On "Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising's Image of Women"

As a University student I have access to a plethora of books and media not available in any other library. I stumbled upon "Killing Us Softly", a lecture by Dr. Jean Kilbourne. Fascinated by the collage of female bodies on the cover, as well as the eerily poignant title, I checked it out and just now watched the film in its entirety.

Maybe you're visiting this little blog again, and if so, you probably know that I am overweight and plagued by insecurity, self-doubt, and shame. I struggle with my weight, am classified as overweight, I'm 28, and going to a University populated by 18 year olds who grew up with the new media technology of airbrushing the female body. Let's just say I don't fit in (not for lack of trying).

This lecture struck a raw nerve. Watching the slideshow presented by Dr. Kilbourne was shocking. One teenage girl after another was being shown in insinuating poses. What reads like dirt is in fact just your typical brand name clothing advertisement. Youth, exploited, held up as ideal, their immature brains unable to fathom what exploitation they are being sucked into.

This lecture made me pull back from the social conditioning that happens on campus. I could, for a moment, perceive something beyond that contemptuous glance I received today from a very skinny young co-ed who sneered at the sight of my thighs as I walked by. So her thighs are thinner than mine. That's fine! So long as she doesn't wreck the grade curve by earning the highest A in the class, I can live with being her sexual inferior. She can keep her thin thighs and I'll keep my fat ones.

This is sad. I don't know what to do about this. It appears to be some sort of divide and conquer strategy, but by whom? Men have the most to gain, true, but women often take matters into their own hands by alienating and belittling those less beautiful than they are. Indeed, I must look at my own actions, because I am probably helping to keep the status quo somehow, without even realizing it.


164 pounds seems too much for me to weigh. Yet, I am more than a number. I am more than a statistic of the American fat epidemic. I wrote many excellent term papers: don't they count for anything? What about the fact that I give up my seat on the bus to little old ladies?


Anyways, I think I'm rambling, so I'll end here with a book, "Deadly Persuasion" by Dr. Jean Kilbourne, that can be found on amazon dot com. Dr. Jean Kilbourne was the lecturer on the DVD I checked out from the campus library. Unfortunately, the DVD, "Killing Us Softly" is not available on amazon. I think it might be out of print, which is sad. :(   But here is a book that covers the same topic!

Book by Jean Kilbourne Because "Killing Us Softly" Is Not Available on amazon dot com

I haven't read it yet, but I will. I did watch the movie "Killing Us Softly" and Dr. Kilbourne has made some startling insights into advertising and women's roles in society. 

Positive Plus Size Role Model: Lane Bryant

It's not quite fury, what I feel, when I read hate-filled comments on the web about overweight and obese people, it's well...frustration. On the one hand, I want to please society. On the other hand, I want to be able to spot these cruel people and avoid them, even if that means being fat and hated.

It's not that I'm not trying to lose weight. I've already lost about approximately 15 pounds since April, sometimes more, depending on whether or not I just ate when I weigh myself. I'm still borderline, in the obese range, being 164, but I've made progress and I work out 2x a day, plus walking, plus dancing. So it's not like I'm lying in bed for the whole day shoving cakes into my mouth.

I do well in college, I work out, I am a nice person, I am a vegetarian who counts calories. But, according to the internet, I am still too fat to be considered "normal" or "likeable" or "acceptable", whatever euphemism there is for "worthless" you can think of, that is what a lot of society sees me as.

Why?

If I had that answer I might not feel such low self-esteem. It's interesting that America is the place where a woman can have sovereign control over her body when it comes to reproductive issues, but fat, no, that is forbidden to women.

People prefer a starving waif who could never naturally bear a child because she lost her ability to menstruate, who is moody and malnourished, whose main achievement in life is self-mutilation, over a plump woman. Society lords this fact over us every second, in every TV commercial, billboard, magazine ad, on the subway, buses, college campus, everywhere. Just everywhere.

I don't hate waifs. What I hate is the attitude that to be worthy I must emulate self-mutilators. I do not want to wreck my metabolism, fail out of college, get hospitalized, get anemia, get mood swings, all that baggage isn't worth it to me. Am I alone in this?

I thought so for a long time, until I stumbled onto the whole fat acceptance movement and their primary fashion spokesperson: Lane Bryant. Watching these women strut up and down the catwalk, toned, fleshy thighs, and overflowing bras, I realized that I don't have to view myself as unattractive just because society says so. I can be loved. I can be worthy of sex. I can wear a skirt should I choose to. Why am I so conditioned to hate my body? How can we let a whole series of generations believe that to be loved you must restrict your dietary intake into the danger zone?

I've decided to keep speaking up, even if nobody is reading this. Even if only one person sees this, maybe it will instill a new mentality or challenge their preconceptions. I can only hope my writing is not in vain.