1. Where do you see advertisements? (Think of as many places as possible.)
2. What makes an advertisement remain in your memory? (images? words? music? phrases?)
3. What is success? How is success portrayed in advertisements? Who is successful in advertisements? Are there definitions of success other than those offered by advertisements? What are they?
4. What is happiness? How is happiness portrayed in advertisements? Who is happy in advertisements? Are there other definitions of happiness than those offered by advertisements? What are they?
5. Can people, whether male or female, have both "feminine" and "masculine" characteristics? Do you see a danger in limiting people to one or the other?
6. Which products are sold using images of women and femininity? Which products are sold using images of men and masculinity? Are these ever switched around? If so, when?
7. What products are sold by people of color? What is the setting in these advertisements?
8. What products are sold using sexuality? Why do you think advertisers use sexuality to sell?
9. Why is sex important in personal relationships? Besides sex, what else is important in a relationship?
10. What does it mean to be a consumer?
12. What does it mean to be a conscious consumer?
13. What does it mean to be a citizen?
14. What is the definition of community?
15. How do the messages in advertising counter or undermine social change?
16. What is responsible advertising? If a company is communally responsible, what does that mean?
17. Do advertisers have a responsibility to society? Why? Why not?
18. Do advertisers have a responsibility to children?
19. Who might have a point of view of women in advertising different from Jean Kilbourne's? What might be the reasoning behind this point of view?
20. What are some stories media tell about women? How do they tell them?
21. Where else, besides advertising, do we learn what it means to be a woman in our culture? Which stories about what it means to be a woman are the most powerful in our culture? Why?
22. What is the relationship between advertising and capitalism? How does this relationship affect the way people, and human values, are constructed in ads?
23. Jean Kilbourne comments that the impossible, ideal image presented by advertisers "wouldn't matter so much if it didn't connect with the core belief of American culture that such transformation is possible; that we can look like this if we just try hard enough, buy the right products. If we're not beautiful, or thin, or rich,or successful, it's because we're just not trying hard enough." Explore this statement further. In what ways is transformation a central principle of American society? Where in American history and culture does this belief reveal itself? What is the connection between advertising's impossible image of ideal beauty and the American belief in transformation?
24. In what ways does it benefit women and girls to subscribe to the ideal image of female beauty? When is it self-destructive to do so?
25. Why do some people consider "feminist" a negative label? Why do some women resist being labeled feminists? In what ways does disavowing feminism keep woman from accessing power and autonomy?
26. Jean Kilbourne comments that women of color are disproportionately shown as animalistic and exotic.What effect(s) might this have on girls and women of color? What effect(s) might this have on the way that others view girls and women of color?
27. Do you think the way that women of color are portrayed is changing? Give examples.
28. What are some of the potential effects (physical, emotional, mental) on girls and women of trying to live up to our culture's ideal image of beauty? What is the relationship between cultural ideals of thinness and the cultural obsession with dieting? with eating disorders?
29. Do you feel that the media reflect or create the ideal image of beauty in our society - or both?
30. Explain why the average model twenty years ago was 5'4" and 140 lbs. and today is 5'11" and 117 lbs.What accounted for this change?
31. How and why do you feel individuals are susceptible to media influence?
32. What is the relationship between dehumanization, objectification and violence?
33. Do you feel that femininity, or what it means to be female, and masculinity, or what it means to be male,are learned or natural? Why?
34. What current images in the popular media work against the image of the passive, vulnerable woman?How are these images different from the story traditionally told by advertisers? What other images can youimagine to portray a diversified understanding of femininity?
35. Do you feel that the culture is opening up, that it has started to embrace more willingly women and girls that go against the traditional feminine type? If so, why do you think this is happening? If not, why not?
36. Should men be concerned about women's freedom, health and equality?
37. What role can girls and women play in diversifying the image of what it means to be a woman in our culture? What role can boys and men play?
38. What can girls and women do to prevent male violence against women? What can boys and men do?
39. Advertisements rarely feature women over the age of 35, and there are many advertisements for beauty products that claim to help women look young, even when they no longer are. What effect do you think this has on the way that women feel about themselves as they age? What effect do you think this has on the value our culture gives to older women? To youth?
40. In what ways do images of thinness and advertisements of food contradict each other in the media? How might their combined effects lead to disordered eating?
41. Advertisements for jeans and perfume tend to be more overtly sexual than those for many other products.Why might this be?