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 ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in communication arts.