"Killing Us Softly"

Over the weekend, I watched the five part video "Killing Us Softly". It is a lecture given by Jean Kilbourne about advertising's image of women. This video really opened up my eyes. She says that we see three thousand ads per day, which sounds outrageous, but believable with all the television and billboards we see. Also, the average American spends three years of their life watching television commercials! That seems like a lot of wasted time to me. Especially when the commercials we are watching are degrading women more and more each day. In every ad Kilbourne shows, the women are shown as objects, not human beings. Women are shown as beer bottles, scissors, ads, everything. Also, the ads tend to focus on certain parts of women's bodys, not even the whole thing. These advertisements are giving the wrong messages to young women who see them. They are being told that they are supposed to look like these models when the models don't even look like that! The models we see in magazine ads are airbrushed and photoshopped and this is the image girls see. Kilbourne also says that one in five american women have an eating disorder. I believe that this statistic is directly related to these advertisements. With quotes like "the more you subtract, the more you add" and "soon, you'll both be taking up less space." It's hard not to take those words to heart. Some ads even tell you how to make your body perfect, with wonder bras and plastic surgery. It's sad that these are the images being forced into young girls minds.