You're just not good enough!

Jean Kilbourns's video "Killing Me Softly" is basically about how women are portrayed through the media. The video address the fact that many of the women we see in advertisements aren't even themselves. Many times, advertisements create images of a girl simply by adding features that they deem desirable. Take Jessica Alba for an example. She happens to be one woman that I would say needs absolutely no change, but advertisers beg to differ. In many of her ads we see alterations. She's viewed as skinnier than she actually is in person. In many other cases, advertisers spend hours on Photoshop adding different people's features and making it look as if that's how one particular model looked. Not only do advertisers alter how women look, they also degrade them simply by portraying them as sexual objects. Many male cologne ads feature women that are almost completely nude for absolutely no reason what so ever. To me, its almost as if they are trying to sell the look rather then the actual product.

Personally, I believe that the way women are portrayed in advertisements contributes to depression and even suicide. By altering a person’s image, its almost saying, “hey, you don’t look good enough, so we’re gonna make you better”. Not only that, but the audience also feels the effect.  When women see these ads, they begin to wish they can look something like women in the advertisements, without even knowing that these women don’t even actually look like that. It almost creates a sense of false hope, which then leads to the depression and suicide I mentioned earlier. A woman as sexual objects also teaches women and young girls something. It teaches them that they are nothing more then a piece of meat, and should only be valued based off how sexy they are, or how much a man notices them. Clearly our society needs to reevaluate how we think.