Eat Your Peas

For all the um, I believe "assholes" is the technical term, in the street harassment thread here's Jean Kilbourne providing some feminist re-education on the subject of advertising's portrayal of women:

This comes via Ann Friedman. I might observe that for a humorless feminist, Kilbourne is pretty damn funny.

Comments

Speechless!

I wonder how many people are refraining from making the obvious obnoxious comment here.

Posted by live | October 2, 2007 1:06 PM

I'm not sure what the obvious comment is. That Kilbourne isn't actually all that damn funny? That she starts with an obvious premise that people have been aware of for roughly 40 years and takes it exactly nowhere? That she introduces obscure and bizarre ad images with no context to make is seem that the advertising industry is actually out to make people sexually attracted to dead women? That she completely ignores advertising images of men who have their own impossible ideal and also a demeaning stereotype of the "average" guy who is a beer-bellied buffoon with no fashion sense? That tons of ads feature black and hispanic women but that these are targeted to black and hispanic publications and neighborhoods? That her commentary is so inane that is scarcely merits responding to?

Sorry, live, I really can't decide which of these is the most obvious.

Posted by Rob Mac | October 2, 2007 1:20 PM

I still truly believe I'm largely unaffected by advertising. But then again, I don't watch TV, or look at the banners on the internet.
However, I'm sure I am affected in some way.

Those ads are mostly targeted at women of course, to try and shame them into buying more beauty products.

Rob: I don't think she'd deny the unfair idealized images of men. But that video was about women's images, and their effect on women.

Posted by graeme | October 2, 2007 1:40 PM

Rob Mac pretty much covers it. One minor point: at the end she says that advertising shows that women are only of value if they are "white", among other characteristics. But her own presentation included an ad showing a black model, and of course there are plenty of non-white women featured in advertising.

It might have been mildly interesting to hear her talk about that Dove billboard campaign from a while back, the one with the more 'business class' women.

Posted by Fred | October 2, 2007 1:50 PM

Ok I was totally on the bandwagon when it came to street harassment and the second guessing of the majority of male commenters to women's experiences, but I'll jump off here. Of all these stylized depictions of women it's midly unintentionally funny, and slightly less offensive but nothing more. Also I wouldn't call this woman unfunny but I'd hardly call her funny either.

Posted by DRR | October 2, 2007 2:25 PM

What was supposed to be funny? I may have dozed off halfway through, I admit. It sort of reminded me of a college lecture, and those make me very sleepy.

Posted by too many steves | October 2, 2007 4:25 PM

I don't think that was a video of a live lecture. I think they taped her at a podium set, and the clips of audience members were inserted from stock, along with a laugh track.

Posted by Swift Loris | October 2, 2007 5:26 PM

Well put Rob. This was completely trite. Most of these ads are designed to get male attention. And what gets male attention better than anything else is T&A.

Posted by Homer | October 2, 2007 6:17 PM

Advertising affects our perceptions. Wow. Mind-blowing stuff, there.

Actually, with the invention of the non-stop hardcore porn machine called "the internets," worrying about Calvin Klein ads in magazines seems a little naive -- and very 1986. The average 12-year-old today has seen more women balled in more ways -- in every theoretically possible way, I should say -- than most of us could even imagine 20 years ago. Hardcore porn is a little less subtle than Gap ads.

And people are shocked that 12-year-olds are saying "nice titties" to women on the street? I'm surprised they didn't say "Choke on my cock, bitch."...because that is what they are watching all day long.

But I'm sure none of us readers of The Atlantic (or even its bloggers) know anything about that. Let's all discuss the Gap ads instead.

Posted by jim | October 2, 2007 6:43 PM

Well, the claim that 1 of 5 women have an eating disorder and if we redefine eating disorder to mean something other than eating disorder, then 4 of 5 women have it, was pretty funny. I was waiting for her to redefine it again, to claim 6 of 5 women had it.

Posted by David Nieporent | October 2, 2007 10:46 PM

Thanks, Matt.

The pervasive persecution of whiny white males, so aptly described by Rob Mac above, has plenty of exposure in the media nowadays. It's useful to focus on reality-based subjects, as you have done here.

Posted by politicalfootball | October 2, 2007 11:57 PM

Women trade beauty for status. Men seek status to trade for beauty.

Sucks to be an ugly woman, sucks to be an impoverished and untalented male without prospects.

Veblen's "Theory of the Leisure Class" did a nice job detailing the ridiculous behaviors that show up as proof of status in our culture.

Which suffers more--an ugly woman or a man without the talent to do more than the most menial jobs?

Posted by Nick | October 3, 2007 1:03 AM

Big titties!

Posted by 12-year-old kid | October 4, 2007 2:03 AM