The Public Liar

Wilson Wu
Ms. Lyons
English 90
12 July 2012
The Public Liar A stereotype is a belief, which is held by some people with their specific ideas and personal opinions. Unconsciously, Stereotypes in the public readings such as magazines and TV shows may easily form people’s thought no matter it is positive or negative. People is a weekly American magazine which includes celebrity, interesting stories of them and all kinds of stereotypes as well. Glutted with recent the trends of celebrity, the publication shows current fashion with the way stars dress up, as well as their gossip which is fascinating for fans. Seemingly, the magazine provides a platform for public to know about the current news about celebrity, but the discrimination at fat and racial can be seen from pages to pages, which might have a serious impact on mental health on the readers who have the same situation. Discrimination against gays also creates a new stereotype since people are becoming more open minded. Not only will it diminish the reputation of party involved, readers who are homosexual may lose their self-confidence at the same time. Since stereotypes are subtle and instill wrong concepts into people’s minds, it puts readers off their minds. The magazine misleads the public to think that to be fat and gay is unacceptable when it looks down upon any other races, which causes inferiority complex.
Magazine never gives large people a chance to live breezily. Obesity is bad—that is how the writers describe the stereotype. Tons of pages, in the magazine People, post pictures which include skinny models, good-shaped celebrities and stereotypes to large. To be large is always considered as a joke like how Gut Wrencher is concerned. There is a picture with Joe Manganiello’s belly which says, “Joe Manganiello trades his six-pack abs for a beer-belly to promote an appearance on E’s The Soup, in which the Magic Mike star donned a prosthetic gut” (Micheli 20). On the face of it, the news tells the public that Joe Manganiello is so dedicated that he can even trade his muscles for beer-belly instead of wearing costumes for the movie. However, the sacrifice points the finger at the obesity. The under-language claims that obesity is unacceptable twice in only one sentence. The first one is that there is no star who would love to dedicate his shape to the movie because people think obesity is always related to sloth and gluttony, which are two of the seven deadly sins. The other one is that only Joe Manganiello dares to be an actor at the expense of loss of image and that is why it is posted on the People! Being slim is considered the only way to entertain the public when being large is a way to narrate the hideous side of daily life. The damage from the potential prejudice is not people can imagine but influencing the fat people through their all life. Jennifer A. Coleman shows that after she has undergone all the stereotypes from the media, legal system, parents, and so on. She complains, “The jokes and attitudes are as wrong and damaging as any racial or ethnic slur. The passive acceptance of this inexcusable behavior is sometimes worse than the initial assault. Some offensive remarks can be excused as the shortcomings of jackasses” (Coleman 177). Though she is suffering the discriminations, people never put themselves in her situation. With potential guidance of magazines and other Medias, the concept that fatness is evil has impressed the public, deep in to minds. The function of magazine has been changed from entertainment to thought induction, which misleads the public with obesity stereotype.
Magazine is always one of the main approaches to advocate racial discrimination. Racial prejudice always plays an importance role in the social contradictions when Media acts as a hotbed of the stereotype. Just as the obesity, it won’t be performed apparently to the public such as white people is a superior race, but it will shows with mental hints like a group of people are genius, and they are all white. It can be found everywhere in the magazine. The People magazine says, “30 -year-old Beyonce tops the magazine’s annual list of the ‘World’s Most Beautiful’ in a special double issue” (Wheat 36). Although some people may consider her as the most beautiful woman in the world, they can’t take a part for the whole. Regardless aesthetic standard of other race, the magazine only chooses Americans as candidates of the beauty contest. Without doubt, the program group neglects the feeling of the races which haven’t been selected and takes away the rights of them. That is usually a fuse for setting of social disorder and contradiction. Teja Arboleda agrees that when she is confused by identity and is discriminated by those who know nothing about other races and give wrong definitions to them, for no reason. She claims, “But in the body of the article and its accompanying pictures, many people were not identified by their race, but rather by their nationalities—such as Italian and Chinese—in other words citizenship, a very different word” (Arboleda 111). Not only People, but also other magazine like “Time” has racial discriminations. Due to different color of her parents, she is always annoyed by the stereotype of race and finds it hard to identify herself. The public stereotypes cause both social and personal contradictions which may leads to vicious circle. As a publication, People magazine build a negative role model and “lies to” people in a different way.
Homosexuality stereotype exists in every Media, especially in the magazine. Although homosexuality, which has a long history back to 5000 years ago, is becoming more and more common around the world, it is still unacceptable for most of people who are heterosexual. Different from other stereotype, sexual orientation is a subject under heat debates, because it is relatively recent, thus people are more sensitive to the information about homosexuality, more or less. Using the same technique, People magazine also mislead people to potentially define it as discrimination. There is a article talking about a star’s sexual orientation, and it is proved to be 100 percent fake. It says, "Twilight actor Taylor Lautner: Tired of rumors, the Twilight star opens up about his decision to finally come out" (Koslow 48). The magazine judges him as a gay in the paragraph with part of his words instead of his original intention. The key of the problem is not whether the information is true or not, but it tells people that homosexuality is alternative and unacceptable for public. To form a wrong concept for public is even worse that to announce that homosexuality is evil when most people usually suspect others’ announcements. However, the magazine describes the story with stereotype, incontestably and without rival. Both the prestige of the star and the feeling of homosexuals will be hurt badly. Dan Neil has the same opinion after he has struggled for the equal treatment of “gay gene.” He claims, “In the long run, this is a fight homophobes cannot hope to win, simply because the fear they traffic—somehow America’s children will be seduced into the homosexual lifestyle—is so at odds with common experience” (Neil 163). Dan Neil insists that people who are gays, no matter naturally or subsequently, they have are not guilty of anything. Human beings make the rules, don’t they? It is not “of course” that homosexuality is “evolutionarily maladaptive” since they can’t accept the new concept with limited knowledge.
People magazine, which enjoys a high reputation, tricks the public with its own prejudice and common stereotype. After all, the adaptors of the publication are also influenced by preceding generations in the same way. They shouldn’t be guilty as extremists since perceptions are hard to be changed. Liars won’t tell lie forever. As a magazine, People magazine does a great job in entertainment. On the other hand, if people are well educated, they will consider the stereotype as a part of entertainment instead of criticism.