OPINION & EDITORIAL
Pitching products at reality’s expense
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Also by Estie Kruglak:
- Additional aid from students needed (September 19, 2005)
- Gender factor in child-rape sentencing (September 23, 2005)
- Ticketing system good for Bucky (October 6, 2005)
- Professors complicit in plagiarism (October 19, 2005)
- Tear down barriers to participation (October 24, 2005)
Related Stories:
- DoIT handled RIAA well (March 22, 2007)
- UW: Yank the commercial, embrace the students you have (February 28, 2002)
- Giuliani's ego looms large (March 28, 2007)
- Playboy ranking recognizes wrong aspects of UW (April 13, 2006)
- WSUM should seek independence (February 21, 2002)
by Estie Kruglak
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
Tired of sitting through commercial after commercial during your favorite TV shows?
Upset that most of your money toward magazines has you reading advertisements instead of actual copy?
Well don’t worry; plenty of other people have those same heart-wrenching concerns. Notable is Jean Kilbourne, a graduate of Wellesley College and acknowledged Lecturer of the Year by the National Association for Campus Activities. Recently, Kilbourne spoke at Memorial Union about the effects of advertising, especially toward women. Now at first the topic seems trite and out of the public sphere, but careful consideration reveals that the advertisements coming into our dorm rooms and apartments today are some of the most shocking to have surfaced thus far.
Now this issue hasn’t just recently surfaced, it’s actually been studied for quite a while. Jog those memories back to 1997 when Everclear introduced their third album, So Much for the Afterglow. In their song “Amphetamine,” lyrics seemed to perfectly support Kilbourne’s lecture arguments that she has made across the country.
“She is perfect in that f-cked up way that all the magazines seem to want to glorify these days,” appears to exactly parallel the issue with most ads today. Kilbourne argues that most women in modern advertisements are objectified and turned into something unattainable to the average reader. And after witnessing some of the ads she was describing, it is hard to disagree.
“She looks like a magazine girl,” Everclear continues to sing. Well what exactly does a magazine girl look like? Blonde and blued eyed? Long-legged and extremely thin? Big breasted and small waisted? Most of the ads that seem to sneak their way into colleges and households alike fit this description perfectly.
One issue that both Kilbourne and Everclear seemed to breeze over is that of the actual objects in advertisements today. Our society seems to be obsessed with perfection, and it’s come to the point where it has gone past men and women and onto actual objects themselves.
The new milk ads have a cup literally squeezed in at the waste with a tape measurer wrapped around its “hips.” Since when did cups get hips, and even more so, a hot hour glass figure? It could really get one thinking: what if all objects were made to be thinner and more appealing?
Picture an ad for new beds, “thinner beds make for happier sleepers.” Sleeping on a thinner bed doesn’t sound all that appealing — or for that matter comfortable.
Consider a more college-centric idea. While flipping through your favorite magazine, what would your reaction be to thinner beer bottles? “Less bottle, less worry.” This is Wisconsin — less beer and there’s definitely not going to be less worry. If anything there would probably be more riots than Madison knows what to do with!
While Kilbourne and other researches bring to the table an extremely important issue, their analysis doesn’t go as far as it should. It’s one thing to turn people into objects, but it’s a horse of a different color when we’re turning inanimate things into objects of human desire.
Back in 1997, who would have thought that milk cups would attain the figure of a sexy woman?
If only our society were as simple as it once was back in the ’90s.
Estie Kruglak (erkruglak@wisc.edu) is a sophomore majoring in communication arts.
Anonymous (February 8, 2005 @ 12:09pm):
Did you seriously say Kilbourne brought to the table an important issue?
Maybe if you are 16 years old. If you don't like the fact you don't look like a model, either change the way you look or grow up and deal with it.
The fact that universities waste any money at all on this bs is the cultural phenomenon we should be studying.
Anonymous (February 8, 2005 @ 3:02pm):
That's right^^^^. Advertising has no effect on our culture. Neither does the media, so therfore media and advertisers should be able to show whatver they want. Porn, Torture, anal rape. Anything is fine. After all what we see on TV has no effect on us.
The university should stop wasting its money teaching people about the culture they live in and instead all universities whould be turned into trade schools.
Anonymous (February 8, 2005 @ 3:52pm):
wtf are you talking about?
Kilbourne was complaining about models being too thin and this putting too much "stress" on people. Kilbourne focused on mainstream advertising, not hard core porn.
And yes, universities should move more toward (but not completely to) a trade school mentality of teaching practical skills that will benefit the economy. If people are so intent on learning only for the sake of learning this is great, but they should have to give up state and federal subsidies that support that education.
Anonymous (February 8, 2005 @ 4:26pm):
There is no reason to support such programs as this that encourage thinking about our culture instead we should only learn technical skills so we can make more money when we leave. Then we will finally get rid of the liberal departments and their pinko ideologies and focus on how to more efficiently barter our lives for things that we don't really need.
-Bush-Cheney 04
Giuliani 08!!!
Anonymous (February 8, 2005 @ 4:32pm):
Could someone please explain to me how studying waht I choose to study has to do with your "subsidy" (I take issue with that since taxes have almost nothing to do with my education but that is not my point here)?
I can study whatever I want and if I leave school and an engineer makes more money than me then I have to be fine with that. So what's the problem with this system? We all get an equal chance to study what we want and then the market decides. Isn't that conservatism? Some people here sound more like authoritarians than the conservatives I know.
I thought we wanted less interference from the government, not them choosing our professions for us. Besides, who is the judge of what professions are more "practical"? I don't think nuclear engineering is very practical. After all if we hadn't subsidized them we might not have weapons that could destroy the earth right now.
Anonymous (February 8, 2005 @ 6:54pm):
A few facts from Ms. Kilbourne's lecture I attended last week (thats right, I was there)
In just one year after introducing its Absolut magazine ads, the company increased its sales by five.
Just one year after televisions were introduced to the island of Figi, the number of women with eating disorders went from none to something like 15% of the population.
How does one account for these changes?
And to the poster who complained about liberal arts departments, why all the hating? We're just innocent english, history and art majors minding our own business and, yes, actually, we do find gainful employment after graduation.
