Slim Hopes: Advertising & the Obsession With Thinness

http://www.mediaed.org

Jean Kilbourne's award-winning video offers an in-depth analysis of how female bodies are depicted in advertising images and the devastating effects of those images on women's health. Addressing the relationship between these images and the obsession of girls and women with dieting and thinness, Slim Hopes offers a new way to think about life-threatening eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, and a well-documented critical perspective on the social impact of advertising.

Slim Hopes is a lively and engaging program suitable for a wide range of audiences at high schools, colleges and universities. Using over 150 ads, it informs as it entertains, allowing viewers to build an analytic framework for considering the impact of advertising on women's health.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• MEF
• Media
• Education
• Literacy
• Critical
• Mass
• Industry
• Educational
• Sut
• Jhally
• Jean
• Kilbourne
• Eating
• Disorders
• Women
• Health

[thestarduster]

It's pretty sad and sickening to see some of the video clips on tv these days of women happily objectifying themselves all to get attention and sell records. Some of them are pretty explicit, too.

Perhaps they fail to realize that it's not only their fans that watch their videos but also pervy old men. I also wonder what some of their children think seeing their mothers dry humping guys and doing all sorts of other things in their videos.

It's disheartening, really.

[SweetSweetWaldo]

Who is more likely to perpetrate violent crime upon men? Men or women? There you go. Men commit most of the assault, mayhem, and murder. Period. Since the vast majority of men are heterosexual, females are of course going to be the vast majority of sexual assault victims. Take women out of the equation, such as in prison, and the male-on-male sexual assault stats skyrocket. Men commit most violent crime, like it or lump it. Man-hate? We make ourselves easy targets, don't we?

[CelebrenIthil]

@CelebrenIthil (cont. again) And that very tall, extremely thin, devoid of (natural) breasts and hips body shape that is being pushed by the media as the ideal to attain, is one of those extremes. It is not given to every woman- far from it if, as Jean tells, it occurs naturally in about only 5%- to ever look like this try as they may. Basic bodily and bone structure can't be changed to reach their ideals no matter how little fat you can take off the frame. Most healthy & thin gals don't get to.

[CelebrenIthil]

@CelebrenIthil (cont.) Look around you, then all around the world, in art and statues from as far as art goes, anatomy books and other documented images of the female body. Standards of beauty, health and wealth has changed with time and societies and is not the same everywhere, and humans in general have gotten taller than in the past (better nutrition/health) but you get a general idea of how the female body looks in general. Most women in the world will be close to this than the extremes.

[CelebrenIthil]

@b451cello I think what she means with "bodies haven't changed" is that the "default" female anatomy hasn't evolved in a significantly different way during those years. People can get fatter or thinner, but that particular build that implies of being extremely slender and boyish, with virtually no hips and no breasts (tough trust Photoshop, implants and padded bras to hide it) is not a build that occurs naturally in a lot of females. (running out of chars cont. in next post)

[b451cello]

At 2:16 she states that 20 years ago the average model weighed 8% less than the average woman and today there is a 23% body weight difference and then she says, "women's bodies haven't changed". That isn't true.  According to Robert Lustig on Sugar the bitter truth, "we all weigh 25 pounds more today than we did 25 years ago" and that's evident. Of course advertising is making us sick, but it works both ways. Our diets backfire and while some get thinner and thinner, some get bigger.

[shereze]

Doing my masters thesis on how women interpret contemporary fashion advertising....The information I am coming across is shocking....but will this change and stop advertisers from using thin models, even thought deaths have occurred....sad really.

[hamstergeisha76]

@CurlehMustash She is right how people would view Marylin Monroe these days. I read once about how child actresses like Shirlee Temple and Judy Garland would be considered "fat" by the health standards of our times.

[cowboyslostatsea]

@akawhippy that's what i think, but i'm also generalizing women's body types. not everyone's body works the same and that's why health should be promoted more than society's idea of beauty. it shouldn't be about "i'll be pretty when i'm thin," nor "i'll be pretty when i'm thin and have ginormous boobs," nor "i'll be pretty when i'm curvy." it should be about "i need to lose/gain weight to be healthy"

[akawhippy]

@cowboyslostatsea I see. So it starts when a chubby girl is ordered to lose weight by telling her "lose weight, you look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man" she's gonna lose her ideal big boobs. And the same with a slim girl when she is told to put on some weight because she is flat chested and unhealthy, her boobs will get big but the weight will fluctuate all over her body as well, but again, she won't be lean anymore. Being thin is the equivalent to wanting bigger breasts.

[cowboyslostatsea]

@akawhippy exactly! if it's not one thing, then it's another. if women aren't starving to become underweight models, then we're supposed to get breast and butt implants. this becomes an absolute oxymoron because, when weight is lost, then boobs and butt are two of the first things to go. we're never told to just have a healthy weight, but to compare ourselves with airbrushed women.