Tactics of media's construction of the female body and "Killing Us Softly 3"

The film “Killing Us Softly 3” video was a great portrayal of the media’s construction of the female body. The movie went in depth discussing the seven different tactics of advertisements and how this harms women in more ways than one.
The first approach to depicting women is through objectification. In most cases, women are made into sex objects. Women are supposed to be sexy, and make men want them. In one add a woman’s head and lower half of her body were cut off and all viewers could see was her torso (which is also a form of dismemberment later discussed). The print of the advertisement read, “Sick of men who want you for your personality”. It was promoting a New York gym but in actuality it was saying men should only want women for their body and looks.
The second method of the media is called dismemberment, showing only part of the body of a woman. In an advertisement for a special type of lamp, a table made of skinny legs of a woman in heels, held the light. Showing only the long legs in a sexual position with the bright red high heels is dismembering a woman’s body.
The third and popular tactic is the media’s obsession with thinness. Today, skinniness is a worldwide issue. People are finally lashing out again the models who are barely skin and bones. The recent order for models to have a certain body mass for their height was a step in the right direction. However, the problem is far from over. Open up any type of magazine and guaranteed there will at least one overly thin woman. The affects from this are overwhelming. It’s almost the norm to be or know someone who suffers from an eating disorder. Society looks up to thin, good-looking women and frowns upon “the fat”. One picture shown in the movie was of a woman where you could literally count every protruding rib in her body.
Another way the media constructs the female image is through silencing, the covering of a woman’s mouth. This is done mainly in print ads where an article of clothing or hands will be placed over a girls lips. Although silencing may not look disturbing, it’s the underlying meaning that is. It takes away a woman’s voice, suppresses her, and regresses back to the days where women were inferior and not allowed to speak. Of all the issues this may be most difficult tactic to notice.
Infantilization, the idea that sex sells so women should stay young looking, and Ageism, the notion that the majority of women in advertisements are under the age of 35, are two similar approaches of the media. Look at Hollywood and try to count the number of women who have had some kind of surgery to stay youthful looking. Now open a popular magazine and guess the average age of women depicted. Today everyone is trying to stay younger longer and the media’s portrayal of women is a major cause for this trend. Botox and face creams and diet pills fill the ads of these magazines with only young women. No wonder wrinkles and laugh lines are considered unacceptable. Dove has come out with ads that show older, women who are happy in the own bodies. But it is going to have to take a world-wide commitment in order to change the “older is ugly” trend.
Finally, the last method the media uses to represent women is through violence. An ad showed in the movie was of a thin girl laying on a bathroom floor, fragile and helpless, while a muscular man is crotched over her. It was obvious that she was a victim of some abuse but society considers such advertisements as acceptable. In addition, the brawny man was headed towards the woman in a sexual manner, thus adding a notion of objectification into the picture as well. Why do we have laws against abuse and violence yet it’s socially acceptable to depicted such events within an advertisement? We ban video games that promote violence but allow teenage girls to look at pictures and think it’s ok if a man beats her. No wonder society is so messed up.
The movie “Killing Us Softly 3” was eye-opening. It is time that women take a stand against the way they are being represented in the media. Advertisements have labeled women as sex objects, condoned eating disorders, taken away a woman’s voice in matters, labeled aging as ugly and to be avoided, and promoted violence. Just as the movie suggested, women need to join forces and finally say ‘enough is enough’.