On average, Americans come in contact with approximately three thousand advertisements per day. Advertising can be found in all of the mass media but is most prominent in television commercials. Many Americans are unaware of what they are actually absorbing during those 30 second time slots.
According to Dr. Jean Kilbourne, “advertisements sell values, images, and concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy.” What is seen on television is what is thought of as acceptable.
A topic that is a cause of a lot of controversy is how women are objectified in the media. The objectification of women plays a significant role in body dissatisfaction and violence toward women and can be found in all media.
The messages that lie in television commercials are not always easy to detect.
Can you remember the last beer commercial you saw? If not, let your memory be refreshed. The music was loud and the colors were bright. Most likely there were half-naked women parading around and the men were shouting something demeaning to the women, while they followed the men like a child follows their parent.
What the target audience, in this case, men, will subconsciously take away from the advertisement is that men are, and will continue to be superior to women through the consumption of that beer.
From a commercial such as that, men are expecting women to do what they say. If they do not see that, they become confused and frustrated, which can often lead to violence.
If women are viewed as nothing more than objects, then being violent toward women, in the eyes of a man, is the equivalent of being violent towards a rock; it is not a big deal.
The women are portrayed as inferior to men. But let us focus on how their bodies are portrayed. According to Kilbourne: “