Physical Education/Health Education

Ad another thing: sounding the alarm about advertising’s ill effects on society

By Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Preview

Ad another thing: sounding the alarm about advertising’s ill effects on society

By Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013

Jean Kilbourne was an adbuster long before there was anything close to resembling Adbusters.

When the acclaimed feminist scholar, author, filmmaker and media literacy pioneer, who speaks Thursday at 7:30 p.m., at the University of Winnipeg's Convocation Hall, began tearing advertisements out of magazines and posting them on her refrigerator back in 1968, she didn't know she would start a movement, let alone a respected field of study.

At the time, she just wanted to open people's eyes. She assembled the ads she collected into a slideshow presentation that she took to college campuses in the 1970s. She had one goal: tell anyone who would listen about the damaging effect ads were having on women.

"I was the first person to start talking about the image of women in advertising," Kilbourne, 70, recalls. "(The ads) were outrageous and no one was paying attention to them."

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Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013

Postmedia Getty Images
Kate Moss in an advertisement. Jean Kilbourne has dissected the ways in which ads create impossible ideals that women must spend an incredible amount of time, energy and money chasing.

Postmedia Getty Images
Kate Moss in an advertisement. Jean Kilbourne has dissected the ways in which ads create impossible ideals that women must spend an incredible amount of time, energy and money chasing.

No excuse for ads that verge on child porn

By Lindor Reynolds 4 minute read Preview

No excuse for ads that verge on child porn

By Lindor Reynolds 4 minute read Tuesday, Apr. 7, 2009

Would you like a little cheesecake with that celery?

Loblaw's Real Canadian Superstores are bagging their own apologies after a nationwide distribution of a flyer advertising its Joe Fresh underwear line.

The problem wasn't the bras, panties and tank tops being sold at the grocery chain. It was the fact that the models, all of them sporting fresh-from-the-bed, tousled hair and come-hither looks, appear to be in their early teens.

One model, shot splay-legged in a bra and panties, looks to be at the very start of puberty.

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Tuesday, Apr. 7, 2009