Family+-+'Two+Ways+a+Woman+Can+Get+Hurt'

Family: "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt" While first reading Jean Kilbourne's exerpt "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt", I first saw it as someone pretty much looking too deeply ino advertisements. I mean, anyone could look at anything in today's pop-culture and say "oh, look how this is a metaphor for this"; I've done it with Spongebob episodes, it's all about looking at the implications. Kilbourne reacts to advertisements as though everything has a tragic back story of sexualization and violence; reacting to one rather "meh" advertisement for a shaving gel consisting of two pictures, one of a man, the other of a razor, by assuming that "the man is a batterer or date rapist (458)." To me that's a little extreme considering the guy's picture is relavtively harmless and not in any obvious way menacing. Although I think that Kilbourne makes a reasonable argument that media and advertising affect the way women and men percieve themselves and others, I take into question a lot of her evidence. First off, I question her assertion that "pornography can be considered mainstream (457)." Although I'm not going so far as to say that sex is never used in advertising, it certaintly is - sex sells, it's that easy - I don't find it to be as everywhere as Kilbourne suggests. This could simply be a difference of location; either I'm in a place where there is not as much advertising and therefore do not see it, or she is in a place covered with advertising and it makes the problem appear bigger. Furthermore, despite Kilbourne using a good number of advertisements, she passes off a large number as being representative, when that might not actually be the case. There are hundreds of labels and makers for any kind of product, and having one advertisement for ties, one for watches, and a few spread among clothes, scents, and miscellaneous doesn't speak volumes for a representative set. A lot of these brands, too, are French, Italian, and Czech; can Kilbourne really use foreign advertisements for evidence of a, what appears to be, judging from not mentioning any specific country or region, United States national trend, or is Kilbourne suggesting that this kind of sexualization is across the board for western civilization. If the latter be the case, I would like to know where her research is on the matter. Another problem with the selection of advertisements is number of Calvin-Kleins that show up, i wonder if it's really evidence of a trend, or if Calvin-Klein just really likes to push the envelope; after all, the company is known for doing that sort of thing. Not to mention that many of the advertisements Kilbourne discusses are underwear and clothing advertisements, and I find it rather difficult to advertise these sorts of things to a not-children demograph without getting a little provocative. Then there's my favorite, the vodka advertisement with the sheep and the wolf, Kilbourne's assesment, the eloquently worded and well-thought "we all know what wolves do to sheep (459-460)." The only reason the advertisement is seen in the light Kilbourne is placing it under is because of the context of the rest of the exerpt, seeing the advertisement on the street may induce different results. Granted, I do agree that advertising and the media heavily affect the way society views people, beauty, sex, women, men, what-have-you, I do not think Kilbourne's evidence is sufficient to back up her specific claims.

One thing that irked me within the exerpt, was the bias and dismissive attitude concerning men and advertisement. Despite claiming that "male violence is subtly encouraged by ads that encourage men to be forceful and dominant (457)", Kilbourne completely swept the entire issue under the rug which gave the rest of the article a feel that women are in danger because men are violent pigs, even though she puts both sexes' problems under the umbrella of media advertisement. Not to mention, while admitting that there are advertisements that objectify men, Kilbourne considers "these ads funny (464)", while finding anything that she interprets as objectifying women as "disturbing". Kilbourne attempts to side-step the blatant bias by discussing men-obectifying advertisements in the context of what would happen if it were the other gender. The problem with this hypothetical situation, in the cases of Diet Coke advertisement (464) and the up-skirt boy (470), the reverse causes censorship problems as well as being seen as socially unacceptable. In Diet Coke's case, a male or female co-worker removing their shirt would be frowned upon and grounds for immediate firing, under the assumption it's a respectable business. I think the only reason it's a guy is because if it were the reverse, and the exact same scenario, the advertisement would be censored so hard for indecent nudity. Now what constitutes as decent and indecent nudity may appear bias against women, but it's simply a social norm - that I, frankly, don't know the origin of; I would assume it being from the fact that a woman's chest has sexual organs, whereas the a man's is either a well-sculpted bronze or a disturbing mess of hair. As for up-skirt boy, the reasons involve more social norm reasoning. As seen in the polygamy class-discussions, there simply seems to be a sense that girls are uniterested in sex, and if it were instead unzipped-pants girl, onlookers would immediately scream foul, calling that the girl was forced into a sexual act rather than being sexually curious. Then there's the interesting Cindy Crawford Pepsi advertisement. Kilbourne states that if it were girls commenting on a male figure rather than boys on a female figure, there would be a sense of uneasiness. I don't think that's actually there, considering Kilbourne mentioned previously that girls do act comment on a male's features, "Maureen looked up and thought ... 'nice buns' (464)" just a page earlier.

I think Kilbourne's assertion that "sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people ... because ... it imbues them [the products] with an erotic charge - which dooms us to disapointment since products never can fulfill our sexual desires or meet our emotional needs (456)" is crucial to her overall thesis, and as a statement itself, I'd agree with it. Now, I'm assuming kilbourne means "pornographic" as in having a sexual or erotic edge, on the verge of being depraved, rather than being the dictionary.com definition of pornography which is obscene images with little to no artistic merit. This statement provides the context in which Kilbourne critiques the advertisements she presents in her text, otherwise they could be interpreted however one sees, being an inherit flaw in deconstructing something without set meaning; I personally view the wolf-vodka advertisement as saying "this beverage will release your inner party animal". It also shows that she is interpreting the implications of the advertisements from a sexual perspective, which is again important because they could be viewed from any angle really. A counter argument to Kilbourne's thesis is that sex is simply used to sell the products because it causes an immediate response, and any implications are simply left up to the consumer; and a good advertisement would bring the consumer to see implications that the product is worth the money. Any and all psychological and social implications would then be a result of the social atmosphere. Perhaps, in the cases of the advertisements "Very Cherry" and "short BUTTS from FLEMING FIREARMS", this kind of content is simply used like an innuendo in television, it grabs attention if nothing else - most innuendos are simply for humorous effect or to bypass censors. Nonetheless, advertisements have an effect on the way beauty is percieved. I think it's a cycle between what society says is "beauty" and then the companies advertise that, which becomes the definition of "beauty". Still, whatever the case, it doesn't matter because companies sell only products, and products are not the same thing as people, nor are they a sure-fire way of attracting others, becoming successful, or whatever the companies are trying to say the product does. So in effect, Kilbourne is right by saying "sex in advertising is more about disconnection and distance than connection and closeness (456)." However, I think she has shaky evidence for the rest of her assertions.