Films

The documentary Miss Representation, by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and aired on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. The film explores how the media’s misrepresentations of women have led to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence. Stories from teenage girls and provocative interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists and academics, like Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson, Jean Kilbourne, and Gloria Steinem build momentum as Miss Representation accumulates startling facts and statistics that will leave the audience shaken and armed with a new perspective.

Jean Kilbourne’s pioneering work helped develop and popularize the study of gender representation in advertising. Her award-winning films Killing Us Softly (1979) and Still Killing Us Softly (1987) have influenced millions of college and high school students across two generations and on an international scale. In this important new film, Kilbourne reviews if and how the image of women in advertising has changed over the last 20 years. With wit and warmth, Kilbourne uses over 160 ads and commercials to critique advertising’s image of women. By fostering creative and productive dialogue, she invites viewers to look at familiar images in a new way, that moves and empowers them to take action. Distributed by the Media Education Foundation. study guide and handouts for this video is available online from the Media Education Foundation.

Against the backdrop of a popular culture that glamorizes and normalizes excessive drinking and high-risk behaviors, Spin the Bottle explores the role alcohol plays in college life. Award-winning media critics Jean Kilbourne and Jackson Katz examine the relationship between media, gender, and alcohol, while campus health professional speak about the impact of heavy drinking on the lives of students. Throughout the video, young adults give voice to the complexity of the issue, honestly acknowledging their own enjoyment while simultaneously exploring the negative consequences. The conclusion offers concrete strategies for countering the ubiquitous presence of alcohol propaganda and challenges young people to make conscious decisions about their own lives. Distributed by the Media Education Foundation.

In Deadly Persuasion, Jean Kilbourne exposes the manipulative marketing strategies and tactics used by the tobacco and alcohol industries to keep Americans hooked on their dangerous products. Illustrating her analysis with hundreds of current advertising examples from mainstream and trade sources, Kilbourne presents a compelling argument that these cynical industries have a clear and deep understanding of the psychology of addiction — an understanding they exploit to create and feed a life-threatening dependency on their products. Deadly Persuasion casts a critical eye on the corporate interests that lie behind the industries whose products kill more than 450,000 Americans each year. Distributed by the Media Education Foundation.

In this video, Jean Kilbourne offers an in-depth analysis of how female bodies are depicted in advertising imagery and the devastating effects of that imagery on women’s health. Addressing the relationship between these images and the obsession of girls and women with dieting and thinness, Slim Hopes offers a new way to think about life-threatening eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, and it provides a well-documented critical perspective on the social impact of advertising. Using over 150 magazine and television ads, this illustrated lecture is divided into seven sections for easy classroom viewing and discussion: Impossible Beauty, Waifs and Thinness, Constructed Bodies, Food and Sex, Food and Control, The Weight-Loss Industry, and Freeing Imaginations. Distributed by the Media Education Foundation.A study guide for this video is available online from the Media Education Foundation.

An illustrated discussion with George Gerbner and Jean Kilbourne. The video images in The Killing Screensrepresent the film and television carnage that has both attracted and repulsed students and others with increasing intensity over the years. The far-reaching effects of violence in the media reach the core of the individual’s sense of security and relationship to community in our modern culture. Young people’s notions about the world are shaped by these powerful images. One purpose of The Killing Screens is to empower students to be able to put this imagery and its effects in an analytical context. Designed for use in a broad range of educational settings, The Killing Screens includes scenes with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and others. It is paced and edited for viewing by students from high school through college, and also provides concrete information and advice for educators, parents, and individuals concerned with the cult of violence that engulfs our screens. Distributed by theMedia Education Foundation.

A Seat at the Table: Six Girls Ask “What Does it Take to Become a Leader?” is a groundbreaking documentary that follows six Miss Hall’s School students as they interview accomplished women, seeking answers to questions about how best to realize their aspirations.The film was produced by members of PAaLS—the Personal Authority and Leadership Source—a girl-centered research initiative that has studied obstacles to girls’ and women’s leadership for nearly a decade. Working with PAaLS Research Director Elizabeth Debold, Ed.D., the group’s initiatives have included a nationwide survey on girls and leadership, on-campus workshops for students, and off-campus workshops for middle school students.PAaLS girls started working on A Seat at the Table in 2010, producing the 44-minute documentary with Dr. Debold and filmmaker Jackie Mow. The film was completed in 2012, thanks in part to funding from funding from Schoolhouse Kitchen and The Page & Otto Marx Foundation, Jr. Foundation.

Cigarettes kill more people every year than alcohol, cocaine, heroin, car accidents, homicide, suicide and AIDS combined. In the U.S. alone, the tobacco industry needs to get 3,000 children to start smoking everyday simply to replace those who die or quit. It is thus no accident that elementary school students recognize Joe Camel© more readily than Mickey Mouse©. Pack of Lies exposes how pernicious and how deadly cigarette marketing is, and shows how the media cooperate with this industry that will kill one out of every ten people alive today worldwide. Featuring award-winning speaker Jean Kilbourne and advertising expert Rick Pollay, Pack of Lies challenges the biggest drug pushers around. Distributed by theMedia Education Foundation.