...
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...“Killing Us Softly” Personal Response Essay “Killing us Softly” is a documentary by Jean Kilbourne on the message that the advertisement industry sends out to women and the near impossible standards of feminine beauty it upholds. Cindy Crawford once said “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford”. Now this might sound bizarre to many, but the truth is, in today’s world of Botox and Photoshop, cosmetic surgery and strict diets it is impossible to be that ‘perfect body’ that ads portray. According to a photographer for a leading fashion magazine, a particular shot goes through at least 20-30 rounds of airbrushing. Tag lines such as “beauty knows no pain” and “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” develop and encourage such unhealthy attitudes. According to a study, an average American views 3000 ads per day. Ads have a quick, cumulative and subconscious effect. They create a toxic cultural environment where the well being and health of an individual are threatened. They show these models who have so-called perfect bodies, no blemishes, no marks, no wrinkles, and no nothing. But the problem is that beauty starts being equated with a painfully thin marks-free fair body. This affects the self- esteem of women and they become ashamed of their physical attributes and try harder to achieve those exacting and impractical standards. A popular weight loss tag line says “the more you subtract the more you add”. So women start going for sizes 0 and 00. These not only affect health...
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...Through the movie Killing Us Softly 3, Jean kilbourne has given an interesting perspective in portraying to us what it means to be a woman according to the image we see in the media. She makes the argument that although it appears that women in this day and era have acquired power, it is a false sense of achievement and very short lived. She has dissected and discussed how the media and advertising companies have evolved in the last 20 years. Advertising is more a part of our lives today than it has ever been. In fact, advertising today has become a serious business with profits nearing 180 billion dollars a year, something that we all agree should be taken seriously. Consumers get bombarded by approximately 3000 ads per day and it has been estimated that the average consumers spends on average 3 years of their life watching just ads alone. No wonder that advertising is the foundation of the mass media. The problem that she points out is that while advertising is selling products it also perpetuates the ideas, values, beauty, and notions of love and happiness and, to a certain extent, the idea or concept of normalcy. This is the area that I personally have a problem with, since it also subliminally imposes on how to act, react and worst of all, be. How does advertising cause that effect? How can it be so powerful? It starts by surrounding you with what it means to be beautiful, by creating or suggesting a false sense of beauty and making you feel diminished, not worthy and shameful...
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...Killing us softly 3 & Dreamworlds 3 Review Killing Us Softly 3 This post-viewing guide is intended to deepen the audience’s critical engagement with the documentary film, Killing Us Softly III. It is targeted at women and men between the ages of 15-30 who are bombarded with advertisements every day. Possible ways that the guide might be used include: recognition of to the role of advertisement in American society and culture, research projects aimed at exploring discrimination against women and/or the role of advertisement in America, and finally, for pure reasons of interest. Kilbourne says that advertisements give the message that what is most important is how we look. We must spend time, energy and money on our outward appearance or else we are failures. Advertisements say that we can look a certain way if we try hard enough. However, the fact of the matter is that we all fail because there is no such thing as perfection. It is this kind of powerful message that influences self-esteem and also men’s perceptions on acceptable ways of treating women. Kilbourne argues that advertisements treat women as though they are objects. Advertisements have turned women’s bodies into objects such as beer cans and scissors. This method of turning a woman into a thing can be violence. She also states that advertisements portray women as not being fully human. For example, in many advertisements, only one part of the body is focused on, such as the rear, legs or breasts. Men do...
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...Killing Us Softly Reflection One of the films that struck me the most was “Killing Us Softly”, the documentary on how advertising and the media as a whole, in general, can basically control this entire world. Sounds a bit drastic, but I really believe that this statement is true because of disgusting incidents that happen throughout the world from media portrayal today. The documentary effectively demonstrated how easy it is for advertising to send across various different hidden messages that can cause tremendous effects like bulimia, rapes, murders, disrespect towards women, and several other things that would lower a women’s self esteem level. The documentary portrays women in such a way that it is derogatory. It sets a medium for women on what the perfect figure should look like. For example, since decades, the media has been showing women who barely weigh 110 pounds as an ideal weight to be. Don’t you think every girl who weighs over 110 pounds is going to try to do the impossible and attempt to fit into what society thinks is the norm? All due to the fact that the media has embedded it into our subconscious minds that this is acceptable. The more exposure we get of something, the more acceptable it becomes in our society, whether it’s wrong or right. Personally, I’ve realized that the media brought about even my style of dressing. If you see a commercial on TV or in a magazine for a shirt you thought looked good, wouldn’t you buy it? I know I would. I guess that’s...
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...Killing Them Softly Art is extremely hard to create if you are trying to tell something extremely specific to current times, people, and places, if you succeed and people seem to see the same vision, you have achieved something, if they find something you did not expect, you have achieved something greater. However Killing Them Softly does not reach the certain heights it set to, instead it lies somewhere near a heavy-beating message without any subtlety, yet it still manages to tell an interesting story with even more interesting characters, however they are never fleshed out enough for us to fully care and understand them. An intricate set up starts our film, a mobster knows about a high stake poker game run and played by members of the mob, and hires two men to rob the game. He knows someone within the mob who can easily be set up for the heist. After the game is robbed, the mob brings in enforcer type Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt) to find and kill the guys who pulled off the heist. Now Killing Them Softly has a lot more going for it and it is apparent from the opening sequence, where an image of a man walking over derelict and broken down streets intersected with Obama speech cues promising for a new and better day. It’s apparent what Andrew Dominik (Chopper; Assassination of Jesse James…) is trying to get across, you see what he sees, you understand what he is trying to tell, yet he feels like he needs the idea to keep on running throughout the film, which often hurts it’s...
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...In “Still Killing Us Softly” Jean Kilbourne describes the influence advertisements have on consumers. In addition, advertisers use specific methods to catch the consumer's attention and pull them into buying their products. She explains that these methods not only dehumanizes, but lowers the self esteem of women in order to gain the viewer’s awareness. To be specific, advertisements displays mainly on cosmetics to make a woman “perfect.” For example: One poster shows the face of a women without blemishes, acne, or scars. “In fact, she doesn’t even have any pores” says Kilbourne. Another advertisement shows women being turned into an object, this can lead to violence towards women. One advertisement reads “Why aren't your feet as sexy as...
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...In Killing Us Softly 4, she discusses the harm an advertisement can do to the female perspective and image ideally for both young women and men. We’re exposed to 3000 brands a day on average and often without actually realizing what we’re seeing, and babies at the age of six months can recognize corporate logos. That’s scary, especially when you think about what exactly advertising is often telling us. Kilbourne isn’t trying to say that advertising causes violence, but she does emphasize the way that advertising often turns women into objects. In any situation, the objectification of humans is the first step towards violence. How is this objectification achieved? First and foremost, advertising often dismembers the female body. There’s a focus...
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...Third, the effect of the increase of the visual sexual images in the young generations. According to Killing us softly 4, Kilbourne expose the abuse of the sex and items such an Oreo cookie or Hershey’s chocolate. These products are the favorites of many children and youngsters. Seduction and sensuality in products that are usually consumed by kids are being used as regular catch attention. Agreeing with this issue, the business news daily newspaper, explain that takes more explicitness to grab the peoples' attention than before. In the early 1900’s, exposed arms and ankles of female models generated the same level of arousal as partially nude models and sex in ads do today. We are in the presence of the loss of the innocence. The kids are...
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...Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women was a video of the speech by Jean Kilbourne. Jean Kilbourne spoke on how the media portrays women in an unnatural way and the differences on how they portray men vs. women. I attended this event to meet the intellectual experience and viewed it as something I just had to do and get it over with. This event was more enjoyable than I originally thought it would be. The event started at four o'clock, so I went straight there after my biology class had ended. Angelika Hoelger, the professor who held the event, had just pushed play as I was walking into the room. It wasn't hard to find a seat since there were only six or seven other people who attended the event. Attendees were given a t-shirt and a survey on the event. The survey asked questions, such as: what you learned, if you had been to any common experience events before, and if enjoyed it....
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...Carbohydrates are Killing Us Softly Thomas J. Engstrom Western Governors University WGU Student ID# 000529592 Carbohydrates are Killing Us Softly The nutritional dietary consumption of carbohydrates is between 55-75% for the vast majority of the global population as their main source of food intake and energy. And the general populous continues to be misinformed by government agencies regarding what a normal, healthy diet, should be, as well as what a balanced diet looks like. Eating a low-carb high-fat, or ketogenic, diet of high fat, adequate protein and low carbohydrates can provide many health benefits as compared to the alternative of an unhealthy diet. Research suggests that a ketogenic diet builds a healthier body than other diets because it will lead to weight loss, improved blood pressure, and reduce appetites. The ketogenic diet is the foundation for a healthy life. As noted by Dr. Eenfeldt (2014), The ketogenic diet has been referred to by different names, such as: the keto diet, low carb diet, low carb high fat (LCHF), and to some degree the Adkins Diet. The ketogenic diet is a well known diet for being associated with consuming a low amount of carbohydrates, a moderate amount of protein and high amount of fat, where the body produces ketones in the liver to be used as energy (Taubes, 2008). With a diet high in carbohydrates your body will produce glucose and insulin. Glucose is the easiest molecule for your body to convert and use as energy, so it will...
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...The video that was shown in class, titled Killing Us Softly, is a very powerful work that exposes just how cruel the advertising world can be. This world of advertisers is notorious for its horrible depictions of women in the world. Their advertisements are in magazines, newspapers, on buses, billboards, and television. Americans are exposed to about 3,000 ads per day according to the video and I have chosen just one to analyze. This advertisement is one that I saw in a magazine a few days ago, before being assigned this extra credit opportunity. The advertisement that I am going to be analyzing was found in a Cosmopolitan magazine only a few days ago. The advertisement is for Orbit chewing gum and at first the picture seems rather harmless. However, when you stop to think about what was said in the video shown in class, you may begin to see and think otherwise. As I flipped through the pages of the magazine I found myself stopped because of an enticing advertisement. This ad in particular has a very nice looking woman dressed like a Hawaiian hula dancer who is front and center on the page with only a small portion of beach and ocean behind her. All seems well so far, right? Well, everything would be fine or at least acceptable if things were not so bizarre. The thing that struck me as a little out of the ordinary was that she was not wearing a real bikini top or even a coconut brassiere. The thing that makes this ad so degrading towards women is the fact that this beautiful...
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...and his foreman, came upon an Einsatz execution squad killing Jews from the small town of Dubno in the Ukraine. He gave the following eyewitness account: "My foreman and I went directly to the pits. Nobody bothered us. Now I heard rifle shots in quick succession from behind one of the earth mounds. The people who had got off the trucks - men, women and children of all ages - had to undress upon the order of an SS man who carried a riding or dog whip. They had to put down their clothes in fixed places, sorted according to shoes, top clothing and undergarments. I saw heaps of shoes of about 800 to 1000 pairs, great piles of under-linen and clothing. Without screaming or weeping these people undressed, stood around in family groups, kissed each other, said farewells, and waited for a sign from another SS man, who stood near the pit, also with a whip in his hand. During the fifteen minutes I stood near, I heard no complaint or plea for mercy. I watched a family of about eight persons, a man and a woman both of about fifty, with their children of about twenty to twenty-four, and two grown-up daughters about twenty-eight or twenty-nine. An old woman with snow white hair was holding a one year old child in her arms and singing to it and tickling it. The child was cooing with delight. The parents were looking on with tears in their eyes. The father was holding the hand of a boy about ten years old and speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears. The father pointed...
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...thoughts; at the same time, to bring a combination of humor and drama to the audience while pushing a non-conformist ideology at the core of the story. Besides, there are many brief quotations from Tennyson, Herrick, Whitman and even Vachel Lindsay, as well as a brave excursion into prose that takes us as far as Thoreau's Walden. The director Peter Weir can make good use of the poetry to transfer a spirit of personal freedom. In this movie, the Hollywood star Robin Williams as the mercurial John Keating, a teacher of English at the exclusive Welton Academy in Vermont -- the "best prep school in America" -- in the year of 1959. Actually, that was an age of “killing the individuality”，and perhaps we are still living in the same age. At the beginning of the plot, the director indicated two different ways of education. During the ceremony of Welton Academy, all the students were required to dress the uniforms and repeat the school motto togeher:“tradition, discipline，honor and excellence”. At that moment, the school hall immerged itself with silence. On the contrary, when the new teacher Mr.Keating was walking at a brisk pace towards the classroom along with humming a tune softly, the atmosphere changed more affable. Mr.Keating brought his students who were still fumbling in hopelessness a new belief: “poetry, beauty, romance and love”. By contrast, Mr.Kating’s education is more like a revolution, which needs to eliminate, shake, overthrow and regenerate. What really...
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...The video “Killing Us Softly 31″ contains many important statements regarding advertising and women’s body image. One of them that stood out to me in particular was the message that advertisements both trivialize and romanticize violence against women. Kilbourne also suggests that advertising is America’s pornography; sex is used to sell everything. She also believes that our culture’s qualities are consistently divided into masculine and feminine, with feminine qualities being devalued or de-humanized. Advertising tells us who we are and who we should be, and what is most important about women is how we look. Given this state of affairs, failure is inevitable because we all have flaws. Beauty is equated with being powerful, but that power is short-lived because we all change as we age. The connection between advertising and women’s body image is that advertising presents powerful messages to women, beginning when young girls reach puberty and are taught through commercials that, as one ad said, “the more you subtract, the more you add.” The covert message in that statement is that the more weight one loses, the more one gains in prestige. In other words, also, the less noise one makes, the better it is, ultimately. Advertising communicates to women that they should be passive, as indicated by the many advertisements that were shown in the video where women’s hands were literally covering their mouths, with captions suggesting that the less the women say, the more desirable...
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