(For anyone that has not seen Killing me softly here is a
link to it http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1993368502337678412#)
Killing me softly is a movie that goes out of its way to
point out that women are being used to push products. They are not just used
but broken down to simply parts and thus are being viewed as less than human.
Now I have gone on about how I think that Jean Kilbourne does have some good
points, but the way she starts the movie and the fact that she gives NO
solution to the problem was off putting (not to mention I simply disagreed with
some of her points.) But honestly, the biggest problems I had with this film
was the way it make me second guess my criticisms. It made me feel like if I
disagreed I was a womanizing jerk…and if you want open communication and dialogue
(in my opinion, the cure to almost all problems if both sides are rational and
open minded.) Jean has gone about this poorly. Even with that statement I feel
will have people mad at me (and proves my point.) It’s all too sacred. It
almost makes the problem untouchable unless you agree with it (a with us or
your against us; which is a tactic people like Hitler, the KKK, and many others
used. A Little dramatic right? I feel
she does the exact same thing in the movie.
It starts with a good
point like the unhealthy thin women used in advertising (16:03) and then makes a
ridiculous claim that it meant to “silence them.” This is a real problem in our
society, but she doesn’t really address it.
She finds an EXTREME ad about a watch on a woman’s arm but even then
doesn’t really talk about what can be done to fix this problem. There is just
an image that is only showed to brow beat you in to agreeing with her opinion and
once she has that she moves on. The next image she uses is an ad for fingernail
polish (16:59) in which the model has her hand in front of her face and looking
shocked and makes the claim that the ad is meant to silence women, or maybe it’s
simply an ad for fingernail polish and they wanted a sexy face to help sell it.
The next was a box art for “Strange Lands”. This was a horror movie, a pretty
good if I remember correctly, about exactly what the cover art was. A man (played by Dee Snider) who kidnaps
teenager and kills them and uses his hook to always sew their mouth shut. Is it
scary, a little morbid, and yes, does it have naked ladies in it. But then again so does EVERY horror movie in
the past 20 years. I not saying that it’s
ok, I’m just saying it’s no different than any other horror flick.
In the end of this video, I feel that if Jean Kilbourne was
trying to bring attention to the problem, a solution to the problem, or even
change the public view of the problem, the film missed the mark. Her message
was lost in the extreme images she chose. The brow beating tactics, and the
black and white thinking she put into this film. I understand she wanted to
prove a point by using the most negative but I found myself saying things like “never
seen anything that extreme” or “those ads are in the minority.” It took away
the power of her point. Without a safe place to talk about any issue in whatever
way you want and not feel like you’re being judged you will not solve this
problem we have with our media. That is my BIGGEST problem with this
movie. There is NO advice on how to fix the
problem. The first time I saw in this film with in the first 20 minutes. I was ready
to change the advertising world. I agreed with her that the problem was only
getting bigger, but then she just ends the presentation. It was like she spends
30 minutes throwing the problem in our face and then accepted the fact she
couldn’t change it and just walk away from the problem. I felt like she either
didn’t really care if it changed or didn’t know how to. Her only advice was to “get
involved in whatever way moves us.” What
does that even mean? This down right made me even more angry with the problem! I will finish this blog post with a link of
video game characters that are part of the problem.
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