Touch Me, with your Eyes!

          In her fourth edition of “Killing Us Softly,” critical analyser Jean Kilbourne continues to acknowledge the on going scrutiny women receive towards their bodies, in her 2010 presentation. As a continuation of her ideology and decades of researching this subject involving women, Kilbourne knows there is an unhealthy relationship between the advertisements we view as public consumers in addition to the responses and our reactions to them. In fact, when it comes to commercial endorsements this is quite a large industry to try to tackle. At the time of her presentation, she mentions advertisement is "an over $250 billion a year industry, in just the US alone," setting the stage to let the audience know she is calling out the corporate giants who promote their products in fashions she does not find beneficial (Kilbourne).
          Maintaining a respectful and honest tone throughout her address, Kilbourne maintain her message by identifying we have a serious problem regarding the moral treatment of women, and occasionally men, in the vast sea of ads in today's world. She desires change for everyone: the way we share messages to others should concern the topic of discussion rather than a sexualized portrayal of a body. Kilbourne does make a quick note about men's over explicit adverts, although her focus remains on women due to sexual representation of men in promotions are not as pumped with sexual incitement as done with women.

(Sexualized Fruit)

          The following advertisement is one of the many which attracted my attention. This one shared a particularly fruitful message. Frankly, a bit too fruity and verging into the realm of subliminal if you're none the wiser. It took a bit of time for me to fully understand this colourful ad, which I began to realize shared another value than simply addressing the topic of fruit. I'm not quite sure where the initial ad originated from due to the quality of the fine print being a tad bit unacceptable. Additionally, at this point in my life I do not read Portuguese, although my limited background with French and Spanish moves me to believe this ad is trying to suggest for people to "practice healthy habits." I'm not quite sure how I'm making this conclusion, but I see in each of the four section there is the little blup which declares "a partir de 49,90." My thoughts lean towards a possible transportation fee; maybe this is the price per crate of the respective fruit? In French, the verb partir equates to "to leave" or "to depart;" when modified to "à partir de" it means "starting from," with the idea there will be an event following afterwards. Similar in Spanish, the verb "salir" often denotes "to leave" or "to come from." Neat.
          This fruit ad presents more meaning to it than simply holding linguistic diversity. Let's look at those fruits. Pick your preference, whether they're oranges, clementines, peaches or something else, the orange fruit symbolizes someone's butt. In popular culture of today, particularly with our smartphones, there is this overwhelming presence of using fruits and vegetable to indicate human body parts. Plump peaches represent a great butt, an eggplant denotes a well endowed penis, and so forth. The green apple conveys a bare anus and the mango is like that of a human breast. The peeled orange/tangerine stumped me for a while. I thought maybe it could be a scrotum and I think it could suffice as so, although I believe their intension was for a vagina. Kilbourne was correct when she said these sorts of advertisements "are more sophisticated and influential than ever before" such that the "message is quick, it's cumulative, and for the most part it's subconscious." Perhaps this should be a concern to us how hyper sexual advertisements has both become and continues to remain as so? All of this rubbish is completely unappealing. For one, I most certainly do not want to associate the top of any apple with someone's bare flesh anus.
          A second case of suggestive advertisement, features two men adjacent to each other at a pair of urinals. The centred man in the charcoal suit appears to be making a phone call, while his neighbour in the dark blue suit is reaching over and inferably grabbing the man's crotch. In an analytical aspect, I find this advertisement to be rather creative, and very well provocative. In a kind way, the message displayed in this visual is imaginative, in such a way to see men being the area of focus rather than the overused exploitation of women's bodies.

(Sanitol)

          In her presentation Kilbourne mentioned women are too often inflated to carry an image of unrealistic standards. She goes further to explain the goal of certain advertisements is to provey the image of an unachievable perfection, because "what's important is how we look," even at the cost of enhancing the ideas or situation in the ads whereas the subjects in the publication "moves [transitions] from being a subject, to an object." In the case of this advert, we are influenced to believe the blue suited man is grabbing the other man due to their body positons; the idea presented before us entails the man's crotch is a play object for the second man. In fact, in the top left corner is a small burp of text stating, "Touch him. And you touch everything he's touched." The caption in divided into two segments. The first phrase is very well a command, as though it's instructing, giving orders to the blue suited man to sexually grab his washroom neighbour and toy around with him, as he talks on the phone. Yet, the second part of the caption turns back on the idea, such as to suggest business men have dirty genitals. The blue suited man could very well be a male massage therapist for all we know, or at most, a prostate masseuse for what it's worth. Guys will do a lot of odd and crazy things to each other, so I'm sure the above depiction is not too far fetched for some guys to enact with their friends. I understand the ad wants to promote their sanitation product, although I myself would not necessarily result to grasping men's exposed crotches, simply as an excuse to use hand sanitizer.

Works Cited

Kilbourne, Jean. "Killing Us Softly 4." 2010. Speech.

Sanitol. Touch him. And you touch everything he's touched. Mar. 2011. Coloribus, www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/prints/sanitol-antibacterial-urinal-14235855/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2017.

Sexualized fruit. Design on the Rocks, Domenico Justo, designontherocks.blog.br/campanha-de-motel/. Accessed 29 Apr. 2017.