Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence in an Urban Context

I strongly agree with Jean Kilbourne’s argument because the ads she portrays on “killing us softly” videos show very disturbing images of men and women. I especially found the ads by big clothing companies targeting young teenagers to be vulgar. The mass media; television, books, magazines and games, are revealed as vicious when it comes to exposing young womens bodies for profit. The media seems to put forth a great deal of effort trying to exploit young adolescents of today. By displaying repulsive pornographic images of young females they have basically corrupted the identity of those young innocents. Kilbourne’s message is clear, that mass media and specifically firms such as Calvin Klein, Pepe Jeans and others are completely destroying young men and womens identities and their reputations by revealing ads on them globally. I personally believe that youths should be taught complete sex education at the age of 10 – 12 so that when they reach adulthood they will understand the ways of life and will have freely chosen their path.

According to the discussion in class and the textbook, I think gender and gender identity development plays an important role in people’s lives. First of all, gender is very much related to the videos on ‘killing us softly”. It was mostly pointed toward females  because females have more choices to sell their looks in front of the camera. It was more like a trend to them or a new fashion at the time. But also in one of the videos, we notice that even young boys were out in the open on the front page covers of the CK magazine with other little girls at the age of 7 to 10 exposing themselves. So what happens to the gender identity? Females are more targeted by the media because of their sexual prowess when it comes to selling clothing. Society believes that if they dress with the same clothes as the models they too will be beautiful. Kilbourne mentions that in the real world the male physical attraction isn’t judged as often females. Females seem to be judged on their looks and their physical body beauty. This is how it all assembles, kids growing up are exposed to the media at a young age, they become models at young ages.  So the media has caught the attention of children and it has been ingrained in them that the kids on ads are normal and it is the way of living that they want. The media that uses children and young adolescents in their ad campaigns care only about the money they will earn from it, not about the identity of so many children being ruined.