Watching Jean Kilbourne's speech 'Killing Us Softly' really opened my eyes to the persuasiveness of advertisements and the media. She really highlighted some of the terrible ideas that ads are transmitting about women in society, and shared some powerful images with the audience. A few of her objections to women portrayed in ads were body image issues, violence, child-like characteristics, and objectifying women's bodies, or just parts of it. This example of an advertisement I found from this year is for Ford, with the caption of 'Leave all your worries behind.' This image shows three women in compromising positions, with big breasts, and sexualized costumes and facial expressions. This is one thing that Kilbourne would object to, that attention is obviously drawn to one part of their body (the breasts). This ad also shows violence towards women, as they are tied up in bondage, with a man looking on, obviously in control. All of these things are unacceptable and should not be publicly shown, as they are degrading to all types of women.
WOW, I can't believe Ford published an ad like that.You are absolutely right the picture does address women and their large breast in compromising positions and is very degrading. I hope this isn't a family car. I guess I never really payed attention to how wrong some of the ads are these days. I sure will now.
ReplyDeleteI think the man in the picture is supposed to be the former leader of Italy, Silvio Burlusconi. I'm really not sure if that makes the image any easier to undertand, though. I know I'm confused.
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