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Jean in the Media
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| Deconstructing the images By Sharon Schlegel, The Times (NJ) April 29, 2008 Jean Kilbourne has spent more than 30 years beating her head against walls. As a researcher on and critic of advertising and its negative affects on culture, she has fought the big boys relentlessly. She's taken on tobacco and alcohol advertising; ad campaigns telling women and girls they need to be thinner, sexier and younger- looking, and the use of violent anti- female imagery to hawk merchan dise. A recognized scholar. as well as crusader on the subject of how ads affect our lives, Kilbourne is also one of the most popular college campus lecturers around the nation. So when she stands up May 22 to accept the 14th annual Barbara Boggs Sigmund Award from Womanspace, the Mercer County Agency that offers aid to victims of domestic and sexual violence, the audience can expect an earful. She's likely to say, as she often does, "You may not think you're affected by advertising, but it's like avoiding pollution. You can't escape what's in the air." Click here to read the entire aricle. |
| “Killing
Us Softly 3” to be featured as part of a workshop at The Ridgefield
Playhouse By Ridgefield Playhouse April 17, 2008 The documentary, Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women” by Jean Kilbourne, is a study of gender representation in advertising. The third in a series, the film will be shown at The Ridgefield Playhouse for Movies and the Performing Arts on Sunday, May 18 at 4 p.m. and will be followed by interactive workshops. Part of the Adam Broderick Salon Series for Women & Girls, the screening and workshops are underwritten by the Fairfield County Community Foundation Fund for Women & Girls and the New Fairfield Community Foundation. Click here to read the entire aricle. |
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New Book Coming in August! Jean's new book So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids, co-authored with Diane E. Levin, will be published in August by Ballantine. For further information, please go to www.randomhouse.com. |
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| Jean
to Receive Distinguished Award! On May 22 Jean will receive the 2008 Barbara Boggs Sigmund Award from Womanspace. A celebratory dinner reception and award presentation will be held at 6:00p.m. at the Princeton Hyatt Regency in Carnegie Center, Princeton, New Jersey. Read the Trenton Times article here. |
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| We Went:
Jean Kilbourne on The Naked Truth: Advertising's Image of Women By Amber Johnson, Seattlest March 22, 2008 Thursday night, we left our advertising job for the day, drove deep into the Washington Park hood, wolfed down our freighter-sized BLT and bag of salt and vinegar chips in the parking garage, and made our way into the New Gym at The Bush School, which is apparently insanely cool. (Hello? A whole program on diversity? Seniors fundraising so they can attend their second White Privilege Conference?). There we witnessed the brilliance of Jean Kilbourne, superstar lecturer. Kilbourne is more in demand on college campuses than Dave Matthews ever was—even at his peak in the '90s (not that we recall). In fact, she's spoken at half of all U.S. colleges and universities, and along the way received consecutive Lecturer of the Year awards from the National Association for Campus Activities. Her groundbreaking, award-winning book and documentaries shed light on advertising's powerful role in creating a toxic cultural environment in which women are seen as objects, addiction and starvation are encouraged, and children are taught to revere the almighty brand. The bottom line? Our very freedom and well-being is at stake, and she's trying to wake us the hell up. Click here to read to the entire article. |
| At long
last, Jean Kilbourne returns to Sweet Briar By Suzanne Ramsey, Sweet Briar College March 6, 2008 Sweet Briar field hockey coach Jennifer Crispen remembers the last time Jean Kilbourne was at Sweet Briar College. It was 1981 and she packed the house — “standing room only,” Crispen says. Jean KilbourneOn Sunday, April 13, Kilbourne, internationally known lecturer and author of “Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel,” will return to Sweet Briar. Her lecture, “Deadly Persuasion: Advertising and Addiction,” will be held at 7 p.m. at Murchison Lane Auditorium. A book signing will follow. Click here to read to the entire article. |
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Too sexy too soon? By Yvette Cabrera, Orange County Register When it comes to Britney, Paris and Lindsay, my typical reaction is to tune out. Well, that is, after rolling my eyes and griping about the pathetic state of celebrity-driven media coverage these days. Last month, however, I couldn't help but do an about-face when the Hannah Montana concert in Anaheim made newspaper headlines, as desperate parents clamored to pay upwards of $1,000 for tickets. The Hannah Montana concert tour and ticket frenzy even made it into a recent issue of Time magazine, which noted that some parents reportedly considered skipping a mortgage payment to get their children into the show. The insanity of it all left me wondering where our priorities are, but I was most bothered by the messages being imprinted in the minds of our children by these teen-idol celebrities. |
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| Critic finds flaws in
women's marketing By Leslie Friday, The Daily News Tribune October 26, 2007 NEWTON - Jean Kilbourne's revolution started with a single clipped advertisement she hung on her refrigerator. It marketed birth control to women, but did so in a way she found demeaning. That wasn't the last ad she clipped. Soon her fridge was speckled with similar glossy cut-outs, all objectifying women in some way. The collection helped Kilbourne see patterns in the way the media portrays women. It also inspired her to launch a successful career as a renowned media critic, author and filmmaker who tackles how advertisers address body image and push alcohol and tobacco products. "I'm a crusader. I want to do what I can to make things better, and I think this is helping," Kilbourne said of her 30-plus years as a media critic. "The antidote to despair is action." |
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Beyond booze By Tara Bannow, The Spectator
(University of Wisconsin student newspaper) If everyone were to "drink responsibly" like they're told to do in alcohol advertisements, alcohol sales would be down 80 percent. This is one of many points award-winning author and public speaker Jean Kilbourne highlighted Tuesday in her speech, "Deadly Persuasion: Advertising & Addiction." Kilbourne's presentation is one of several on-campus activities in recognition of National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week, scheduled for Sept. 22 through 29. |
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Our bodies, our self-images 51% Program (WAMC Northeast Public
Radio) ALBANY, NY According to the American Heart Association, nearly 35 percent of women in the U.S. were obese in the year 2004. That's compared to roughly 30 percent of men. At the same time, frightening pro-anorexia blogs are proliferating on the Internet - where young women who suffer or claim to suffer from the disorder chronicle their eating and dieting habits. Experts say the data can be linked to the way women view their bodies, which is largely informed by mass media. |
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Will junk food ads walk the plank? Marketplace The FTC looks into food ad and marketing campaigns aimed at kids. Some of the sugary food products, like perennial breakfast favorite Cap'n Crunch cereal, have youth-oriented Websites. |
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| Fight for their minds FairLady magazine May 2007 Advertisers are targeting our children at a younger age. How can we protect their mental environment? Three-year-old Amani was in a panic: 'Mom, Mom!' he yelled. René Smith dropped what she was doing and ran into the living room to her son, who was sitting staring at the television. 'Look Mom, look!' His eyes were wide with fear and he clung to her, his little finger pointing at the screen. 'I couldn't work out what was bothering him in the ad,' says Smith, a media consultant, 'but eventually I figured out: it was a vulture. He associated it with a scary character in a kids movie he'd watched and, though the ad itself wasn't scary, he'd transposed that fear onto it. He couldn't stop talking about it for days.' For Smith, who is writing her PhD on media consumption and how it affects our lifestyles, this, and many other instances when she has watched television through her son's eyes, shows her how consuming the medium is for children, and how no ad they see on television, or absorb through other media – the Internet, billboards and radio – is ever dealt with in isolation, nor is ever entirely forgotten. |
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Students look at image By Nicole Martin, Southern Utah University
Jounral Students, staff and faculty came together this week to get information out to the campus and community during Body Image Awareness Week. Curt Hill, SUU counseling services director at the Wellness Center, said the image project was a success. "We had a pretty good response at times," he said. Hill said Slim Hopes, a short film, was shown Tuesday. The video featured Jean Kilbourne, a leading researcher in the field of mass media. Kilbourne has done research in the field of media effects on body image and relevant topics were discussed in her film, Hill said. In the film, Kilbourne said $33 billion is made from the diet industry each year, 50 percent of American women are on diets, 75 percent of women think they are overweight, 80 percent of 10-year-old-girls are on diets, 11.3 percent of college women are on diets and the number-one wish of American girls is to lose weight and keep it off. |
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Expert to lecture on marketing lean lifestyles By Robb Murray, The Free Press There’s a reason why Jean Kilbourne has been asked to deliver sobering lectures at more than half the nation’s colleges and universities during her 20 or so years as an expert in her field. Her message, as years go by and marketing gets more sophisticated and the stakes and demographics get higher younger, just keeps getting more important, more relevant, more tragically necessary. Kilbourne, who is scheduled to give a talk Wednesday at Minnesota State University, is among the leading experts studying the depiction and portrayal of women in the media, particularly advertising. For years she’s been sounding a warning call to America that says: We’re already suffering consequences of the objectification of women in advertising, and if we don’t start paying attention to these images, we’re going to regret it. |
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| The
generation of 'damaged' girls
By Sarah Womack, The Telegraph (UK) A generation of very young girls is being psychologically damaged by inappropriate "sexy" clothing, toys and images in the media that are corrupting childhood, leading psychologists warn today. They say marketing takes unfair advantage of children's desire for affection and the need to conform, leading to eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression. Their report echoes a warning by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and follows a United Nations study last week saying that British children were the unhappiest and unhealthiest in the developed world. The American Psychological Association's report says inappropriate marketing is leading to the sexualisation of children by a consumer society. Apart from clothing for five- and six-year-olds, with old-fashioned frilly frocks replaced by mini skirts, plunging necklines and sequined crop tops, the report specifically criticises "Bratz dolls". |
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| Sex
innuendo under the tree, over the punch bowl Younger girls, more focused on fashion, drawn to Barbie, Bratz dolls By Reyhan Harmanci, San Francisco Chronicle Lydia Yaffe of San Francisco has two girls, ages 5 and 8. She doesn't quite remember when her older daughter first asked for a Bratz doll, but she estimates it was when she was 5. Currently, she says they have a "minimum" of 12 Barbies and eight Bratz each. "Well, the oldest, she started out with Barbie and then with ..." Yaffe pauses. "Can I say this? With the sluttier Bratz," she said, noting that her parents' generation probably thought the same of her Barbie dolls. "The way I look at it, it's Barbie evolving into the new millennium." Like many parents, Yaffe will be weighing a multitude of toy choices during the holiday shopping season. While she personally doesn't love the Bratz, she won't stop buying them. "As much as you want to hide and protect your child from questionable influences, you live in San Francisco," she says. "You want to expose them to everything." |
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| Dolls
lose their innocence Thongs, high heels and caked-on makeup. ‘Penthouse’? No, your child’s dollhouse. By Bruce Kluger, USA Today Memo to holiday shoppers: As you roam the doll aisles in coming weeks, looking for the perfect gift for the little girl in your life, don't panic if you suddenly think you've wandered into Victoria's Secret — or, worse, a lap-dance bar. It happens to the best of us. This month, doll shelves are brimming with sex and glitz, as the latest lineup of 10-inch tarts strut their stuff into the hearts of girls everywhere. Mattel's slinky "My Scene" collection has ramped up the glam for the holidays with its "Fab Faces" dolls, mini-minxes with pliable mugs (Make them pout!) that come with boas, tiaras and accessories "no diva can live without." Play Along's coquettish Dream Dancer dolls (kid sisters to the hot-pantsed Sky Dancers) should also be a big hit on Christmas morning, flashing their long legs as they spin on their signature swivel bases. (Can you say pole dance?) And, of course, there's MGA Entertainment's notorious Bratz dolls, those high-heeled, dewy-eyed baby fashionistas of the preschool set. Looking for all the world like tiny hookers — exposed midriffs, painted faces — the Bratz line is doing the bling thing for Christmas with its "Diamondz" collection, adding 10-carat sparkle to an accessories cache that already includes mobile phones, glitter mini-skirts and (sigh) thonglike underwear. You've come a long way, Raggedy Ann. |
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Over-sexed and over here: The 'tarty' Bratz Doll Daily Mail (U.K.) Last month my daughter turned four, and requested a Cinderella-themed birthday party. I wondered if I should be encouraging the princess-rescued-by-her-handsome-knight stereotype, but decided I was being neurotic. Two weeks later, a dozen little girls turned up at our house, most dressed in old-fashioned frilly party frocks. But one child arrived wearing a sequinned crop top and a short plaid skirt that would have been inappropriate on a 12-year-old, never mind a little girl of four. When it came to the present-opening, the little girl wriggled excitedly in her seat as my daughter unwrapped her gift. For a moment, I stared at it and wondered if there was a new doll on the block called ‘Hooker Barbie’. |
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| Primed
for pampering
By Janet, Zimmerman, The Press-Enterprise Raven Trager, 12, of Riverside, got her first spa pedicure, complete with foot massage, at age 7. She added subtle highlights to her brown hair at 9 and began waxing her brows at 10. She was introduced to facials at 11. "I loved it. I like how they have the soothing music and how it smells really good and they give you a nice massage and it relaxes you," she said. Now 12, Raven enjoys "girls days out" with her mother to have their hair deep-conditioned and blown straight. "It's a chance to have bonding together and it's fun at the same time. We have that in common because we like to be pampered. It's something all girls like to do," said Raven, a polite, articulate seventh-grader who is into acting and soccer. If she keeps up her straight A's, Raven hopes to talk her mom into acrylic nails, just like many of her friends at Gage Middle School in Riverside. Eventually, she'd like to go blond. Raven is among a growing number of youngsters enjoying spa pampering and beauty treatments once reserved for grown-ups. |
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Jesus is a brand of jeans By Jean Kilbourne, New Internationalist Ads gleam with promises of transformation and transcendence – via material objects. Jean Kilbourne decodes this gigantic propaganda effort. A recent ad for Thule car-rack systems features a child in the backseat of a car, seatbelt on. Next to the child, assorted sporting gear is carefully strapped into a child’s carseat. The headline says: ‘We Know What Matters to You.’ In case one misses the point, further copy adds: ‘Your gear is a priority.’ Another ad features an attractive young couple in bed. The man is on top of the woman, presumably making love to her. However, her face is completely covered by a magazine, open to a double-page photo of a car. The man is gazing passionately at the car. The copy reads, ‘The ultimate attraction.’ These ads are meant to be funny. Taken individually, I suppose they might seem amusing or, at worst, tasteless. As someone who has studied ads for a long time, however, I see them as part of a pattern: just two of many ads that state or imply that products are more important than people. Ads have long promised us a better relationship via a product: buy this and you will be loved. But more recently they have gone beyond that proposition to promise us a relationship with the product itself: buy this and it will love you. The product is not so much the means to an end, as the end itself. |
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August 31, 2006: Jean Kilbourne was on NBC's Today Show talking about the trend of little girls going to spas for beauty treatments. |
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From the sandbox to the spa By Maria Puente, USA Today Such pretty hair on that little girl — so shiny, so soft, so expertly coifed. Wait a minute: Does that little girl have highlights? Only her hairdresser knows for sure. And her manicurist, pedicurist, facialist, hair braider and henna artist. And don't forget her masseuse. Hey, being 10 years old these days can take a lot of maintenance. Because pampering is not just for adult women anymore — or even teens. |
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Ads have only the power we give them By Yvette Cabrera, Orange County Register
When I started reporting this column a month ago I was angry. I had just heard advertising expert Jean Kilbourne speak at Chapman University and I had a notebook full of statistics, including this one: The average American is exposed to more than 3,000 advertisements every single day by an industry that spends more than $200 billion every year on ads. So what, you're saying, what about ads? The ads I have a problem with are the ones that are targeting our youth to smoke, drink and specifically for women, to be grotesquely thin. "It's difficult to be healthy in what I call a toxic cultural environment," Kilbourne says. "An environment that surrounds us with unhealthy images and that constantly sacrifices our health and our sense of well-being for the sake of corporate profit." |
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Ignore the downtrodden: Buy! By Jason Ketola, The Minnesota Daily Despite that more than 400,000 people have been killed in the ongoing genocide in Darfur, the situation has received scant attention in mainstream media with the exception of the occasional editorial and opinion piece decrying the lack of coverage. Through a paid subscription to the New York Times’ TimesSelect service, I’ve been able to follow the story a bit more closely than most by keeping up with columnist Nicholas Kristof. As I saw his coverage of the genocide’s expansion into Chad recently, I became frustrated with the fact that only paid subscribers will get to see the interviews with villagers with the real fear in their eyes and images of an underfunded Chadian military retreating, leaving countless more to die. If this genocide were receiving coverage like Hurricane Katrina or the 2004 tsunami did, Americans would rally behind relief efforts. Sadly, most of us probably have no conception of what life is like in most of Africa, let alone Darfur. What understanding we do have is informed by publications like National Geographic that present painted warriors as if such displays are common. The lack of authentic coverage of many people’s lives, not just those in Darfur, has been tied to the fiscal interests of advertisers seeking media that will enhance the sales of their products. In her book “Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel,” Jean Kilbourne writes, “The (media’s) emphasis on the affluent surely has something to do with the invisibility of the poor in our society. Since advertisers have no interest in them, they are not reflected in the media ... It is difficult to feel compassion for people we don’t know.” This invisibility extends beyond the poor. What visibility certain groups do get is often mere caricature molded by that selfsame pecuniary devotion. |
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Pregnant Bellies Auctioned as Ad Space on eBay By Anju Mary Paul, WeNews A St. Louis baby's birth was just sponsored by a Web company that will place video clips of the delivery on its Web site. In other eBay transactions, women have accepted payment to let a casino tattoo its logo on their pregnant bellies. |
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What's a mom to do when sweet 'Lizzie' shows sexy sizzle? By Maria Mooshil, The Chicago Tribune Multiple posters of Disney teen queen Hilary Duff decorate the bedroom of my 7-year-old daughter, a "Lizzie McGuire" fan going way back to when she was 6. There's sweet-smiling Hil in the pink sweater. There's butter-haired Hil looking over her shoulder. There's Hil with the sleeveless top and choker necklace. These are the welcome Hilarys, the ones who evoke the Disney Channel's hit show (2001-2004), featuring the likable, effervescent junior high student, her two best friends, clueless parents and a bratty little brother. Lizzie's high jinks at home and school made her -- and Duff -- an idol for tweeners and pretweens like my daughter, Anika. |
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At Least One Bratz Babyz Has Abandoned Her Thong By Susan Campbell, The Hartford Courant Just after the wrapping paper hit the floor on Christmas, Kendra Toodle-Register was suffering buyer's remorse. She and her husband bought their 4-year-old daughter, Dejah, a Bratz Big Babyz doll named Sasha. They'd done so advisedly. They know the Bratz line of dolls are dressed provocatively, but the Babyz togs are at least a little toned down. In the box, Sasha, with her perky pigtails and almond eyes, looked adorable. That's the packaging. Out of the box, Dejah turned the doll over and discovered that beneath the khaki green skirt (and baby bottle attached to a bling chain), Sasha was wearing a thong. That's right. A black mesh one. |
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January 3, 2006: Jean Kilbourne was on "Growing Up in America" a Voice America broadcast hosted by Dr. Charles Nozicka.
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December 18, 2005: Jean Kilbourne was on Nick News for a special edition with Linda Ellerbee called "Ten Things Wrong with TV." It premiered Sunday, December 18th, at 8:30PM (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon. |
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December 11, 2005: Jean Kilbourne was on Radio Netherlands for a segment called "Are We Slaves to Advertising?" Listen to the broadcast online. |
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November 9, 2005: On November 9th, Jean received a Woman of Excellence award from Germaine Lawrence, Inc. Germaine Lawrence, Inc. provides residential treatment services in New England for troubled adolescent girls. |
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October 25, 2005: Jean received the first Hilda Crosby Standish Leadership Award from Planned Parenthood of Connecticut on October 25th. The Hilda Crosby Standish Leadership Award is given in honor of the family-planning pioneer who passed away at the age of 102 in June 2005. A role model for generations of women, Dr. Standish is credited with teaching thousands of parents and educators how to talk to children about sexuality in an era where that subject was neither discussed at home nor taught in school. Dr. Standish was the first medical director of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, beginning in 1935, thirty years before the legal right to birth control was established. She testified frequently in support of women’s health before the Connecticut General Assembly. In 1994 she was inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame. Planned Parenthood of Connecticut presents this annual award to an individual or group who shares the courage and passion for social change that Dr. Standish embodied. |
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More curves hit pages of women's magazines by Colleen Long, Associated Press NEW YORK - Mixed among the pages of dazzling celebrities and rail-thin models that dominate fashion and teen magazines is a surprising sight: young women with thick thighs and flabby abs. In Seventeen, Teen People, CosmoGirl! and Teen Vogue are bathing suit sections partly illustrated by less-than-perfect figures and tips on maximizing assets and minimizing defects. Editors say they are using more average women and fewer models to reflect changing body types and to help self-conscious teens see that not everyone is perfect. |
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June 2004: Jean on NPR with Susan Stamberg: During a four part series on beauty, NPR's Susan Stamberg interviewed Jean for part two of the series, Pitching Beauty to Teens. |
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Eternity in a Bottle: Does Advertising Exploit Spirituality? by Jean Kilbourne, The Messiah College Bridge They’re everywhere—along the freeway, in the evening newspaper, on the latest sitcom and the Internet. They’re even, at times, on the clothing of the person seated beside you. During the course of a single day, 3,000 advertisements bombard our senses, some attempting to cajole and entice us with their seemingly innocuous messages as they blend almost without notice into a homogenized landscape. |
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January 29, 2003: Jean Kilbourne was a guest on The Connection, a radio call-in talk show with host Dick Gordon. You can hear the archive of Jean on The Connection by clicking here. The show is titled "Horatio Alger's America". |
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December 18, 2002: Jean Kilbourne was a guest on Making Contact, an international, weekly radio show. You can hear the MP3 archive of Jean on Making Contact by clicking here. The show is titled "Fresh Minds for Sale" and is about the commercialization of education. |
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February 28, 2002: On February 28, 2002 Jean Kilbourne was a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The topic was teen dating violence. Jean discussed the influence of violent sexual imagery in the media on relationships between young men and women. Viewer response to Jean's message was immediate, positive and hopeful. Following this link to learn more about the show and read viewer comments: Jean on Oprah! |
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 Check
out the Canadian all-female, punk metal trio Kilbourne: |
