Family and the Media
How does the film killing us softly 4 present an analysis of how gender relations are shaped by mass media?
The film Killing us Softly 4 presents an analysis of how gender relations are shaped by mass media in the ways through which media use narrow, unattainable standard of female beauty and sexuality to sell women. This is damaging to the minds of people as far as they view real women and themselves. The issue related to the advertisement of women’s images presented in the movie is a sharp decline in self-esteem of adolescent females, eating disorders and violence against females. Zinn, Stanley and Barbara (236) point out that people get attracted to opposite sex and have the potential for loving. The advertisements of women’s images construct a desirable femininity as silent, delicate, sexually available and strenuous labor on the side of women.
In addition, the Kilbourne’s film creates a toxic cultural environment whereby sex objectification, physical suppression and logical trivialization of men and women has deep emotional character, which is more convincing. There are patterns across all marriages, which vary according to social class, race, gender and locality (Zinn et al 311). Interracial and interethnic marriages are currently increasing in the society because of social media. They do this through changing eating habits and some became depressed in the process of conforming to these images. However, men fair better but their masculinity portrayals are usually linked with violence. The aim of Kilbourne is to change men and women’s attitudes through watching the film Killing us Softly 4 in order to become better citizens but not consumers.
How do you think social views of gender affect the family?
Social views of gender affect the family through knocking out one’s desensitized state though they are significant to the younger population who want to sharpen their media literacy. Moreover, women at the age of twelve to eighteen feel frustrated and irritated because of racism in the media. This is because of the deconstruction of female parts shown in the media and this reveals gender differences across all cultures. Furthermore, youth cultures have become more sexualized because of an increasing demand of appearance. Social media like this film influences youths who may also want to dress and appear sexy and this has encouraged youths to be media consumers.
In the modern society, social views have continued to play a vital role in shaping people’s thoughts about humanity and their actions that almost create a stereotyped gender world (Zinn et al 222).On the view of gender, the media creates conflict and violence in the family. This is because they sometimes make the teenagers to struggle hard in order to conform to the images displayed in the social media. For instance, the youths may want to adopt the dressing style and mostly girls who may want to grow thin and appear as those women portrayed in the social media. This may end up causing conflicts between the parents and other members in the family because of poor dressing styles.
Nevertheless, the modern media is completely harmful to the society and the family at large. Kilbourne’s film reveals that females are stricken with much more insecurity than males. She attributes the imbalance of self-esteem to the models that forces women to find ways of achieving the ideal portrayed in the advertisements. Moreover, women are constantly portrayed as the ‘weaker sex’ to the male counterparts. Social media may create a problem within the family diversity, which includes ethnic, sex, sexual preference and gender (Zinn et al 312). In the family diversity like in the African culture families, their expectations are different as compared to those of other families such as the American society. For instance, they expect their children to live up to expectations of the African culture; hence, they view social media as a system that pollutes cultural norms of African families.
Works Cited
Zinn, Maxine, Stanley Eitzen, and Barbara Wells. Diversity in Families. Houston, TX: Prentice Hall PTR, 2010. Print.
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