For forty years Jean Kilbourne has been studying advertisements and the messages they insinuate to us. These advertisements shape the way we view and define women and men. Jean Kilbourne has had experience with modeling and she has been paying attention to the messages behind ads from the 1970s to today. Kilbourne has created 4 documentaries analyzing and dissecting these advertisements; 'Killing Us Softly: Advertising Images of Women' (1979), 'Still Killing Us Softly' (1987), 'Killing Us Softly 3' (2000), and 'Killing Us Softly 4' (2010).

Jackson Katz is an educator, filmmaker and author. He is the creator of Mentors in Violence Prevention. Which is a educational gender violence prevention program. He is know for his documentaries based on media, violence, and masculinity. He has made several documentaries such as; 'Miss Representation' (2011), 'Tough Guise: Violence, Media, & the Crisis in Masculinity (1999), 'Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes' (2006)

In my Social Pyschology Class with Marci Lobel at Stony Brook University, we viewed two documentaries that discuss the incentives behind advertisements that shape our american culture. 'Killing Us Softly 4' (2010) and 'Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity (1999).

"Killing Us Softly 4' is about how the media portrays women in today's advertisements since the 1970's. This has influenced and manipulated us to believe that looking attractive means looking ridiculously skinny with sexualization of the gluteus maximus and breast sizes.

How does it manipulate us? Well how could it not when just in the United States alone advertising is a 250 billion dollar industry. On average we are exposed to 3,000 ad's every day and we will spend the time span of 2 years of our lives watching tv commercials alone. Have you ever really stopped to look at an advertisement and really think about what that commercial or Ad is trying to initiate to us? The Ads are on busses, billboards, tv commercials, online ads, doctors offices, trains, commercial automobiles, taxis, the sides of buildings, bus stops, billboards, elevators, airplanes, and in movies/tv shows. These all influence us through our hidden brain; Also known as our subconscious. Only 8% of advertisements messages are processed consciously, the rest sinks into our subconscious creating the meaning is portrays, therefore changing our perspective without consciousness of it. These Ads sell more than just the product, it sells values, sexuality, and imagery of who we should be.

Ads tell women what it means to be a women, how to look like a women, and how to act as a woman. Women spend so much money on makeup and diet pills trying to look flawless like the women in magazines. Skinny, clear skin, no pores, no blemishes, no wrinkles. In reality, no one looks like the magazines including the woman in the magazine. For all you know that model is probably a combination of 6 models in one; Ah the power of photoshop, what a wonderful means to create such ludacris imagery. Models not only pound makeup on, but they are also digitally changed to have a different jaw line, or look slimmer, or have a thinner nose. These advertising companies try to create the look of what it mean to look 'perfect'. What 'perfect' looks like always changes depending on the industry creating these messages. It influences women to try to look like these unrealistic standards, which we will never achieve because it is all photoshopped and fake. This sends women down the dangerous slippery slope of insecurities and self destruction. It also leaves an expectation for men. Men get influenced through these ads as well. They start to have an expectation of how women should look. A study was conducted where a man viewed a profile of a "flawless" woman (photo shopped and etc), and asked to rate her on attractiveness. The next photo was of a real looking woman and the rate of attractiveness was much harsher because he had the expectation of the flawless woman before to compare to.

Some advertisements go to the extent of sending a message that women are just sexual objects. Such as beer commercials making the woman's body a beer bottle. This in itself is dehumanizing women and therefore making it makes it more acceptable to acts of violence towards women.

For example, in the second documentary I watched with my classmates was 'Tough Guise; Violence, Manhood, and American Culture' (1999) by Jackson Katz. It discussed the media's role in implying what manhood means in the american culture. With the hollywood industry, movies almost always portray a man abusing a woman (the women in these films are portrayed as submissive and vulnerable). This is another form of subliminal messages that normalize men's violence towards women and to expect women to be the submissive and weak type. These messages in the media makes us immune to these actions and not react as badly because it has become common for men to behave in this manner.

Call of Duty video games acted as a target towards men to have them join the military, along with toys made for boys being fighter jets, G.I Joe, and other warfare games and toys. These toys/games influence male boys that being a man means being violent, a fighter, tough, rough, and to be strong emotionally, to not show it or be open of their emotions. Today's toys have the mens body figure with oversized unrealistic muscles. The proportion of the male toy muscles are no way in ratio with how real men look. Here another form of an unrealistic expectation of what it means to be and look like a man, just like how women have the expectation of being flawless and unproportionally thin.

These documentaries have gone through the evidence, research, and searched for the incentive behind them and how they influence our culture and our behaviors toward one another. Next time think twice when you see an advertisement, a toy meant for a certain gender, or a movie. Ask yourself what messages they are sending to us.

If you would like more information; Watch the documentaries I have listed in this article.

'Killing Us Softly' 1979

'Still Killing Us Softly' 1987

'Killing Us Softly 3' 2000

'Killing Us Softly 4' 2010

'Tough Guise; Violence, Manhood, and American Culture'1999