Kilbourne's central thesis is that as long as sex sells, and that is what we depend on selling product, the dehumanizing of women and men will continue. We have to change what gets our attention to things, or things will not get better, they will continue to get worse.
The advertising industry is not the only responsible party for this toxic cutlural construction. If we as consumers were not buying in to the ads, they would have to come up with other ways to sell the product. So we are all respoinsible for this issue. There have even been law suits for false advertising for things like beer, because when they guy drank it, the beautiful women did not come up to him like they did in that ad. That is how sick our culture has became.
I am not sure how we can push back against the narrow constuctions, slowly what people think is attractive changes over timel. There are many people that think that models are too thin, but just thinking it is not going to change anything. We as a whole need to get back to thinking that healthy is attactive. In other cultures very large women are found to be the most attractive because they are a sign of health.
I do agree with her claim that by truning a person in to a thing it is taking the frist step in to violence. That is how the Hollicost started with the Nazi's. They turned the Jewish people in to things in the eyes of others, so it was "ok" to hurt them because "they were not even human". This also happens in other types of violence. And it has been happening for a long time. As a person that was in a violent relationship, trust me, the first step is becoming an object and not being a person.
From Melanie:
ReplyDeleteJaime makes a great point "we are all responsible for this issue". We need to work together to help put an end to this ridiculous notion that "walking skeletons" are anything more than they really are - "very unhealthy". Perhaps if more people would write letters to these magazines and protest the use of these "waifs" eventually "the powers that be" might realise that the majority of the population would much rather see healthy looking models and begin to initiate some long overdue changes.