Sexual Exploitation Of Sex Advertising

Jean Kilbourne’s essay Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt is a powerful piece of work that brings the problems of the sexualization and objectification of women and children in advertising out in the open. Kilbourne states that this pornographic advertising is promoting male dominance over women, and in return promoting male violence against women. Domestic abuse and violence against women have always been a problem, but the media may be making it worse. Her audience is middle-aged and younger women who are most likely to experience male violence. She does try to include a little for a male audience, but her main focus is on strong and independent women who will understand her point about the use of degrading pornography in ads.

To answer this fully first we would need to understand what these effects are within the video while applying the given perspective of the male gaze discussed earlier. The ad opens up to Charlotte McKinney seemingly naked being viewed upon multiple blue collar male workers. As walking past a man watering vegetables she states that she likes things all natural, with the water placement she walks past seemingly covered but the males gaze states it all, that she is undressed and it is blatantly staring. Visually the colors used in the ad are bright and vibrant set to the backdrop of a farmers market, seemingly making the ad seem happy and vibrant almost like a day dream of the typical male. The most prominent features of the ad are the well placed fruit and objects throughout the ad. The fruits used consist of tomatoes, melons, etc. and objects such as a hose, ice bar, and fruit scale. There is even a depiction of grabbing at her by the squeezing of the tomato which is covering her rear. Bringing forth the aspect that culturally it is okay to grab at someone. Now while the video does have other females in the video they are placed in passing as to not distract from McKinney. If looking at the end of the video you can see each man that is shown plus more are seen staring at her while she is eating the Carl’s Jr All-Natural burger. This ad shows itself as a perfect example of the male

In Jean Kilbourne’s article “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence, Kilbourne first states that she believes that advertising companies dehumanize and objectify humans, (i.e. woman) through sex, power, violence, and nudity. Throughout Kilbourne’s article she specifies/elaborates her assumptions with facts, pictures, stories, and even our everyday-to-day experiences in our communities. At the beginning of Jean Kilbourne’s article, she claims that woman tend to be more dehumanized or seen as objects based on the ads that certain advertising companies share with our communities. For example, Kilbourne briefly discusses that appealing ads tend to have woman in either poses/postures that are sex related, include pornography, or

The first short story “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt”: Advertising and Violence” written by Jean Kilbourne, shows how a woman’s body is seen as more of an object rather than a person especially in advertisements. Kilbourne states, “The ways that ads portray bodies--especially women’s bodies-- as objects conditions us to see each other in dehumanizing ways, thus “normalizing” attitudes that can lead to sexual aggression” (Kilbourne). Treating women like they are objects in advertisements can lead to men having the wrong idea. There are even young girls being objectified in these ads.

The average American is exposed to more than one hour of television advertisements every day, even though commercials can be vital to promote sales and business, some are explicitly disturbing. The advertisements highlighting Hardee’s hamburgers may be popular among the male population, but I am offended by them, and they actually cause me to turn away from the product. Watching sexy, half dressed women marketing hamburgers makes me uncomfortable, especially when guys are around. These commercials cause me to scramble for the remote, and I feel self-conscious about my body the entire 30 seconds.

Ad one (left) shows Kate Upton posing for a Carl’s Jr ad. She is in a revealing dress with black lingerie visible underneath. The advertisers obviously wanted the focus to be on her breasts; breasts that are noticeably highlighted and enhanced. She is laying in a provocative pose while holding a sandwich. Her legs are kicked up, so we see more of them.

The essay, “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt” written by Jean Kilbourne, published in (1999), is on the use of pornographic themes used in advertisements, and the dangerous messages they send to men and women. The author uses examples of messages which vary from a skewed image of male dominance to promotion of rape culture. Kilbourne addresses the issues in the advertisements by bringing awareness to the messages they send, and the effect that they have on today’s culture. Kilbourne successfully argues through the examples of ads, that advertisements send dangerous messages that contribute to the objectification and sexualization of men, women, and children. However, Kilbourne’s argument was organized in such a way that

Advertisements we see it all the time, some of them we ignore and some it gets our attention. Advertisements have many different pictures from food, people, clothing, cars and they are located everywhere in order to sell their product. But what if I told you that they have hidden messages projected throw them in many ways, and that we do not see it right of way. When it comes to advertisement in magazine and commercials, men are often portray as strong and big showing the image of power, but in the other hand women for a very long time have been portray in different ways as weak or a toy for sexual advertisement. In addition Kilbourne mention in her video “Killing us softy 4” they advertise images that show violence, sexuality and health issues.

Dominance over woman is also a huge role in violence in advertisements. The dominance over women is brutally shown in this advertising of the women in the diagramed picture. In a society in which violence against women is normalized, this ad is accepted and considered. This means that it has become a normalcy to see a women naked in an advertisement. In places where this ad is shown, millions of women and girls are raped, beaten, and trafficked

Watch any amount of television throughout the day and at some point a sexually charged commercial advertisement will be aired. The commercial could show to barely dressed, large breasted, beautiful women fighting in a public location about whether or not the beer is "great tasting or less filling". Another commercial will hint that using their body spray will lead to attracting not only one women but an entire room full of women. Not to worry, the advertising agencies have not forgotten about giving the ladies some commercial eye candy as well. Remember the commercial about the office full of women employees drinking there diet soda while staring out the window at the shirtless,

Jean Kilbourne is an advocate for women and is leading a movement to change the way women are viewed in advertising. She opens up the curtains to reveal the hard truth we choose to ignore or even are too obtuse to notice. Women are objectified, materialized, and over-sexualized in order to sell clothes, products, ideas and more. As a woman, I agree with the position Kilbourne presents throughout her documentary Killing Us Softly 4: The Advertising’s Image of Women (2010) and her TEDx Talk The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women (2014.) She demonstrates time and again that these advertisements are dangerous and lead to unrealistic expectations of women.

Advertisements are everywhere these days and can be extremely annoying. They will try and get people to buy anything from food to cars and everything else in between. Advertisements have also started to rely heavily on the sexual elements to sell its products. An example of this advertisement would be the ad for Carl’s Jr. or Hardee’s. In this ad, it features Paris Hilton standing in a very seductive way holding a cheeseburger. She takes up half of the ad while the other half is of the actual product with some text. Carl’s Jr. started these racy ads back in 2005 and are known to feature models in bikinis in their advertisements to try and attract younger men. This advertisement heavily relies on sexual appeal to sell its products by using a very sexy and provocative Paris Hilton and using double entendre in its text.

The use of sexualization also reinforces a pattern of gender roles that are currently circulating throughout advertisements. More often than not, women who are used as ploys in ads are seen doing household chores like vacuuming, changing the toilet paper, or making coffee. Females are rarely ever seen in a work place, and definitely not in a powerful position. In fact, the directors of most of these ads place women below or behind the man to show who has the power in actuality. Women are seen as skinny, fragile, and immobile in high heels, while men are strong and powerful. By setting up such a strong binary between the two different groups, it is obvious that the majority of the American society will not be able to fit into these roles, and it leaves a sense of rejection for the average person. This rejection, accepted by the viewers, manifests

Sexist ads show that society is dominated by the same masculine values that have controlled the image of women in the media for years. Sexist advertisement reinforces gender stereotypes and roles, or uses sex appeal to sell products, which degrades the overall public perception of women. The idea that sexism is such a rampant problem comes from the stereotypes that are so deeply embedded into today’s society that they almost seem to be socially acceptable, although they are nowhere near politically correct. Images that objectify women seem to be almost a staple in media and advertising: attractive women are plastered all over ads. The images perpetuate an image of the modern woman, a gender stereotype that is reinforced time and time again by the media. These images are accepted as “okay” in advertising, to depict a particular product as sexy or attractive. And if the product is sexy, so shall be the consumer. In the 1970s, groups of women initially took issue with the objectification of women in advertisements and with the limited roles in which these ads showed women. If they weren’t pin-ups, they were delicate

In the documentary Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women by Jean Kilbourne, she talks about how women are depicted in advertisement. The average American will spend 2 years of their life just watching advertisement, and most of these people will make the claim that the ads were not effective to them. Jean Kilbourne stresses that the advertisement companies make their ads quick and cumulative so that they almost seem forgettable. However, the advertisements will still resonate in your mind unconsciously. Kilbourne argues that the objectification of women in the advertisement industry: negatively affects the mental health of women with the societal need to be perfect, encourages the eroticism of violence, and tells women they need