Jean Kilbourne is a feminist author, speaker, and filmmaker who is internationally known for her work on the image of women in advertisements and her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising. I am interested in analyzing her speech in “Killing Us Softly 3” because it pertains to my major (Women Studies). Women Studies analyzes the inequalities in every gender/sex and fights for equality (ie, equal pay, no discrimination based on ones gender, legal rights, etc). In this speech Jean explains how the media exploits women and uses their sexuality and bodies to sell products versus how the media uses men and their bodies in advertisements. She goes on to explain how these advertisements, that some may see as nothing more than a picture, have a huge impact on how society treats and views men and women. I believe her speech was very effective as far as getting her point across to the audience and keeping them engaged in the topic.
Jean has made previous “Killing Us Softly” videos but this particular one was made in 2000. She starts her speech off standing behind a podium on stage looking out into the audience with an opening statement “In the original Killing Us Softly I said that I would be asking of you something that no one has asked before and that is to take advertising seriously, these days we do take advertising more seriously.” She then proceeds to give statistics about how in 1979 advertising was just a $20 billion industry and in 1999 (when she gathered the information for this video) the advertisement industry went up to a booming $180 billion.
The fact that she started off her speech giving statistics immediately made her seem extremely credible and knowledgeable about this particular topic. Not only did she state the statistics but she also showed the information to the audiences on a projector screen for them to see for themselves. The first three minutes of her speech she stated nothing but statistics saying how the average American is...