Problem With The Media

Problems with the Media

There has been an ongoing dispute concerning the media's perception of how people are supposed to look. It seems that every year, the expectations of looking thin becomes harder and harder to meet. I know this from a personal experience of my own. A few years ago, I would look in magazines and see girls wearing size one or size two clothes. By look at this at least once every month, I started to feel that I was inadequate and I had to loose weight. Unfortunately, I took my dieting to far and over used diet pills. Because of my abuse to the pills, I almost became addicted and that's when I realized how distorted the media's idea of looking good was. Fortunately there are numerous amounts of people that agree with me. This would include a woman writer, Susan Bordo, who wrote about the media's ideas of being thin, and how she thinks that they are wrong

In the essay "Never Just Pictures" by Susan Bordo, she discusses the issue of the media's promotion of being skinny and what affects this has brought. The media claims that the phobia of being fat is a disease that you are born with, but that is not always the case. Bordo, like many other people, believe that the media is mostly to blame. Bordo brings up a few arguments, such as Freud's opposing thoughts along with the ads cutting back the use of make-up, but never goes into

Yarbrough 2

great detail with the opposing side. Throughout the essay, Bordo uses many examples, along with pictures, to help prove her point. By using her emotions, evidence, and experience as a writer on similar subjects, she reaches her audience and gives and effective and convincing argument.

Bordo proves her creditability throughout the paper. She demonstrates that she is an intellectual woman with a grasp on current events. She mentions articles from highly renowned newspapers, such as The New York Times and The New Yorker, along with referring to newscasters' comments from the 1996 Olympic games. She also justifies the writing by mentioning her pervious work in the 1993's Unbearable Weight, where she discusses similar issues. The book, published by the University Press, shows that she had obvious academic knowledge and support.

Bordo's targets an audience of younger to middle-aged women by using termi...

... middle of paper ...

... though it might not seem completely fair, Bordo saves the media's responses and mentions them at the end. The reason why she does this is not only keep the reader interested but not going back and forth on the issue, but also build up the audiences agreement with her. This way she can get more response from her reader up against the press. When Bordo does mention the opposing side, anything that the media says and/or does just isn't good enough because they are causing people to get sick and sometimes die. This would force the audience to agree with her more, which is what she wants.

Bordo does a great job with getting in touch with the reader. This article, however, is not very effective unless the reader cares about the issue before they pick it up and read it. She does a good job of arguing with the opposing sides, so if someone reads the article and their beliefs are against her beliefs; there is a possibility that they would change their minds. The reason for the possible change of heart from her lists of examples, her reasoning with it being backed up by media proof, and how much feeling she puts into the essay