The movie, essentially a tape of a 1977 lecture at Harvard by Jean Kilbourne, tossed out many of the familiar feminist "statistics" that we have become accustomed to during Take Back the Night week, without citing any source other than Dr. Kilbourne: one-fifth of American college women have eating disorders, one-quarter of American women in college have been raped, etc. The fact that most of these statistics have already been discredited (even the rape study's own researcher, Mary Koss, admits to major flaws in her methodology) doesn't seem to deter campus feminists from trumpeting them at every opportunity. Perhaps the only credible statistic was the claim that 80% of American women think that they are overweight. Of course, that's because many of them are - according to the  Framingham Heart Study, 70 percent of women over 40 years of age are indeed above their optimal weight. 

Dubious figures notwithstanding, the film was an interesting testament to how much advertising has changed over the past twenty years. Dr. Kilbourne showed slides of ads with the intention of demonstrating how they objectify women and lead to domestic violence and rape. Among the slides were some very disturbing images of women being punched and dead women (in a shoe ad, oddly enough). These ads were truly troubling, but none of the budding feminists watching the film had ever seen them before - in fact, they have not run for years. Indeed, no one would run such ads today; images of women in body bags ("I'd kill for these shoes") just don't sell products. Too bad the feminists' opposition to violence doesn't keep them from beating dead horses. 

The one component of advertising which has grown over the past twenty years - along with women's income and purchasing power - is the percentage of ads objectifying men. Do you remember the "Diet Coke break" ads in which businesswomen gathered around a window to watch a construction worker remove his shirt? Dr. Kilbourne dismissed the objectification of men as insignificant compared with that of women: "It doesn't have the whole weight of the culture behind it." However, Professor Schlossberg rightly noted the decline of ads featuring violence against women. 

The discussion also touched on how advertising has changed to appeal to liberated, enlightened women. Professor Schlossberg cited a Body Shop ad campaign with the tag line: "Global warming. World hunger. Suddenly, cellulite doesn't seem like such a big problem." This reflection of changing cultural values was demonized as "twisting feminist language" and "using modern women's attitudes just to sell cosmetics," as if advertising had some duty other than to sell products. The discussion moved on to encompass other feminist questions, such as "Am I a sell-out of the feminist cause if I wear makeup?" I myself was asked by the other discussion participants to examine my rationale for wearing cosmetics: do I don mascara for men, or does a touch of lipstick just make me feel more polished and professional? 

Although many of the participants complained that women are objectified by advertising, the discussion kept returning to the same theme: advertising exists only to sell products. Well, what a surprise. Many of the discussion participants, as well as Dr. Kilbourne, believe that advertising creates negative, even dangerous expectations for women's appearances and behavior. 

The fundamental flaw in such criticism of advertising is that feminists exaggerate the power of ads to affect culture. The purpose of advertising is to sell products, not to change society's values, and marketers are less likely to shape our nation's culture than to be shaped by it. 

Women don't want to be attractive because advertisers tell them that they should. Rather, advertisers put attractive women in ads because that is want men want to see and what women naturally aspire to be. And to the extent that advertising does influence culture, the positive effects tend to offset the negative. For every bottle sold of PMS medication that bears the tag line "Your guy: another reason for Midol," the world is a better place.