Argument #1: Kilbourne. What is her argument? What is she advocating for?

     In this lecture, Kilbourne offers insight to the audience on the different ways that we are affected by advertising. She expresses how the influence of advertising is being brought to people of all ages, even infants. In her lecture she states "babies at the age of 6 months can recognize corporate logos, and that's the age that marketers are now starting to target: our children." This small fact is shocking to me because when I was 6 months old, I was just learning how to walk, let alone talk out loud. The fact that a child this age is able to see a logo and recognize what company it is makes me think that our society puts too much importance on certain industries and how we, as a community, need to make sure that children are being educated properly and not through a screen. 

     Another issue that society faces is the societal pressure that is put on women to be represented as what has been emphasized as societies view of "physical perfection." In teen magazines, girls are taught at a young age to be self conscious of their body's because there is such thing as a "perfect body." In this day and age, our society should not be benefitting off of our insecurities, but large industries are in fact using our insecurities to their advantage in advertising. Kilbourne expresses that "our girls are getting the message today, so young, that they have to be incredibly thin, and beautiful, and hot, and sexy, and that they're going to fail; because there's no way to measure up to this impossible ideal." Here, Kilboune is acknowledging that advertisements are created with the intent to put girls down so that they will want to live up to this ideal mindset, so that they will want to buy the company's products. This tactic is detrimental to our society because it is teaching young adults that they will never live up to their potential because there will always be someone out there that is prettier, or thinner, or happier than she is. 

     An issue that is the most problematic in my eyes is the objectification of women. In ads, women are depicted in little to no clothes, forced to look sexy so that the viewer will want to strive to this beacon of perfection. In Kilbourne's lecture she states that "when women are objectified, there's always the threat of sexual violence, there's always intimidation, there's always the possibility of danger; and women live in a world defined by that threat." As women become more and more sexual in the way they dress/represent themselves, they are more susceptible to violence because male's minds are wired in a different way. If a girl looks a certain way, a boy can take it as a go ahead to talk to her in a way he normally wouldn't if she looked differently.