Killing Us Softly: Images of Women in Advertising by Jean Kilbourne; Joseph Vitagliano;

Patricia Stallone
Review by: Paula Rothenberg Struhl
The Radical Teacher, No. 16 (1980), pp. 43-44
Published by: University of Illinois Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20709264 .
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 43

And, along with Meridel LeSueur's I Right. The working- and middle-class
"Women on the Breadlines," it is the students in my introductoryWomen's
best account I know of the condition of the < Studies class found the novel an enter
urban unemployed during theworst years taining and informative account of the

Teaching Notes of the Depression. conditions that gave rise to the contem
Pamela Annas porary women's movements and of the
I
University ofMassachusetts/Boston different theories of feminism that
emerged.
Waiting forNothing, Tom Kromer. New Seed of a Woman, Ruth Geller. Imp True to its experiential as opposed to
York: Hill & Wang. $3.95. Press, 1979.Write P.O. Box 93E, Buffalo, polemic or analyticmode, the novel ends
NY 14213. Enclose $5.95 plus 10 percent with the main characters' unresolved
I go into this joint and walk up to the
postage and 7 percent New York State processes. It contributes to the direction
middle counter. I flop down in a seat.
These cash customers gape at me. I am
sales tax for each desired copy. prescribed for feminist fiction by critic
Ruth Geller* s first novel brings a witty Lillian Robinson in her book Sex, Class
clean, but my front is seedy. They
to a and Culture: from an understand
know I don't belong in here. I know I working-class perspective process 'Only
don't belong inhere, too. But I am hun countless working- and middle-class ing of themass experience that forces us
gry. A hungry man belongs where white women who were involvedwith uni to become heroes can we build a move
there is food. Let them gape. versities nationwide underwent in the ment to make fundamental changes in
late 1960s and early 1970s. Not onlywere social institutions or our own lives."
That most people in capitalist America
we awakened to the authenticity of our Sharon Leder
don't want to know about other people's
need for collective and individual auton SUNY Buffalo
hunger is a major theme of this 1935
omy within the male-dominated New
novel. Tom Kromer's first person narra
Left, but also we were sparked and exhil Killing Us Softly: Images of Women in
tor "shuffles with tired feet, his head
arated by our hard-found bondings/rela Advertising, Jean Kilbourne, Joseph
huddled in his coat collar," through a
world usually dark, often rainy and cold, tionships with other women inWomen's Vitagliano, and Patricia Stallone. Thirty
Liberation and minutes. Distributed by Cambridge Doc
consciousness-raising
and 90 percent unfriendly or indifferent,
groups. This process has been portrayed umentary Films, P.O. Box 385, Cam
a world made up of the haves and the
primarily as a psychological one in count bridge, MA 02139. Rental $46.
have nots, guys in the dough and stiffs less novels such as Piercy's
contemporary Before seeing Killing Us Softly, I was
likehimself, people who don't knowwhat Small Changes and Shulman's Burning
it's like tobe hungry and men and women skeptical about still another presentation
Questions. The journey toward feminist about the image of women in themedia.
on the fritzwho spend most of every day
consciousness in them is more a matter of Could it have anything new to tell us?
hustling for three hots and a flop. The and transfor Based upon the reaction ofmy classes (in
personal decision-making
world Kromer writes about is male. The
mation than one of action inunpredictable bothWomen's Studies and Introductory
fewwomen in the novel are mostly inde times of need, or of dialectic between
Philosophy) the answer is yes. The stu
pendent ofmen and also on the fritz?a character and history. It is this emphasis dents of the 1960s and 1970s who had a
young woman who abandons her baby on on the dynamic relationship between per
a park bench so that itwill be taken to a sophisticated understanding of sexism in
son and on the unexamined,
event, raw, themedia have long ago left the campus
shelter, a couple of prostitutes just trying and unromantic nuts and
unanalyzed and have been replaced by a new breed,
to get by.
bolts of reality and experience that char of whom have never taken adver
many
Waiting for Nothing is not entirely acterizes Geller's tell-it-like-it
grim and painful reading; it's written
objective, tising seriously enough to see its some
is, almost transparent narrative voice. times (as thisfilm claims) deadly implica
with warmth, wit, and humor, and in She is the reportergiving the account, the tions.
authentic stiff idiom. Autobiographical camera eye. After exhorting students to "take ad
and episodic, each of the 12 chapters can
vertising seriously as a force to shape our
Readers are introduced to characters
function as a separate short story. Each
covers a separate
typifyingdifferentpoles of response/in attitudes and behavior," this film exam
aspect of the narrator's
volvement/commitment to the contempo ines a series of of women
images (and
world: hustling a meal, tryingand failing
to rob a bank, con games, flop houses,
rary Women's Movement based on their
men) in themedia. Beginning with a fair
different class backgrounds, sexual iden
ly low key and familiar consideration of
breadlines, getting busted for vagrancy,
tifications, nature of work and relative the ideal of feminine beauty that is fos
male missions, hobo
prostitution, jun status within the university hierarchy. tered by advertising, the film quickly
gles, riding the rails. Kromer never gets We see them through the mirror of the moves to a consideration of other stereo
anything for free; he always pays?with narrator's and therefore feel women as work
equanimity types (female
his body, his soul, or his pride. He wor sexuality,
free to identify. Becky is a graduate ers, the housewife, the aging woman) and
ries a lot about his self-respect, whether
school and Women's Liberation groupie. does a fine job of examining the implica
he's got any left.Mostly, though, he wor <
She cannot ignore the sado-masochistic tions of these stereotypes forour sense of
ries about surviving.While overtly polit
elements of her relationship to her history self. This is followed by an effective
ical remarks are few, this is not an apolit
professor David Sully which belie both examination of the portrayal of women
ical book.
her dependence on him and onWomen's and men in relation to each other in
I assign Waiting forNothing in a vari
Liberation. Justine is the upwardly
ety of literature and writing classes, and advertising photos and a quick but deeply
mobile working-class wife of a graduate
can see itbeing used in disturbing look at the exploitation of chil
sociology, anthro teaching assistant in philosophy Paul dren. The message behind these ads is
pology, history, and economics as well.
Dentan. After becoming pregnant she made explicit by thefilm. Sex and mascu
The writing style is direct, concrete, and
identifieswith socialist feminism. Terry
accessible. Its realistic descriptions and linityare linkedwith violence and women
is in the process of coming out as a les are the appropriate object for that vio
scenes furnishgood models for freshman
bian, has been a mother, and winds up at lence.
English and creative writing students. the novel's close a proponent of Mother
During the early frames of thisfilmmy

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44

classes tend to watch with a relaxed and achieve power the electoral
through pro
humorous attitude. By the end ofKilling their own cess and, with the
humanity in the face of recog
sabotage of political
Us Softly the room is deadly quiet. nizable obstacles. Even though economic democracy by the capitalists, the imposi
Paula Rothenberg Struhl hardships, social corruption and frag tion of a fascistic form of state power.
William Paterson College mentation may rule the day, Union Dues Among the characteristics of this new
finds room forhope in the very humanity regime, the graphic details of which are
Union Dues, John Sayles. New York: many of its characters struggle tomain in "Towering Inferno" style, is the divi
Pocket Books, 1978. $2.50. tain. sion of the country into two separate soci
Reading Union Dues in my Recent Roger Shatzkin eties. The capitalist oligarchs and a fa
American Writing course with a class of Rutgers University vored section of skilled working
people
adults at Rutgers' University College live inwell-protected affluence while the
proved rewarding. Despite divergent The Iron Heel, Jack London. London: unskilled laborers sink intoa hideous jun
views, these older students feltconnected Journeyman Press. $3.50. Available from gle of oppression, exploitation, and cul
to the events described. The novel, set in Carrier Pigeon, Box 590, Central Square, tural barbarism, the "people of the
1969, reflectson, among other things, the Cambridge, MA 02139. abyss," as London calls them. However,
domestic repercussions of the Viet Nam Students have all heard of Jack Lon the narrative finally breaks the bonds of
war (and is thus a good companion piece don, as author ofWhite Fang, Call of the literarynaturalism to assert the eventual
to the narrower and more harrowing view Wild and other adventure stories. Few triumph of an era of brotherhood.
inRobert Stone's novel Dog Soldiers). (none, inmy experience, and this isworth I have used The IronHeel ina course in
The story follows the trail of teenage a question or two) are familiar with him American Studies and composition. The
Hobie McNatt, who runs away from his as an active supporter of socialism. His students are intrigued by their first en
West Virginia coal town to Boston in a 1908 novel, The IronHeel, combines Lon counter with socialist ideas from an unex
vain search for his Viet-vet brother, and don's argument in favor of socialism with pected but respected source. I have also
the parallel trailof his fatherHunter, who a prophetic warning to his contempo found that London's "science fiction"

quits his mining job to search forHobie. raries, and to us, about the power of cor vision of a late
twentieth-century Amer
Interwoven with Hobie's and Hunter's porate ica, some of which we
capitalism. aspects already
experiences are highly realistic glimpses The IronHeel has been printed in four experience, provokes more animated dis
?to give just a partial list?of an Appa editions and instructorsmay be inter cussion than is usual among students who
lachian mining town, a pair of Boston ested in reading the successive introduc are determined to become accountants
cops, "Third Way"?anewleftish sect, a tory essays which are themselves a com and computer programmers.
prostitute working Boston's Combat mentary on the book's continuing effec Joseleyne Slade Tien
Zone, construction workers in New tiveness as criticism ofAmerican political Michigan State University
Hampshire, a Boston-Irish bar, and union culture. Curiously, the book has been out
politics in coal mining and elsewhere. (It of print for some time in theUnited States * * *
is inmany of these vignettes, by theway, after a brief appearance in the early
that Sayles demonstrates why, as several 1970s, but is now easily obtainable in the Is there a book, film, poem, or story
critics have noted, he is the best Ameri British Journeyman edition whose cover you've found particularly useful in the
can chronicler of day-by-day working life appropriately shows Chilean democracy classroom and want to share with other

writing today.) Since the novel presents under the black boot of fascism. Radical Teacher readers? We are espe
such a diverse cross-section of American The IronHeel tells the story of Ernest cially interested in Teaching Notes on
lifeand is not limited?as is so much con Everhard (Eugene Debs, Ernest Unter new materials not widely known, but we
temporary fiction?to a single social class mann and Jack London himself, rolled would also like to hear about newly redis
(usually middle or upper middle), it pro into a socialist superman), who is the covered older works as well as new ways
vides an excellent introduction to the leader of the Socialist Party inAmerica at of teaching familiar ones. Contributions
political issues and culture of the late six the beginning of the twentieth century. In should be no longer than one page (dou
ties. Be forewarned, however, that the his encounters with bishops and busi ble-spaced) and should include the fol
novel's depiction of its student radicals is nessmen, Everhard explicates the major lowing information: school, course, kinds
none too flattering. But even in this tenets of socialist thoughtwhile Avis, his of students, how you taught the work,
aspect, the book should provoke valuable fiancee, a professor's
daughter, discovers difficulties as well as triumphs. Also,
discussion. for herself the brutal and subtle realities please supply the title, author, publisher,
In an era of pessimistic and solipsistic behind the polite facade of middle-class and current price (or comparable data for
fiction,Union Dues is a rarity: a portrait life. a film). Send your Teaching Notes to Bob
of recognizable people of different gen In the second part of the novel, London Rosen, 880 Elm Street, New Haven, CT
erations and classes struggling for sur describes the failure of the socialists to 06511.

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