The Perfect Body and the Media I have the most adorable little cousin named Alexandra, whom I love with all my heart. One day I was very disturbed when she told me that she was fat. She was 4 years old at the time. I was stunned and had no idea what to say to her, so I just told her that she is a healthy little girl and that she needs to not to worry about that. I tried to think of where she would come up with this thought, and after a while I remembered a conversation that her mother and I had. We were talking about how nice it was when we were younger and we did not have to work at being thin. Her mother said something about being fat and Alexandra must have been listening. This got me thinking about how I came to be self conscious about my body. I came to the conclusion that it is just something that every woman has to go through at least one time in her life. But why, what is it that makes every woman want "the perfect body?" I pondered this question for a while, but I was baffled. Later that day I began to read the "Cosmopolitan" and I began paying attention to the advertisements in this very popular woman's magazine; I was amused at the angle the advertisers use to try to get women to buy their product. One advertisement was for an alcoholic drink called Tequiza. The advertisement compared the calories and the fat content of that drink to the calories and fat content in another popular alcoholic beverage. I am under age, but I am a college student so I will not lie and say that I do not drink on occasion, but when I do drink I do not worry about how much fat or how many calories I am taking in. To me this advertisement was completely ridiculous and instead of making me want to buy the product I have now vowed that I will never buy it, all because of its absurd advertisement. Advertisements play a large part in our culture. The images that are used in most advertisements are our fantasies. They portray beautiful, thin people having a great time with whatever product is being sold. According to ads, all women are stick skinny with very large breasts, and all men have a six pack of abs and the pecs to go along with them. Most all people wish they looked as perfect as the models in advertisements, and the advertisers use it to their advantage. This is very disheartening for the normal people of the world. I myself find it to be discouraging, knowing no matter how hard I try, I can never naturally look like those women, and most likely I will not fall in love with a man like that. The massive number of advertisements also shapes our culture. There is an enormous excess of advertisements in our culture; the amount of advertisements we see each day is incredible. I watched a half hour of television and within each three-minute commercial break there was an average of 6 commercials. There are advertisements everywhere. They are on television, on the Internet, in magazines, in newspapers, on billboards, on cars, on city buses, etc. No matter how hard one may try, there is no way to avoid all advertisements. I was amazed at the lengths some advertisers go to while I was shopping at Crossgates mall one weekend with my boyfriend. At one point we made a stop at the restrooms. I went into the ladies room, entered a stall, and when I shut the door I saw little pieces of yellow paper which said, "WILLPOWER IN A BOTTLE: Lose up to 30 lbs. in 30 days-30 days Money back guarantee Call: 1-877-292-9804." I could not believe that people would stoop so low as to put up advertisements in bathroom stalls at the mall. When I left the ladies room and met up with my boyfriend I told him about the little yellow pieces of paper and he said that there weren't any of those in the men's bathroom. It makes sense. Women are the ones who obsess about their weight all the time, and most men do not. It is logical that whoever put the little yellow pieces of paper in the bathroom stalls only put then in the women's room. Seeing the advertisement may even cause a woman to start worrying about her weight, even if she has never before. The immeasurable amount of these kinds of advertisements change women's perceptions of themselves, thus making them worry about their imperfect body. There is no better example of the excess of advertising than the Super Bowl. This NFL championship game is watched by millions of viewers and the advertisers know this. In 1994 there were 43 commercial spots during the game. Advertisers paid $900,000 per 30 seconds for their advertisement to be aired. After the game a market research firm called 373 Super Bowl viewers to find out how memorable each ad was. The vast majority of viewers could recall very few, and many could not remember any the advertisements they were shown (Super Bowl Clutter 1). The extreme amount of advertisements are overwhelming to viewers, so if most advertising companies were intelligent they would think twice about paying that much on an advertisement that no one remembers. This example not only shows the excessive number of advertisements, but it also shows how numb most people have become to them. This is why people do not notice the amount of advertisements all around them until someone points it out. Advertisements also shape our culture by telling us what we want in life. They implant the need for women to be thin and for men to be muscular. They also tell us what makes us happy or sad; they tell us what is fun and what is not, all while trying to sell a product. I recall one television commercial advertising Levis jeans. In the commercial it showed two people who meet in an elevator, and without saying a word to each other, they both picture the same image of them spending the rest of their lives together, from passionate romance, to getting married, to having children and growing old together. This is the classic dream of many people, and advertisers link it to whatever product they are trying to sell. There are also advertisements, which show men and women participating in extreme sports. This taps in on people's want to be adventurous and active. Mountain Dew, a popular soft drink, is one of the many companies that have used this angle of exciting advertisements. Advertising shapes our culture in another way, by advertising sexism. Studies were done regarding the content of advertisements on MTV. There was a study involving 119 commercials, which aired on MTV between the hours of 3:00 to 6:00 p.m., and between the hours of 9:00 p.m. to midnight, the times when adolescents are most likely to watch. In these commercials, three quarters of female characters were more likely to be very fit or have beautiful bodies, and three quarters of the male characters were more likely to have average bodies. Also, more than half of the female characters were seen as extremely attractive and only one third of the male characters were seen as just attractive. 29.4% of the female characters were shown wearing very sexy clothing whereas only 6.5% of male characters were shown wearing somewhat sexy clothing (Signorielli 7). This obviously shows the use of female candy to sell products. Signorielli also writes of the appeal by adolescents and young adults to MTV, and of the gender stereotyping that goes on in the commercials aired on the channel. MTV commercials have been proclaimed as trendsetters in commercial advertising. Despite their innovative contributions to advertising style, MTV commercials may have patterns of gender-stereotyping found in other commercials. MTV has immense appeal for adolescents and young adults and has joined the other mass media as an influential agent of socialization... Standards for attractiveness particularly in commercials, also appear to be sexually stereotyped. For example, a content analysis of 4,294 commercials found some form of attractiveness message once every 3.8 commercials and that 'attractiveness is more associated with women then with men and that men are forging this attractiveness-women link'. (2) The commercials being used on channels that are targeted at impressionable adolescents and young adults are using sexism and gender stereotyping in order to sell products. Advertisements play a large part in our culture. They are all around us in massive numbers and most of the time we do not even notice them. All throughout the U.S. people have become numb to all the advertisements to the point where many of them are not even noticed. The ones that are noticed portray the classic dreams of most people. They show people getting married, growing old together, and being adventurous and living dangerously. They also portray the bodies that people desire most, and many argue that we desire those bodies because of advertisements. They show perfectly shaped models, and that is what most of our culture strive for. Although it affects men, it mostly affects women by making them very self-conscious. It is something that happens to all women, but the age when females begin to worry about their bodies is getting younger and younger. Children are seeing more and more advertisements, mainly commercials, which show perfect women and average men. It is pretty obvious why women are more self-conscious then men. In these commercials women are also shown in skimpier clothing then men. The public does not know the way in which advertisers manipulate the public's wants and desires. The reasons why we are drawn to certain products are they depict everything that we want in life by people we want to be just like. Many people would argue that they dictate what we want in life by showing us how happy it will make us. They shape our culture by telling us that we want to be married because the people advertisements are and they are incredibly happy. They also shape our culture by setting the standard for the way we look. All women at one point in their life are self-conscious because they do not look like the models in advertisements. Advertisements are the reason why women obsess about their weight and the way they look. I do not know about most people, but I do know that I do not want to live in a world where advertisements tell me what I want or how I should look. Works Cited "Super Bowl Clutter." Editor & Publisher. Vol. 127, Issue 6 (1994): 6. Signorielli, Nancy and Douglas McLeod. "Gender Stereotypes in MTV Commercials: The Beat Goes On." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Vol. 38, Issue 1 (1994): 91. The copyright of this essay is held by Allison Tierney. No part of this essay may be used without her consent.
Common sense seems to dictate that commercials just advertise products. But in reality, advertising is a multi-headed beast that targets specific genders, races, ages, etc. In “Men’s Men & Women’s Women”, author Steve Craig focuses on one head of the beast: gender. Craig suggests that, “Advertisers . . . portray different images to men and women in order to exploit the different deep seated motivations and anxieties connected to gender identity.” In other words, advertisers manipulate consumers’ fantasies to sell their product. In this essay, I will be analyzing four different commercials that focuses on appealing to specific genders.
The most argued issue with assisted suicide is grounded in morals and religion. The sanctity of life is the philosophy that human life is sacred and should be protected from any form of v...
My intent in this essay is to illustrate that the arguments regarding the existence of God and the fear of deception in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, are quite weak and do not justify his conclusions. To support these claims, I will begin by outlining two specific meditations and explain the proposed arguments. Later, I will critically analyze his arguments, revealing unjust conclusions. Doubts surrounding the text include the suggested characteristics of God, the condition of perfection, and the nature of deceit. A wrap up will include a discussion on whether or not Descartes (also referred to as Renatus) succeeded in his project.
Rene Descartes’ natural light is his saving grace, and not Achilles’ heel. Descartes incorporates the concept of natural light within his epistemology in order to establish the possibility of knowing things completely without doubt. In fact whatever is revealed to the meditator via the natural light is considered to be indefeasible. The warrant for the truth of these ideas does not rely on experience or the senses. Rather the truth of the idea depends on viewing the concept through clear and distinct perception. Descartes’ “I am, I exist”, (Med. 2, AT 7:25) or the ‘cogito’ is meant to serve as the basis for knowing things through clear and distinct perception. Descartes’ cogito is the first item of knowledge, although one may doubt such things as the existence of the body, one cannot doubt their ability to think. This is demonstrated in that by attempting to doubt one’s ability to think, one is engaging in the action of thought, thus proving that thinking is immune to doubt. With this first item of knowledge Descartes can proceed with his discussion of the possibility of unshakeable knowledge. However, Descartes runs into some difficulty when natural light collides with the possibility of an evil genie bent on deceiving the meditator thus putting once thought concrete truths into doubt. Through an analysis of the concept of natural light I
People think they have freedom to end their life by phrasing Right to Die. Who choose to die before the time they think that the best way to avoid pain and suffering from their sickness is to end their lives; thus, they may say that they have Right to Die since their excruciating condition of being sick of diseases or being alone.
The Pluralists want to reconcile everything that they perceive through their senses with the Parmenidean idea of an uncreated, eternal, unchanging whole. The problem of such a task lies in the fact that Parmenides’ notion of being goes against everything that our sense experience tells us. With our eyes we see motion and change every day, be it our own self-motion or that of others around us. Furthermore, we experience coming-into-being and perishing through the cycle of birth and death. The Pluralists would had made better progress in extrapolating their own ideas if they would have either sided completely with Parmenides or taken means to discredit his work.
The right to die is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as, “pertaining to, expressing, or advocating the right to refuse extraordinary measures intended to prolong someone's life when they are terminally ill or comatose” (Definition). There has been a constant debate for over a century regarding the controversial right to die topic. Many people have different views and plenty of questions arise when dealing with such a sensitive subject. Should we be given the right to commit suicide with the help of a physician? Should we be able to refuse treatments and procedures at our own will? These questions are the same questions that have been up for debate for years. These are the questions that have sent many people to court throughout these past years. Those are the people that have set precedents, changed laws and have been a part of historic cases.
I contend that, based upon the arguments presented in the Second Meditation, Descartes shows that we can use our senses to help us understand the true nature of things, but the senses alone are inadequate to determine truth (since they are often deceived), and that all that may be known with certainty (truth) are those things we know by our judgment, thinking, and understanding of them in our minds. Descartes' argument does not necessarily reject any role of the senses in the process of understanding.
Defenders in personal liberties argue that all people are morally entitled to end their lives when we feel it to be necessary (Johansen, 2000). Jay Johansen states in his article “Euthanasia: A Case of Individual Liberty?”, “Rather than endure great pain and suffering for the remainder of their lives, ill patients should have the ethical choice to choose to end their [suffering]” (Johansen, 2000). Samia Hurst in her article “Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia” affirms, “Some patients may request euthanasia to avoid the weakness and loss of mental failures that some diseases cause, and many people feel that the wisher shou...
Advertising creates a mythical dream world where there are no problems, everyone is beautiful, and has money to spare. Advertisements depict the way in which people think women and men are “supposed to be” (Cortese 52). Women are shown all these images as role models, which are unattainable. Females are not able to be happy with their bodies because everyday in the media they are told that they are not beautiful. The average American woman is 5 feet tall and weighs 142 pounds. When is the last time you saw a women meeting these qualifications in any advertisement? The truth is most people don't have the genetic potential to be the idealized shape and size in our culture (“Every”). Women are doomed from the beginning.
Kantianism is named after a German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who lived in 1724-1804. According to Kant, the only thing that is good is good will; moreover, the good will builds the whole structure of the society. Kantianism is based on the intent of the action or person’s intention which are the predominant attributes of the good will. The basic principle of Kantianism theory depicts the idea of universal truths. It explains that a moral rule must be universal. Also, it describes that people should be treated with respect. Moreover, it explains the credibility of an action why it is right or wrong and convinces the user with logical reasons. Kant proposed the Categorical Imperative, which describes a set up to explain, “What makes a moral rule appropriate?” One version of the Categorical Imperative states that it is wrong for a person to use himself or another person uniquely as a means to an end. Most of the time it is easier to use the second version of the Categorical Imperative to analyze a moral problem from a Kantian point of view. For example, in the case of Jean, misusing the responsibilities of someone else’s duty. It was wrong for Jean to treat the profession of the doctor as a means to an end. Jean deceived the profession of the doctors with the goal of getting benefit to save his nephew. It was wrong for jean to misuse his responsibilities rather than to think that he can find a way to look for a doctor. We can also look at this scenario using the first version of the Categorical Imperative. Jean wanted to save his nephew Pierre. A proposed moral rule might be, “Take a decision in his hands to save his nephew.” However, if everyone followed the same rule, it will diminish the sense of duty, responsibility, and the respect of the profession. If everyone will act the same way in this type of situation and try to misuse his or her professional responsibilities, then there will
The dilemma presented through this case involves the debate related to elder suicide or the “right to die’ (Ghillyer, 2014). The case presents the subject, an older individual, with troublesome health concerns of removable skin cancers and prostate cancer (not currently at an advanced stage). At the time of the case, the health issues are taxing but not currently life threatening (Ghillyer, 2014). The subject predicts the issues may force personal relocation and care could become burdensome to family members (Ghillyer, 2014). Because of these factors, the subject would prefer to exit life at a time, personally chosen rather than face further decline (Ghillyer, 2014). The subject states a preference to end life by selecting the means and
Convention and nature are different from one another. When someone is speaking in the conventional sense, then this can also be interpreted in the natural meaning. The same goes with someone speaking in the natural sense. This can be understood in the conventional meaning. An example of this is when Polus was conventionally speaking about baser and Socrates took this meaning as the natural meaning. In the natural sense, the meaning is that greater evil means baser, which is suffering wrongdoing. Doing wrong is baser in conventional meaning. The majority of mankind is made up of weaklings. These weaklings establish conventions to help themselves and to scare those who are stronger than them. Since these people are inferior, they are content to be equal to the stronger by use of these established conventions. It is said to be wrong when any one to try to get an advantage over the majority. In nature and natural law, it is survival of the strongest and fittest. This is not so in conventional law, which is the law of the majority. Being wiser and more intelligent than others means being better and stronger. Better and stronger are the people with courage and intelligence that know how to take care of political matters. Men should use their courage and intelligence to satisfy all of their wishes. Happiness and virtue consist of having excess, luxury and licence and everything else is worthless. People are already dead, their body is the tomb and their soul carries in contrary directions. A temperate life is better than an intemperate life and a person’s life is temperate and is satisfied with what he has. Pleasure and pain can be experienced at the same time. Wise men, heroes, and fools feel pain and joy in the same degree. Where cowards feel pain and joy more than brave men. The good man is as good and bad as the bad man and the bad man is possibly better. These are the interpretations of Callicles by Socrates.
Since television came about people have been able to see an advertisement at almost every turn of their head. Often the media portrays a negative image of women, viewing them as sexual objects for a man’s use. Many advertisements feature skinny models with minimal clothing advertising male products that don’t involve the need of a woman’s body. You see Audrina Patridge in her bikini selling a hamburger for Carl Jr.’s or girls in their sports bras promoting Nike clothing. Teenage girls watching these commercials fall for it, and in return think they have to objective themselves for boys to like them. Young girls believe they have to change the...
Leaving. Some could define leaving as physically going from one point to another, others mentally traveling to a corner in their head that no one can see. Leaving from here drives the traveler right back to where they started. Be it emotional, physical, or family problems, we all "leave" in many different levels and stages in our lives. Some run to get away from troubles, then find the troubles in another form further up the road. Others travel yonder with the mindset of hope, and a will to succeed. These people have stared adversity down in the eye and burned the retinas clean out. Not afraid to put in some extra effort with the intention of pure success, these people have a stance in life that others could only have the sweetest dreams that conjure up in their heads to think about. These are the ones who can actually "leave." The ones who can put troubles behind, and use defeats simply as a motive to strive harder in the right direction. I plan to "leave" one day, in the idea of moving for change and further inspiration for music and life. But, will this journey prove to be all that is seems to be? I have always looked at my leaving as my form of escape from the life around my house, which isn't bad, don't get me wrong. The escape I seek is an adventure that many get to take, but do not realize that they are on it until it has passed the by.