The day before we saw the Jean Kilbourne lecture, my Women in Global Cinema class watched her film "Killing Us Softly." I noticed during the convocation that a lot of what she said was a repeat and even her jokes were identical. At first I kind of laughed at this because, well, why couldn't she come up with some new jokes? But as I continued to think about it, the way she repeated herself was useful. It forced me to remember the points she made and I even looked for ads like the ones she was talking about. Kilbourne is such an intelligent woman and phenomenal speaker that I couldn't believe I would ever think she was anything else.
At work, right after the convocation, one of my co-workers was flipping through a bridal magazine. We loved every single dress that was in the catalog. After looking at a few models, though, I realized it was because of who was wearing the dress, how they were posing, and the way the dresses looked with the backgrounds. Every single one of the models was definitely a size zero- there was not one plus sized model in the magazine. This was really upsetting because the message is: unless you are a size zero, you cannot look good in a wedding dress. This must be such a discouragement for brides-to-be.
We also noticed that many of the models in the catalog were extremely young- probably younger than twenty. I remembered from the convocation and film that advertisers target young people on purpose. They are saying that only young people look good in these dresses so if you are over the age of thirty, don't even bother getting married. Even though wedding dresses are not cigarettes and alcohol, I think they target young people for the same reasons. Young people can be easily convinced and also easily convinces their parents to buy them things that they want. If a young woman is looking at a magazine, there are no dresses that are cheap. She is being easily manipulated into wanting an expensive dress- and thinking that expensive is the only option.
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