“Real”[ity] TV In this day and age people have gradually became slaves to reality TV. According to Jennifer Pozner, in reality TV, the more negatively women are represented the more profit the program makes. It promotes backstabbing; people watching thrive off the drama (443-444). The main idea of Pozner’s “The Unreal World” is that reality TV makes people believe that a having fat wallet and a hot babe is equal to love and this idea, “robs us all of our humanity and erases the possibility of true emotional connection” (447). Pozner uses figurative language like allusion, diction with words like “antagonizer … weeper … slut”, and structure to appeal logically to the reader to better explain how reality TV gives people a false idea of what …show more content…
love is as well as emphasize how stereotypes that teach people that degrading woman is okay. A literary technique that Pozner uses is motif; in the following quote she uses fairytale references to logically appeal to readers, “After the happily-ever-after buildup, every bachelor has dumped his ‘chosen girl’ shortly after their series wrapped production. That’s the thing about fairy tales…they’re not real” (447). Pozner is referencing what happens in every fairytale story little girls fall in love with that starts with “once upon a time” and ends “they lived happily ever after”. In every fairytale the prince picks the princess. In the fairytale Cinderella Prince Charming picks Cinderella [the chosen girl] stays with her, falls in love, gets married, and are together forever. People fall in love with the idea that maybe this could really happen. They think that maybe this guy is different even though he is dating 23 other girls while thousands of viewers are watching on TV. They think “maybe he could really love me”. He’s rich and successful, could get any girl he wants and out of all those girls he chose me! In real life the chosen girl is dumped within a few months of the show ending. Reality TV has the word “real” in it but that definitely is not the case. Pozner uses denotation a type of diction (word choice to create a tone) that is used to logically appeal to the reader.
The words she uses have an exact meaning without any emotional association. For example, in the Bachelor, “There’s the Antagonizer, who declares she’s ‘not there to make friends’; the naïve Waif, who’s ‘searching for my Prince Charming’; the Slut who plots to ‘take our connection to the next level’ in the ‘fantasy suite’; and the wretched Weeper who wonders, when she’s dumped, ‘what’s so wrong with me that someone cannot love me?” (444). She uses the words antagonizer, naïve waif, slut, and weeper to explain how producers hand pick girls with the personalities to fit these roles because they know it will increase their ratings. The more drama the more viewers. Its that simple. By hand picking girls to fit the stereotypical personality traits of certain types of women. Producers categorize women two fit into the one of four stereotypical groups that they have named the antagonizer, naïve waif, slut, and weeper. Pozner picked these groups specifically to make people realize that if the producers are manipulating all of these women into fitting to these roles there is no possible way that the show is actually …show more content…
“real”. Pozner uses subheadings to create structure for the piece.
By doing this it makes the piece easier to follow. The subheadings break up the ideas and the main ideas in the margins reiterates what was said in the paragraph. The subheading “Brainiac in a Bikini?” comes before the section about how women are only thought of as “hot girls” who are “stupid…catty…and bitchy” … not intelligent adults. Under the “Flaw Finders” subheading Pozner explains how the producers try to make people believe that “Women are unworthy of love if they’re not stereotypical hot babes”. These subheadings reiterate the fact that reality TV demeans women by trying to fit them into the cookie cutter idea of the only women who are worth paying attention to are gangly skinny and on 1300 calorie a day diets only to impress men. Having these subheadings helps to create structure so the reader can follow the main ideas of the piece. These specific subheadings explain how the producers stereotype everyone especially women. Pozner is logically appealing to the readers by making them realize that the stereotypes are just stereotypes an in no way are they
real. Pozner uses diction to explain how producers make people think that fairy tales really do exist when in reality they are not real, motif to show how they use the fairytale idea to appeal to people wants and structure to organize these ideas to have them all make sense. Reality TV is the unreal world. Peoples logic goes out the window the moment reality TV becomes a role in their lives. Rich and attractive doesn’t equate to love, but in this illogical world, it’s believed to. It means women making people think that women are only worth loving if they’re bimbos with a hot body. This idea takes away our humanity and makes finding a true love connection impossible (447).
The tone during the whole plot of in Brave New World changes when advancing throughout the plot, but it often contains a dark and satiric aspect. Since the novel was originally planned to be written as a satire, the tone is ironic and sarcastic. Huxley's sarcastic tone is most noticeable in the conversations between characters. For instance, when the director was educating the students about the past history, he states that "most facts about the past do sound incredible (Huxley 45)." Through the exaggeration of words in the statement of the director, Huxley's sarcastic tone obviously is portrayed. As a result of this, the satirical tone puts the mood to be carefree.
Creative Section Prompt: Write a scene where an “unlovable” character is involved in a surprising or unexpected hobby or appreciation for something.
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
Although there are many rhetorical strategies incorporated throughout Freakonomics, the most prominently used devices include alliteration, rhetorical questions, and counter arguments. Ethos, pathos, and logos are also used, but to a lesser degree. The authors, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, use alliteration to keep the attention of the reader. Occasionally, Freakonomics can read more like an encyclopedia than a narrative. In using alliterations, Levitt and Dubner foster a greater interest in the book by making it more comprehensible and enjoyable. For example, the authors use alliteration in a particularly slow section about parenting experts, saying that many experts’ arguments “reek with restraint” (234).
Anticipation is prevalent throughout The Road, which is set by the narrative pace, creating a tense and suspenseful feeling and tone.
The first wave of reality TV shows (such as Survivor, The Weakest Link and Dog Eat Dog) played on people's collective anxieties about the new workplace culture whereby nothing is secure. The threat of expulsion and humiliation is what draws people to this style of programming. This was followed by the lifestyle programs, which were the once removed cousins of Reality TV. Naturally no one is entirely satisfied with the way they live so these programs played on people's desires to improve their lifestyle and living conditions. The third wave of Reality shows (such as Joe Millionaire, The Bachelor and For Love or Money) plays with people's fears of falsified relationships; are there ulterior reasons behind a `supposed' loving relationship (such as money)? The main appeal of Reality television is that the viewer experiences raw human emotions like humiliation, deceit and rejection from a removed perspective. The ability to inspect and analyse the happenings of others without being seen takes on a god-like perspective. It invokes the fantasy of having access to all that is hidden.
Do you know the guiltiest pleasure of the American public? Two simple words reveal all—reality TV. This new segment of the TV industry began with pioneering shows like MTV’s The Real World and CBS’s Survivor. Switch on primetime television nowadays, and you will become bombarded by and addicted to numerous shows all based on “real” life. There are the heartwarming tales of childbirth on TLC, melodramas of second-rate celebrities on Celebrity Mole, and a look into a completely dysfunctional family on The Osbornes. Yet, out of all these entertaining reality shows arises the newest low for popular culture, a program based on the idea of a rich man or woman in search of the perfect marriage partner. The Bachelor, and its spin-off The Bachelorette, exemplify capitalist ideology founded on the Marxist base-superstructure model and establish the role of an active American audience.
While some other shows attempt to present flawed female characters, they fail in making the viewer sympathize and understand them. Instead, the viewer sees these characters as “unlikeable” and often the women end up at the receiving end of a joke and then serve no further purpose. Alsop argues that newer television shows such as Transparent, Fleabag, and Girls have characters with multiple flaws, some that may even seem irredeemable, but the characters do not let those flaws define them. This causes the viewer to empathize with the characters on a deeper level. What the author of the article may not know is that of those three shows mentioned, the writing, directing, and producing credits go mostly, if not exclusively, to women. Perhaps this is the difference that makes these television shows stand out in today’s feminist dialogue and allows the viewer to empathize with the characters rather than judge
Reality based television has a broad landscape ranging from competitive game-like shows to programs following the daily lives of a group of people. Every major network now has some form of reality programming because the genre’s shows are high in viewership and require low costs for production. The genre is appealing to viewers because it provides them with a first-hand look into the lives of everyday people, which allows them to observe social behavior that helps them determine what is appropriate or not (Tyree, 2011, p. 397). Since the majority of modern reality stars start out as unknowns, frequent viewers of reality programming believed that fame is obtainable if they appear on a popular show (Mendible, 2004). According to Mendible’s evaluation of the genre in the article Humiliation, Subjectivity, and Reality TV, people enjoy reality programs beca...
Amy Miller’s poem, “The World Entire,” was written in response to a viral video of random man saving a rabbit from the flames of a California wildfire. On January 20 this year, HuffPost shared an article which covered not only the rescue video but also the social response to the video and the release of the rabbit saved. The article, “Rabbit Rescued From Fire In Famous Video Released Back To The Wild” was written by the senior trends editor for HuffPost Hilary Hanson.
Tania Modleski’s “The Search for Tomorrow in Today’s Soap Operas” proposes that the unique appeal and function of soap opera lies in (a) the viewer’s ability to inhabit the text’s prescribed spectatorial position of ‘the good mother’, and (b) use the archetypal ‘villainess’ to displace one’s own repressed anger and powerlessness. It can be argued, using Modleski’s analytical perspectives on the interpellated spectatorial positions of soap operas, that a new genre of television programs (namely the reality dating shows) function in a similar way.
By asking the women carefully selected questions, they are made to look ditzy enforcing the negative stereotype. Before the beauties were chosen for the show they were interviewed, taped and further asked a few uncomplicated questions but to them were quite complex for they looked confused and dumbfounded after being questioned. Sim Ahmed talks about when the producers were scouting, they looked for several things. Gorgeous women that were “preened and ready to take center stage, but ask their opinion on politics, the solution to a mathematical equation, or how to reboot a hard drive and they’ll be stumped" (Ahmed, 21-23). Nadia Underwood was asked in her interview, “what weighs more? A pound of gold or a pound of feathers?” She immediately responded with tenacity “gold”. Which clearly isn’t correct since they both weigh one pound then their equal. Likewise, another beauty Andrea Ciliberti was asked “what race is Mr. Spark?” She moved her mouth, eye, and her entire face around thinking rigorously about the ans...
A. “Reality TV Offers an Amoral Message.” Reality TV. Ed. Ronnie D. Lankford, Ph.D. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2008, 32-37. Print.
A television is defined as “a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic (black and white) or color, usually accompanied by sound” (Webster’s). Since the invention of this device in the 1930’s, people have been able to be entertained by various television shows in the privacy and comfort of their own home. Although each of these shows relate to different age groups, nationalities, race, and genders, they all seem to have one thing in common. They all act out and portray the stereotypes placed on people because of their age, sex, job, culture, race, look, and position in the household. Due to these different categories being presented in the media pre conceived notions are formed about how people should behave, specifically men and women. Women generally take care and men take charge. But why does the television represent this “take care” and “take charge” image of women and men? In this paper, I will focus on one of the highly popularized television shows that viewers watch today; Desperate Housewives. Using this television show, I will be able to show and analyze how women are represented in the media and why they are represented this way.
A second reason for people’s love of reality television, is the fact that reality TV can stir the viewer’s emotions. “While some cheer for their favorite celebrity on Dancing with the Stars….” (Lehmann). “ Or cry with joy watching Say Yes to the Dress…” ( Lehmann). These are just two of many example quotes that show that people sometimes get very emotional by simply watching other people live out their lives so publicly. Many people id...