Project 5

Brooke Shields Calvin Klein Commercial

Introduction:

Brooke Shields is famous for some 1980s Calvin Klein commercials. This video I chose is about multiple commercials that are combined into one. It starts with Shields reading from books about Calvin Klein while posing and talking to the camera about her Calvin Klein jeans. While she is acting, you can see where the focus is, mostly on the jeans and her face. This kind of commercial makes her look older then she is but she is only a teen. Kilbourn will not agree how ads use kids because this ad shows how young girls can be sexualized without them even realizing it. This commercial focuses on her beauty but also shows the jeans fitting her small waist. Her every move as she is acting through this commercial and her facial expressions gives that older look. This paper is going to focus on child models and beaty as well as children being sexualized. It will also look at the stereotypes of women in advertisements.

Figure 1: Brooke Shield

Child Model

Kilbourne talks a lot about how advertising agencies choose kids who are pretty and have a nice figure to be in their commercials. Many of Brooke Shields Calvin Klein commercials show her posing in a way that makes her look sexier and shows her beauty. In this commercial, Shields was only 15 years old. The article it explains, " Women are especially cruel judges of other women's sexual behavior...desperate to believe we are in control of what happens to us." (Kilbourne 496). Shields is talking to somebody who is older than her saying in Figure 1, "My mother warned me about boys like you. Mama said, 'he's only interested in my Calvin's.'". Shields is a young girl with no experience of sexual innuendos. In the commercial, her eyes just gaze at the camera as she is talking about her Calvin's, meaning her jeans.

Child Sexualization

"You want to know what comes between me and my Calvin's? Nothing". This is are the famous line as she is posing with her legs open as shown in Figure 2. This quote can be understood to mean more than one thing. I think they wanted us to think that she is not wearing any underwear under the jeans. In the article Kilbourne says, "Sometimes the little girl is made up and seductively posed." (Kilbourne 504). Sometimes the language is suggestive. It is the same things as what Shield is doing in this commercial. Many times, kids are forced to say things that they don't understand. In the article from Today, the author stated, "her famous line caused an uproar after critics deemed it sexually suggestive, resulting in the commercial even being banned in some countries." (Today). Here people are criticizing her for doing sexual ads and for being so young while she was doing that. In Today's article Brooke stated, "'I was a virgin, and I was a virgin forever after that,' she joked." This shows how the ads treat young women who don't event have a clue about the sexual nature in the ad. They are very inexperienced to the ways of Hollywood.

Figure 2: Posing with her legs open

Figure 3: Posing with the book

Stereotypes of Women

People want to see women presented in a certain way. This may involve makeup, sexy clothes, or perfect bodies. These ads makes women feel insecure about themselves. In the video Kilbourne said, "woman are acceptable only if they are young, thin, white, or have white or light skin and perfectly groomed, pulsed, plucked and shaved and any ideal women..." (Killing Us Softly 4). Here Kilbourne gives some examples of how women should look before appearing in front of the camera. As Shields posed with her one leg up in Figure 3, as she is reading the book and flexing her leg, it makes us focus on her and not what she is reading.

Conclusion

This paper shows how commercials use young people to do sexual poses or use certain words to make them appear sexual. Kilbourne gives many ways young girls are being sexualized. This video was 3 minutes long. The main thing you see throughout this Calvin Klein jeans commercial is the way Shields is presented. She lifts her legs and spreads and flexes them. Everything is designed to make her look sexy in the jeans. I think Kilbourne will agree that this ad show how kids are being taken advantage of.

Work Cited

"Brooke Shields Calvin Commercials." YouTube, Uploaded by TheBrookeNook, 8 Jan. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_tom65LKiE
Stump, Scott. "Brooke Shields responds to controversial 1980 Calvin Klein ad." Today. 29 Oct. 2022, today.com/style/celeb-style/brooke-shields-responds-controversial-1980-calvin-klein-ad-rcna4104. Accessed 18 Apr. 2022.
Kilbourne, Jean. "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence," Rereading America, edited by Cullen, Colombo, & Lisle, Bedford/St. Martin's P, 2016, pp. 488-513.
Killing Us Softly 4. Directed by Sut Jhally, performance by Jean Kilbourne, The Media Education Foundation, 2010

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