Margaret Lazarus

Still Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women

This follow-up to Jean Kilbourne's award-winning 1979 documentary, KILLING US SOFTLY, further probes the harmful effects of stereotypical and sexist images in advertising. Kilbourne conducts a lecture within the film, displaying still images of women, men, children, and violent crime via a slide projector. By emphasizing the dehumanization of women by television's body-image obsession, she teaches viewers how America is taught to categorize women primarily as sex objects.

Choosing Children

CHOOSING CHILDREN is a pioneering film about parenting in non-traditional families and helped to open dialogue about the meaning and reality of the "modern family." This film takes an intimate look at the issues faced by lesbians and gay men who decide to become parents after coming out.

Killing Us Softly: Advertising's Image of Women

Taking advertisements from magazines, newspapers, album covers and shop front windows, KILLING US SOFTLY presents specific examples of the ways in which advertisements reinforce stereotypes, affect our self-image and how we relate to each other, our concepts of success and worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normality. Using an intriguing mixture of statistics, humor, insight and outrage, Jean Kilbourne questions how far the use and abuse of women in advertising is connected to the sexual exploitation of women at large and the increasing incidence of child abuse.

Rape Culture

That documentary helps to shape consciousness about sexism and violence against women.