Tonight Jean Kilbourne (www.jeankilbourne.com) came to UF tonight to speak. Her topic was about how advertising causes dieting and excessive thinness in girls.
Let me tell you how unbelievably far she is from the truth.
She talked about how advertisers create images associated with their brand, even though they are all selling the same products, ie sodas, beers, and vodkas cannot be told apart in blind taste tests. Referencing advertising as a toxic cultural environment, she also makes the point that advertising is an educational tool (backwards much?).
I will give her that advertising can make women feel insecure, but the one thing that aggravates me MOST about what she says, is that she believes that advertising portrays women as objects, leading to violence towards women. She backs this up with no facts; just ads that she believes portray women as animals or sexual objects.
She presented several ads about food (mostly chocolate, my fav). She makes the connection that food is presented as a drug, a solution to pain, and in a sexual manner. Uh, DUH those are the techniques we use to get people to buy our products, EMOTIONAL APPEALS. And, let me tell you, about 95 percent of the people in attendance were female and ate chocolate in the past 2 days.
One ad she showed, for Reese's read, "Sex may be better than chocolate, but is sex better than chocolate and peanut butter?" The correct answer is no. Chocolate rules all.
Then, she made a joke about a ménage à trois with Ben and Jerry during this segment. Well, guess what, that was me before the show. I dove into my Oatmeal Cookie Chunk pint briefly before heading to campus. And it was DELICIOUS.
So, lets talk about the effects of the lecture.
Basically, Kilbourne has fed the idea of perfection from advertising into several women's minds over the past 20 plus years. She saw this and began to collect ads over the past few decades to back up a theory not well supported by facts. And now today, she gets paid to speak at colleges and the like about her opinions. The hilariously ironic part of the whole ass backwards situation is that at least 80 percent of her audience buy, wear, and use all the products she shows ads of. From Cheez-its to Diet Coke to Adidas to Michelob the women in the audience are a strong and growing demographic that are materialistic snobs who watch MTV, read US Weekly and wear Juicy Couture (all three = awful CRAP!).
When I approached the mic after the lecture moved to Q&A, I asked Kilbourne how she cannot place blame on the parents of young children who are insecure about themselves due to "advertising." She knowingly admitted to only presenting one side of the argument! She also trivialized the advertising profession by accusing us of invading consumer’s lives by conducting research, such as focus groups, and taking TAKING information from people who willingly give information to marketers.
Obviously, she is oblivious to what advertising entails, and the connections we are trying to make with our targets.
Let's think about this, I am a lecturer wanting to mold the minds of the future. I am going to go to one of the largest universities in the country and present a one-sided argument and press my views on America's future leaders. While I am at it, I will brainwash them into thinking that we need to teach media literacy (the understanding and dismissal of the "manipulation" of advertising) in ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
So basically, I am going to say that Jean Kilbourne is having little to no (strong) effect on people. Some yes, and very much so. But mostly, no. Women are still going to want to buy sexy clothes, fit into their favorite jeans, eat chocolate when they are stressed (or when they are not!), drink alcohol and soda, and wear make-up.
Now excuse me while I eat my Jelly Bellies and enjoy the pleasant irony of Baby Got Back on my iTunes while I read magazines filled with ads directly targeted to my interests.
