Thursday, August 11, 2011

Killing Us Softly Post (Kunal)

We can not deny that America is primary a consumer culture and as a result, advertising is a key part of our culture and economy. Although its primary purpose is to convince a consumer to buy a particular product or brand, it has implications and cultural penetration that exceed the purpose for which it’s created. With advertising become easier to avoid by the day, advertisers have been getting more clever on how to reach a less interested public. They’ve resorted to using psychological methods and increasingly using sex, which has been very effective at selling. Unfortunately, its partially caused glut of advertising that enforces stereotypes, racism, sexism, and completely neglects minority groups. Jean Kilbourne illustrates these negative aspects of advertising in Killing Us Softly. She is absolutely correct that this kind of advertising perpetuates social norms or attitudes that can be very detrimental to the groups it represents. She is also correct when she focuses on women who are frequently the greatest victims.

There are far too many advertisements to name that contain and often perpetuate several forms of racism, sexism, or power hierarchies. As Kilbourne mentions in her documentary, many ads portray women who are impossibly beautiful and thin and perpetuates a message that all women have to be like that and should invest time and money in ways to do that. She also discusses the sheer amount of objectification of women’s bodies in ads which range from decades ago to today. The fact that, as Kilborune puts it, women are treated as “things” in these ads as well as the facts that many of these ads frequently push a message to women that only looks matter and are necessary for acceptance and to please mostly men, displays the sheer amount of sexism in advertising even to this day. Minorities, if ads even decide to look at them, are often subject to stereotypes, ridicule, and are often not given a fair representation. Whites are in the vast majority of advertising and are usually at the top of any hierarchies present in the ad. Minorities are usually underneath whites and are often represented stereotypically or in degrading manners.

I can name two recent examples of this kind of advertising with the commercials of MetroPCS and the Reebok EasyTone shoes. These two commercials validate Kilbourne’s points about how commercials portray women and also display the stereotyping and racism in many ads. The MetroPCS commercial comes off as racist because of how it portrays Indians stereotypically as tech geeks with silly accents. Although this ad likely used minorities because MetroPCS operates in the city and appeals to minorities with its cheaper price, it completely misrepresents Indians and can even be considered racist because of how much ridicule can be thrown at the Indians in the ad. Being an Indian myself, I can certainty say that while the ads are somewhat amusing, I find their stereotypical portrayal of Indians who can usually speak well even with an accent and are in many different fields, to be quite irritating. The Reebok EasyTone commercial, however, comes off as blatantly sexist and reinforces the same problems Kilbourne mentions with nothing redeeming at all. It has a woman that possesses impossible beauty and the shoes are advertised to women to improve the attractiveness of their legs and buts. On top of that, the ad further delves into the obsession with looks by saying how greatly the shoes results will please men and envy other women. This ad is only one of several that reinforce the idea that women must only accept this standard of impossible beauty and spend a considerable amount of time and money to do attain it.

There is no easy way to put an end to this kind of unhealthy advertising and I agree that it begins as Kilboure puts it, “[with] an aware, active, educated public that thinks of itself primarily as citizens, rather than consumers.” As far as the businesses and advertisers are concerned, these ad strategies work perfectly well in selling their product and there is little reason to change them unless they become a problem or liability for the companies. Back to Kilbournes statements, if we were well aware and educated about the negative impact these ads have on perceptions of minorities and on women’s self-esteem, and chose to act as citizens and work against these ads or bring a serious push to end them, we might get somewhere. The Racism aspect of these ads is more easily addressable because the growing number of minorities will mandate more accurate representation of minority and specific appeal to capture that market and the racism prevalent in adds like that of MetroPCS will likely anger this base more than capture them. It can even be addressed sooner if advertisers separate minorities into different markets and properly research them. This will allow for greater and more accurate minority participation so that products will more easily sell to minority groups, which are already around 30% of the US population and growing according to the 2010 census1. The problem of sexism, however, is more difficult to address. Only a fundamental change in attitudes can fully address this problem since as long as these types of ads are considered acceptable, there aren’t many ways that are more effective than this to market the products which employ sexist advertising. Although Dove attempted to change this with their real beauty campaign, it stopped generating sales a year later and it was later discovered that editing tools were used despite Dove’s claims that no alterations were made. Since this idea of beauty and sexism is so deeply rooted into culture, its natural that it sells more effectively because its easier to respond to and will remain as such until attitudes change.

While minorities have a glimmer of hope since they will become a greater force in the market and will necessitate advertising that connects more with them, women have a bumpy road ahead of them. As long as advertising that perpetuates unhealthy social norms remains one of the most effective way to sell the products that employ such advertising, it will continually be used since it’s desirable from a business standpoint and not yet unacceptable from a social standpoint. Only when these racist or sexist messages become a liability will they be changed or removed. The growing power of the minority in the marketplace will accelerate the move towards this point, but women have many more hurdles ahead of them as only a cultural shift like the increase of minorities and minority culture can make this kind of advertising less acceptable.

MetroPCS Commercial

Reebok EasyTone Commercial

Other Links and Sources

Link1 2010 Census Information

Killing Us Softly 4 Trailer

Killing Us Softly 3 Part 4

Dove Real Beauty Sales Article

Dove Real Beauty Alterations Article



1 comment:

  1. I think the biggest problem with ads and how to fix them is something you touch on early on in your post. Sex sell, and it will keep on selling. Advertisers know that if you put a sexy women next to a product people will buy it because, to be honest, men can be stupid. And while it isn't any where nearly as bad as what is done to women, men to have their bodies objectified in an attempt to get women buyers.

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