Popular Culture-7 minute Writing
When I think about what I watch online and on television today, I think of Shameless and Atypical. These are two of the Netflix shows I am watching. Both do a decent job of showing a diverse cast, but when I think about shows I sed to watch when I was younger, it is easy now to realize the shows were entirely white, no other race was in the cast. Today, this still needs improvement. I love to watch Ellen today as well, she is an amazing influential person that many people look up to. She has an incredible day time talk show where she expresses her opinions on topics that are controversial and she talks about the issues in todays society but she does so in a light nicer way. Therefore no one gets too angry, she uses humor to help express her opinions. Ellen brings in people of different backgrounds, races, genders, social statuses and recognizes many people for the good they do in the world. My favorite artist today is Bryce Vine. These artists and shows define who we are as a society because it shows how even today, we don't give many people enough credit. I mean many people of different races. Racism is still very present in our society and we need to address these things. Many of our favorite artists or actors, are not white, and people love them when they are famous, but others who are not famous assumptions are made.
Critique #1
Kilbourne’s message throughout the incredibly impressive lecture, was clear to the audience. She explains using many example ads and statistics that advertising today and in the past, objectifies women in a horrible way. Ads today try to sell concepts of love, sexuality, success, and tells women today, tells us who we should be. Ads try to normalize the idea of female beauty, and they create a public health problem. They create a toxic environment for women growing up today.
A few examples that really sparked my interest was specifically the part where she explains that many ads are computer generated. I understand people use editing to get rid of blemishes and lighten hair color, etc. But what I did not realize is sometimes the women in ads are not even real. More often than not, one image of a women is actually 4-5 women put together in order to make her look like their idea of “perfect”. This is not only horrifying that they can do this but also disgusts me knowing that they have to edit beautiful women just to gain this “societal idea of beauty”. People especially men tend to have a fixed idea of beauty due to these ads that are not real, and it makes society judgmental and it results to young girls judging themselves. A second idea that I found interesting and unfortunately not hard to believe, is a study showing that from these ads younger girls are now more at risk of depression, eating disorders, and low self-esteem. No wonder there is a correlation. When girls are introduced to this ideal image of beauty at a young age (which is typically shown as young, thin, blond, and blue eyed) they want to look like that. So therefore, they attempt to look like this by using unhealthy methods and it lowers their confidence which is extremely devastating.
A third example from the lecture that rattled thought, was the fact that 1/3 of all women in our country are killed by their male partner. This fact is extremely sad, but it also relates to advertising because in many ads it is not uncommon to see violence towards women. Many ads show a woman in a vulnerable, passive position. Where the men are then showing dominance and confidence over her. Ads promote women to appear as nothing more than objects and men’s counterparts, which is not only degrading and extremely offensive, but also correlates to men reacting violently with their spouse. Ads have also shown or hinted at men kidnapping, or even killing women. These ads allow men to grasp the idea and unfortunately act certain ways resembling the idea. Finally, one last thing that sparked my attention and made me sad, was the idea that many ads today are made to show older sexualized women child-like. They are promoted to have child-like features or dress/act in a childish manner. This juvenile approach promotes child pornography and is frankly terrifying that men approve and enjoy ads like this. Ads like this make sexual assault and domestic violence worse. Ads like this are disgraceful and heart breaking.
This message Kilbourne brings up, absolutely needs to be payed attention to and we need to do something about it. No longer can we stand aside, especially females. We need to act out together as a group to fight. Activism and education are a huge step to fight against these degrading ads. Together we have to change this environment that girls are growing up in. Today there are still extreme advertisements that follow the same principles, but there are some rare ads that give us hope for the future. This ad for Always, is my favorite ad of all time and fortunately it does the opposite of the scary ads shown in Kilbourne's lecture. It shows the innocence of young girls, not corrupted by ads and these "societal norms". This ad gives women confidence in who they are, and that they should be proud to be themselves. While it is so important to pay attention to these scary ads and fight for women’s rights, ads like this provide us with hope and shows us what we are fighting for!
No comments:
Post a Comment