Killing us softly

lipflip's picture
Submitted by lipflip on 2007, November 13 - 19:00

Do ads change the way we think about ourself?

According to the Daily Mail

A quarter of men are so embarrassed by their bodies that they are reluctant to be naked in front of their partner Daily Mail
due to the physically perfect bodies seen in ads and fashion magazines. 72% feel uncomfortable about their bodies and a fifth lies about weight or waist size.

If you're interested in this matter, I highly recommend Jean Kilbourne's documentary series "Killing us Softly". She basically just presents and discusses common ads from posters, magazines or television with a focus on the visual appearance of women and gender roles.
It's quite shocking to realize that women are frequently presented as shy, passive objects while men are shown in more violent or dominant roles that all women desire.

Killing us Softly Vol. 3 can be viewed at Google Video. It really changed the way I perceive ads.

Via Spiegel-Online.

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Comments

Alex (not verified)

2007, December 2 - 14:33

I like that movies and it's interesting to realize _what_ advertising is telling us to do, to buy ,and to think. I want to point out another aspect which is the question of what does it tell us about our system/society that it _does_ tell us theses things. So I did some rough calculations: If the number of 180B$ shown in the film is correct, that is roughly 2% of the US GDP. That is, 2% of the US economy is solely engaged in influencing people's ideas, thoughts, and behavior. Another comparison: US military spending. The US military, the largest, deadliest army in the word with all its aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons, submarines, bombers and god knows what else, costs a mere 281 billion USD. That's only 50% more than they spend on advertising. What does it tell us about us, our society, if such an large effort is made to influence people? If the government did it, we would clearly call it propaganda. Now that the economy is doing it, does it male a difference? Sure it does. It's not one dictator or a regime deciding the direction of influence, it is a large collection of corporations. But hasn't this movie just shown us, that they seem to agree on many ideas?