Killing us Softly Documentary Analization

As a college student, being the next generation to mold the world, we are responsible for the outcome of the environment our future children will be in. We certainly don't want them in a world surrounded by unpleasant influences, pictures of wrong representations displayed in front of their faces, and videos of unwanted values and wrong concepts invading their innocent minds. A few more years to go, we will be able to make bigger changes --more effective than what we can do as students. Because by then, we will build our own companies, develop our own products and make advertisements for them. As a college student and a growing lady deeply moved by this documentary, I will recognize the credibility and authority of the author, identify its main argument, and determine the rhetorical strategies used to support it and the reason why the author made such choices.

 The speaker in the documentary is Jean Kilbourne. She is a feminist author and has already made a lot of lectures and documentaries about advertising and women, addiction, tobacco, alcohols and violence. She was named by the New York Times magazine as one of the three most popular speakers on college campuses. She was said to be intellectually honest by Thomas Gardener, a communication professor in Westfield State College. (c) http://www.jeankilbourne.com Given the fact that she is a known speaker on college campuses, I think her target audience are usually college students. People, like what I said earlier, who will mold the future. 

Being a feminist author, it is not hard to believe that her main argument in her documentary is: advertisements create and define the image of women. According to her, advertisements say that what’s most important to women are their looks. She says that advertisements make the women desire to have the same features or bodies that they see on commercials, billboards, posters and magazines. That they will do whatever it takes to have the beauty defined by the advertisements and if they don't they fail. Moreover, women's bodies are shown in the advertisements as objects or things and no longer human. This, according to her, causes more violence to women.  She also stated that advertisements emphasize the inequality between men and women. That women are silenced and treated as animals; that boys should be the active ones and the girls should be the passive ones.

 For a more clear and effective argument, the author used a number of rhetorical patterns. One of which is definition. She delineated advertising as the foundation and primary purpose of mass media. She defined advertisement as something that sells not only products but also sells values, images and concepts of love, sexuality, success and normalcy. This giving of definition makes the audience realize the deeper significance of the subject. "The first thing the advertisers do is surround us with images of the ideal beauty." This is one example that the author used the cause as a rhetorical pattern. She used this to make the audience see that the reason why people desire the ideal beauty is because it is what they see; what is presented to them --the meaning of beauty assigned by the advertisements --that a woman is beautiful if she is thin, flawless, has long legs, has white complexion and has big breasts. Another rhetorical pattern used is the effects. The author mentioned the effects the advertisements do in the people no matter how much they deny them, such as eating disorders and teenage pregnancy. She pointed out that the number of people involved in these issues is increasing because of the values and the concepts they see in the advertisements. Breaking in to parts is also used by the author. She analyzed the parts of the woman being always used or being removed in the advertisements. She noticed that breasts and buttocks are the parts of the women often focused on commercials; that women’s bodies are being dismembered to sell a product; that women are shown to be just that part of her and nothing else which is the most dehumanizing thing somebody can do to a person. Conversely, parts are also omitted in a female's body, such as her mouth which is made to show that women are to be silenced. Comparison and contrast is also used by the author to compare the situation of the women to men. It is shown when contrary to what was said that, "Women's bodies are often dismembered in advertising...", men's bodies, on the other hand, are rarely dismembered; stereotypes to men are less intimate and less related to their body. This rhetorical pattern is used to emphasize that what they are doing to women are not done to men. Lastly, and probably the most obvious rhetorical pattern used is the examples. I noticed the examples used through the pictures and videos. The author used pictures and videos as example to let the audience see that what she is talking about really exist. That advertisements dismembering and objectifying women are really abundant and not only a product of her over-consciousness about advertisements.  

 Summing up, the documentary is telling us that we should not overlook and underestimate the power of advertisement over us. Advertisement through any media influences us and may define who we are if we are not being careful. We should establish control and literacy over all the images that are been embedded in our minds. We should not let these advertisements make us feel that we are ugly, define our norms in our society, and manipulate our concepts of femininity, love, and beauty. The author is asking us to change the attitudes and the mores being displayed by the advertisements and to stop them from defining the ethics and the principles in our society.