Kilbourne’s work links the power of images in the media with current public health problems, such as eating disorders, violence, and drug and alcohol addiction. Through her lectures, films, and articles, many of her original ideas and concepts have become mainstream. These include the concepts of the tyranny of the beauty ideal, the connection between the objectification of women and violence, the themes of liberation and weight control exploited in tobacco advertising aimed at women, the targeting of alcoholics by the alcohol industry, addiction as a love affair, and many others.
Kilbourne has served as an advisor to two Surgeons General. Kilbourne holds an honorary position as Senior Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women. She has served as an advisor or board member to many organizations, including ACME (Action Coalition for Media Education), the Media Education Foundation, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, NEDA , and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
Documentaries
Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women series (
Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women, Still Killing Us Softly, Killing Us Softly 3, and "Killing Us Softly 4"') are among the most popular educational films of all time.
Complete filmography:
- Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising’s Image of Women (2010)
- Deadly Persuasion: Advertising & Addiction (2004)
- Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies, & Alcohol (2004)
- Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women (2000)
- The End of Education (with Neil Postman, 1996)
- Slim Hopes: Advertising & the Obsession with Thinness (1995)
- Sexual Harassment: Building Awareness on Campus (1995)
- The Killing Screens: Media and the Culture of Violence (with George Gerbner, hosted by Jean Kilbourne) (1994)
- Pack of Lies: The Advertising of Tobacco (1992)
- Advertising Alcohol: Calling the Shots (2nd Edition) (1991) (Red Ribbon, American Film and Video Festival)
- Still Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women (1987) (National Council on Family Relations Film Festival, First Place; National Educational Film and Video Festival, Winner; Chicagoland Educational Film Festival, First Prize, Consumer Education)
- Calling the Shots: Advertising Alcohol (1982)
- Killing Us Softly: Advertising’s Image of Women (1979) (North American Consumer Film Festival, Winner)
Publications
Kilbourne is the author (with Diane E. Levin) of
So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids (Ballantine, 2008). Her book,
Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel (originallypublished as
Deadly Persuasion by Simon & Schuster in 1999) won the Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology. She has written many articles, including editorials in The New York Times, USA Today and The Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association, and has contributed chapters to many books.