Killing Us Softly - Save Our Girls

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِيم

Okay. Alhamdulillah dah habis satu project kelas Communication.
The latest project, we had to write four TV Commercials scripts which are based on our self-made products. 

Today we watched Killing Us Softly by a feminist activist and author, .
Reflection ni sebenarnya adalah untuk homework. Kalau tulis kat word doc, saya rasa sangat boring dan tak kreatif. Jadi saya tulis kat blog je lah just to get the feeling that I'm writing this from the heart without trying to sound clever. And then baru kopipes kat word, ok.

Killing Us Softly 4 - Reflection Paper

Prior to watching Killing Us Softly 4, I had watched the first series of Killing Us Softly documentary for my Women and Gender Studies class. My initial reaction to it was quite an expected one, disgusted. The fact that we are being bombarded with the average of 3000 ads everywhere without us realizing it is a bad sign. Although we don't consciously think about ads, subconsciously, they influence and dictate our minds telling us what is acceptable and what is not. 

Our eyes and ears are the tunnel to our minds. Even when we think we have full control of not buying a product, the medium of persuasion i.e. sexuality that advertisers and marketers use, leave a tremendous impact in the way society think. In the entertainment and advertising industry, women had long been objectified. Having watched two of Jean Kilbourne's documentary series, the transition between the first and the fourth one is quite significant as we now see more and more men are also portrayed in the same way. As we all know, the media industry evolves throughout time. Now women are not the only preys in the superficial world anymore. Younger and younger models are now targeted to be under the spotlight suggesting it's never too early to conform to the media's definition of perfection - thin, beautiful and sexualized.

            America in and of itself is a country of sexualized society. To sell products, marketers and advertisers have to know the ins and outs of their target market not only at face value but also on a personal level. In that respect, ethically it still does not mean the industry has the permit to manipulate, exploit and romantisize the pre-existing problems in society i.e. sex, violence and gender biases. The lack of standards determined by moral society or the Supreme Court are the foundation worth tackling if we want our minds to be free from being contaminated by this parasite. 

I also realized that media people are one of the agents responsible for our society because they're able to dictate the minds of many. This raises the question of what kind of advertiser or media person I’m looking to be in the near future. A media person with power, authority, resources, moral and knowledge has the potential to make up a healthy majority. Advertisers and marketers don’t have to abide by the system that uses sexuality as one of its tricks up the sleeve. But rather, they might want to look into other creative options that work just as effectively in promoting certain products the non-exploiting and non-objectifying way.

Additional read:

Try Taking a Closer Look at Those Magazine Ads

taking the previous generation model of Dove...