English 1100 12:00
ARW
6 December 2000
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,