The Ideal Consumer is someone who is constantly dissatisfies, constanly needs more and more products in order to feel better.
Jean KilbourneRead
Woman’s bodies continue to be dismembered in advertising. Over and over again just one part of the body is used to sell products, which is one of the most dehumanizing thing you can do to someone. Not only is she a thing, but just one part of that thing is focused on.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights how advertising objectifies women by focusing on their body parts rather than their whole selves, leading to dehumanization.
Jean Kilbourne's quote critiques the advertising industry's tendency to reduce women's identities to mere body parts, which perpetuates a culture of dehumanization. By emphasizing only specific parts instead of the whole individual, ads diminish women to objects used for commercial gain, stripping them of their humanity and complexity. This reflection invites a deeper discussion about the impact of media representations on societal views of women and their self-worth.
Themes
AdvertisingObjectificationDehumanizationWomenMediaIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about body image and self-esteem, one might quote Kilbourne to emphasize the harmful effects of advertising on women.
More from Jean Kilbourne
All quotes →Turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step towards justifying violence against that person.
Jean KilbourneRead
Similar quotes
There is no such thing as an attention span. There is only the quality of what you are viewing. This whole idea of an attention span is, I think, a misnomer. People have an infinite attention span if you are entertaining them.
Jerry SeinfeldRead
I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
A. E. HousmanRead
ALL IMPULSES OF THOUGHT HAVE A TENDENCY TO CLOTHE THEMSELVES IN THEIR PHYSICAL EQUIVALENT.
Napoleon HillRead
All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning.
Henry David ThoreauRead
The human qualities of the raw materials show through. Naivety, error, contradiction, even (as in the cursing Psalms) wickedness are not removed. The total result is not "the Word of God" in the sense that every passage in itself, gives impeccable science or history. It carries the Word of God.
C. S. LewisRead
Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God's perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted.
Oswald ChambersRead