Concept Research

So I just watched Jean Kilbourne’s Killing Us Softly 3 (1999) and Killing Us Softly 4 (2010). All I can say is WOW… I remember seeing a few short segments of the first Killing Us Softly a long time ago but I think I was too young to really understand what was being discussed here. Although Kilbourne says that the situation has not changed in the 40 years she has been giving lectures she does say that she is no longer alone. I like what she said about everyone feeling personally exempt from the influence of advertisements, even though we are incessantly surrounded by ads everywhere we go.  She speaks about how the images stay with us and how we process them mostly subconsciously. They create an environment that is impossible to measure up to. They sell values, images, and concepts of love and sexuality and they also show a concept of normalcy. For women in advertisements the only thing that matters is how we look. That we need to spend time, energy and money trying to look like these retouched models and if we can’t we should feel bad about it. Watching enough of the slide shows of the hundreds of advertisements that Kilbourne has assembled is enough to make you sick. Not to mention the insane statistics she reveals in her last film about the increase in cosmetic procedures. The quest for perfection forced upon women of all ages but mostly on young girls leads to mental health issues and I think that it is this that we wish to uncover in our documentary.

Below I posted some images that I compiled that have the same look and feel I'm thinking will work for this film. I want to use neon pinks and greens along with light oranges for the name titles for the individual interviews. I want to make the titles and graphics look just like all of the teenage magazines and websites. I liked the hand-drawn background for the website on the second screen shot. I think it would be cool to make a small animation in this type of style to maybe use with a voiceover done by one of the girls. I want to use the same font as the Seventeen or Cosmopolitan magazine uses for their logo for all the names and descriptions. Also I think we should touch on the subject that is illustrated in Killing Us Softly and show how teenage girls are portrayed in media though TV, social networks, magazines, movies, and advertisements.