Women in commercials

Women have always been objectified in the world of advertisement. Jean Kilbourne shows us many example in her movie, Killing Us Softly 3. I see many advertisements all the time that show women and men in a very sexualized way. I often wonder how a company can see jeans when both the men and women are basically completely naked. However, the advertisements that Kilbourne used as examples were so much more sexist than what I am used to seeing. Some of the advertisements were downright perverse such as the one where there is a corpse of a female in the window and it says “I’d kill for these” and it is a show ad. I had never seen any of these ads before and some I didn’t even know were legal to put in print.


Kilbourne’s movie shows that men are always portrayed as superior to women. Women are always being groped or looked at as a nuisance. I never realized the instances where a woman’s mouth is covered was an attempt to keep her quiet. I guess I may be desensitized to this because seeing these ads in this context made me think of other ads where it is clearly sexist. However, I found it interesting that white privilege plays a role as well. Women are only superior to a man when she is white and he is non-white. These ads push women to try and attain what is impossible for most women. That is utter perfection. Consumer capitalism is a clear factor. The advertisements push things to either make women want to be perfect or to sell to not just women, but men as well. Beer commercials showcase scantily clad women so men actually pay attention. Subconsciously men buy the beer because of the women in the ad. All these things make money. For example, if a beer commercial were to show the negative affects of drinking it would be a depressing commercial and no one would buy there beer. However, put a woman in the ad with everything hanging out and boom there’s a profit.


One commercial I think kind of diversifies how gender is looked at is, of all things, a beer commercial. In it the woman is the bartender and she makes fun of guys for not buying the “better tasting” beer. In one he has a man-purse, another he has a wicked fake tan and in another he is wearing skinny jeans. She makes fun of him so she seems to be more free. However, the idea of a woman bartender is still one of her selling the beer. It is not equal but she is not looked upon as just a sexualized object.