Killing Us Softly 3
Advertising’s Image of Women
2000 / color / 34 mins.
With Jean Kilbourne
Jean Kilbourne’s pioneering work helped develop and popularize the study of gender representation in advertising. Her award-winning films Killings Us Softly (1979) and Still Killing Us Softly (1987) have influenced millions of college and high school students across two generations and on an international scale. In this important new film, Kilbourne reviews if and how the image of women in advertising has changed over the last 20 years.
With wit and warmth, Kilbourne uses of 160 ads and commercials to critique advertising’s image of women. By fostering creative and productive dialogue, she invites viewers to look at familiar images in a new way that moves and empowers them to take action.
“Jean Kilbourne is a prophet calling out in the wilderness for fundamental change in the way we communicate publicly with one another.” AdWeek
“ With skill, humor, and acuteness,
Killing Us Softly encourages action against these societyweakening
images. Never shrill, Jean Kilbourne’s indictment is,
if anything, understood.” Jay Carr, Film Critic,
“Hearing jean Kilbourne is a profound experience. Audiences leave her feeling that they have heard much more than another lecture, for she teaches them to see themselves and their world differently.”
Member of Italian Parliment