Jean Kilbourne has had it right for years. She said that “advertisements are America’s real pornographer” and ads have made porn mainstream.

We owe her immense gratitude for shifting the lens on advertising and making advertising a subject of inquiry to take seriously. I’ve been influenced, inspired and indebted to her since I saw Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women in 2001. I mean, I’d been a feminist for nearly a decade at that point, studying the mass media for approximately 6 years and I knew advertisers weren’t exactly the most noble of folks. Advertisers have always been in existence to sell a product by any means necessary.

But to see  ad after ad, reinforcing the same images and themes over and over again was mind blowing. Her film was the final piece of the puzzle. I continued to examine and collect ads in the same way Kilbourne did at the beginning of her inquiry decades before.

Each semester my students collect and deconstruct ads. In my newly created class, Women and Popular Culture (my dream class if you will), Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency created a blog for the students and myself to share our observations, thoughts and create a collective resource base and solidify the community. It is in this incredible virtual space that my students posted 3 ads they chose to deconstruct. Kristin E. caught on to the intensity of these advertising messages after seeing one after the other posted, creating an eerie and pornified collage. She took it upon herself to take many of the images the class had posted and put them together. After all these years, to examine the ads in this way, is still shocking and disturbing.

Take a peek.

NOTE: Edited April 16, 2010 after several people emailed me about the spoof ad in the round-up. I’m glad some people are paying attention and are already familiar with ad spoofs and culture jamming. Can *you* spot the spoof ad? Do you know who created it? Answer below in the comments.

It continues.  From Palin porn, sexy action figures, offers to appear in Playboy and a nod from Maxim…

Thanks to the women at Feminsting:

Palin Halloween costumes and Palin sex dolls.  Gross.

In keeping with my recent posts on Sarah Palin’s looks (Palin porn, Palin sexy action figures, Maxim’s nomination of Palin and Hefner’s offer for Palin to appear in Playboy), I thought these posts at Feministing were relevant and thought-provoking:

Palin as a ploy to attract male voters: read here.

However a lot of men, especially older men see her as hot. She’s a fantasy come to life. She’s the naughty librarian ‘MILF’ who they’d love to get with. This manifest itself in the form of male talk show hosts giving her a pass. Many actually spend valuable time talking about her looks and small time stuff and not her scary politics. It manifest itself in people actually giving John McCain props for picking such a nice ‘looking babe’ versus’s focusing on his shortcomings. It sort of like him having a trophy wife. Except this one will have serious impact on US policy. It manifest itself in male producers who are behind the scenes spending time editing film and audio tape giving her a favorable look as she is a welcome break from the daily onslaught of old wrinkly white males who they are usually editing.

Journalistic focus on how attractive Palin is: read here.

Reporting that includes inappropriate observations about the attractiveness of candidates, threatens to turn political campaigns involving female candidates into beauty contests.  We must remain vigilant to sexist language in political reporting, and we must protest every infraction.

TMZ and the Huffington Post have announced Hustler’s plan to to release a video with Palin look-alike, Lisa Ann, and porn legend, Nina Hartley, cast as Hillary Clinton.  “Nailin’ Paylin” has been confirmed by a Hustler rep and an excerpt of the script is available via Radar here.

Vanessa, at Feministing, posted a response to an absurd article that appeared in Time Magazine claiiming that women are against Sara Palin because  we’re catty and she is too pretty.

She’s too pretty. This is very bad news. At school, pretty girls tend to be liked only by other pretty girls. The rest of us, whose looks hover somewhere around underwhelming, resent them and whisper archly of their “unearned attention.”

Right, we’re jealous of her hotness factor and that’s why we don’t support her nomination. Grrrr.  Give me a break.