Gender and American Culture

Essay by crisssyCollege, UndergraduateA+, November 2008

download word file, 5 pages 3.0

Killing Us Softly by Jean Kilbourne, she wants us to take advertising seriously. Jean tells us that in 1979 $20 billion was spent on advertising and in 1999 $180 billion was spent on it in twenty years it has increased $160 billion dollars. The average American watches 3000 ads per day and spends at least 3 years watching television commercials. Advertising’s whole goal is to sell the products, but what we need to take a look at is how they are selling it. An example of this is an advertisement I saw on television that is trying to get you to buy their jeans. The way that the commercial went is two people are entering an apartment while making out the whole time. You never see the jeans until the end of the commercial when they are lying on the ground. I thought to myself that that was such a stupid commercial.

There were better ways to promote selling those pants and that commercial didn’t even seem to be about those pants. On another popular commercial we have them promoting AXE cologne where they sell it by stating that if you use it women will be attracted to you and be all over you throwing themselves at you. What kind of message are we sending out? Does everything have to be related to sex or be sexual to make you want to buy it? Advertising portrays women in a sexual manner and portrays desirable woman as being thin. This is a serious problem especially for our children who think that the only way to be beautiful is to look a certain way and that way is what is on the covers of magazines and on the television. Jean says what does advertisement tell us about women, it tells us...