Have you ever had a conversation with someone and saw straight through their fakeness? Or perhaps you were looking at a group of people who seemed to have it all; living the dream, and wished that one day you’d have their life? Just like Hollywood- all the glamour, the riches, the parties. We’ve all wanted their seemingly perfect life as a youngster, but took back our wish when we heard about all their disasters, divorces, and drug overdoses. We realized that their lives were far from perfect, that behind all that money was a totally different person, and that the faces they displayed on T.V. was just for show. Life, it has always been filled by artificiality and hypocrisy, dating way back to the times of the famous authors Jonathan Swift and …show more content…
He has the Quack spread a rumor that a venereal disease rendered him (Horner) impotent. Seems absurd that a person would spread such a personal secret about himself, but Horner did so and embarrassed himself in front the people of his town when none of what he spread was true. Horner claimed to have an aversion towards women and whatever they have to offer saying, “I will kiss no man’s wife, sir, for him, sir; I have taken my eternal leave, sir, of the sex already… she’s a woman, sir, and consequently a monster, sir, a greater monster than a husband, sir” (Wycherley 6). Horner uses this fake façade to sleep with the upper class women of England, and their very own husbands carry out his plan exactly. Men run to him, throwing their wives under his care and trusting him to the full extent. The women are willing to have an affair, after all, they were well aware that their husbands were sleeping with other women as well; from their viewpoint, it would only be fair if they got the same opportunity. Horner on the other hand gets the best deal of all, with the men off his back and the women yearning to have sex with him, Horner gets to keep his secret, sleep with the classiest ladies who are disease free, not worry if one of his many mistresses got pregnant, and got to make some money along the
May 04, 2012. This article talks about the fascination of reality vs. illusion. The article examined the media’s current fascination with manufactured reality. The article said “in our modern world where every channel seems to have its own version of a reality show, we are inundated with the media’s version of what is real. There is a reason why there are so many of these shows on the airwaves, and that is viewers can’t seem to get enough of them.”
The handicaps are to people as the cage is to the bird. This simile describes how Caged Bird and Harrison Bergeron are alike. Harrison Bergeron and Caged Bird are very alike in many reasons. They both reference limitations on freedom. In Caged Bird the limitation is that the bird is in the cage and cannot fly or go wherever it pleases. In Harrison Bergeron the limitations are all the handicaps. In Harrison Bergeron there are limitations to the citizens. These are called handicaps. When you are more capable at something then other people are then you receive handicaps that limit your abilities so that everyone is equal. Some handicaps are earpieces that stop you from thinking with a ringing sound, masks for those that have superior beauty, and
Life is a very valuable asset, but when lived on someone else’s terms its nothing but a compromise. The seemingly perfect image of Utopia which combines happiness and honesty with purity, very often leads in forming a dystopian environment. The shrewd discrepancy of Utopia is presented in both the novel ‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry and the film ‘The Truman Show’ directed by Peter Weir. Both stories depict a perfect community, perfect people, perfect life, perfect world, and a perfect lie. These perfect worlds may appear to shield its inhabitants from evil and on the other hand appear to give individuals no rights of their own. By comparing and contrasting the novel ‘The Giver’ and the film ‘The Truman Show’, it can be derived that both the main characters become anti-utopian to expose the seedy underbelly of their Utopian environment which constructs a delusional image of reality, seizes the pleasures in their lives and portrays a loss of freedom.
“This is the true story, of seven strangers, picked to live in a house, and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real”(MTV). This marks the beginning of MTV’s reality show, The Real World. The show takes 7 strangers, puts them in a trendy luxurious home, taping them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for about 4 months. The cameras capture petty arguments, late night hook ups, and pure laziness. How could this not be real? There are not many people that can live in an expensive home while laying around all day, and partying all night with little work involved. The Real World is a display of 18-24 year olds, typecasted to have their most extreme stereotypical qualities blown out of proportion for the world to see.
With nearly global use of the television; it has become a preferred method with which to influence and regulate people’s thinking, creating an unreal and idealistic, hypothetical reality which people strive to emulate. This is accomplished through shows and movies; the majority of which emphasize a perfect world, entirely free of corruption and poverty; where everyone is physically attractive, emotionally stable, and economically wealthy; a distorted reflection of our own world. This leads real people to attempt to create this imaginary world, only to fail; thus generating in themselves a sense of unworthiness, which in turn prompts them to try harder, to stop being individuals and become uniform.
Hollywood creates a false sense of security. A film that Hollywood recently release called ‘project X’ has teens across the America seeking ‘the party of a lifetime.’ In the movie, a group of ‘loser’ teens decide to throw said party to become popular. The party includes alcohol, drugs, and clueless hormonal teens… but instead of the happy ending the main character receives in the movie, these copycat parties spiral downhill as teens get arrested, shot by mistakenly invited gang members, and are utterly corrupted. “I believe what we’re seeing is the impact that film and it’s perceived reality can have. In this case, unfortunately, what was done in a controlled environment by professionals is being mimicked by naïve kids. And the outcome can be dangerous” (Allam, Mohammad, Junior in Film and Media Arts). Hollywood says that in order to be recognized as a person one must be good looking or wealthy. This is probably why kids these days try to alter themselves to please others. Hollywood can make the American dream seem like a persuasive American reality – even if it’s not the reality most of us experience. Hollywood exaggerates the extravagance of itself to attract those who want the ‘good-life’ that they think American people all experience (Mondello, Bob).
It is no secret that reality television shows often present contrived situations as reality. Many producers claim that there are no scripts used in the production of reality shows. They maintain that nothing in the lives of the participants is planned purely for viewers’ entertainment, and that what is presented in the show is their actual reality. However, most people know this to be untrue to a certain degree. The events and situations in reality shows are often staged, re-enacted, or cleverly edited to make them appear more dramatic, thereby more interesting, than they are. Elizabeth Larkin writes, “After so many “reality” programs, we can discern a pattern of “characters” that isn’t very far different from the stock characters found in fictional programming. There’s the sweet and naive person from a small town looking to make it big while still retaining small town values. There’s the party girl/guy who’s always looking for a good time and who shocks those around them—and the list goes on” (Larkin 290). Participants in reality television shows are often looking to gain wealth and fame, and they are willing to do anything necessary to achieve that.
To start off reality shows has become a popular show amongst the younger crowd inducing dangerous stereotypical behavior in America. Reality shows have evolved to a new level of outrages crazy behavior, creating new versions of over exaggerated fake personal lives. For instance, a reality show on television Love & Hip Hop a show that depicts former black girlfriends of famous people and their climb to the top or strive to stay at the top violently and carelessly doing whatever they can by creating a “ghetto stereotype persona”. Targeting the young adults and teens Love & Hip Hop is a very influential show among young female viewers leading these viewers to believe that this is the way to live and make it to the top and in order to do it you have to act like a “ghetto black girl”. Another show that has a similar vibe to Love & Hip Hop but depicts the similar stereotype is Bad Girls Club. Bad Girls Club is a reality show that has a few young adult women living in the same house that party all the time
It is believed that American people in the lower and middle classes have needs for status mobility. For example, when browsing through a fashion magazine, one can find numerous sections that are dedicated to creating ways to look like the featured model or actress for half the price. The intention of the article, in most cases, is to give others the impression that you are of high social status. In addition, advertisers often use people in the entertainment business to model their products so that the viewer may purchase the product. For example, when mimicking the purchases of hotel heiress, Paris Hilton one may believe, “If I buy this, I’ll look cool just like Paris Hilton!” The fact that this method is usually successful is a product of the anxiety felt by lower and middle class families. For those reasons, it is likely that Domhoff’s statement that the upper class “creates respect, envy, and deference in others,” is true. It seems that many of America’s lower and middle class families would like to create those same feelings of respect and envy in others.
Poniewozik, J., & McDowell, J. (2006). HOW REALITY TV FAKES IT. Time, 167(6), 60-62 retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost
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.
In today 's generation, millions of television shows have been created to entertain the general public. Whether it be cartoons, dramas, comedies, chick flicks, or reality t.v., I guarantee there is a show that each person enjoys watching. One particular genre appears to be the most viewed from a television screen, which is reality television. It is evident that the general population enjoys watching lives unfold and the various interactions between characters in reality television. For example, in Keeping Up With The Kardashians, the main characters in the family, (Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kris, Bruce (Caitlyn), Kylie, and Kendall) all fight like cats and dogs and stay angry at each other over something incredibly minute. The extent to which this show is dramatized is
There was once a time when there were more simplistic views on life; where truth and justice prevailed above all and the main concerns of society were much more primitive. However, those times have long vanished and have now been strategically replaced by the commodity that celebrity culture fully encompasses. Guy Debord writes in The Society of the Spectacle, that the “spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation amongst people, mediated by images” (Debord, 4). By this, he simply means that the spectacle is constructed by the daily images devised by celebrities, reality television, and pseudo-events. And those images have altered and strongly influenced the way people perceive themselves and others, as well as the social
The deception of media consumers allows for the abuse of economic infrastructures of society. An obsession with celebrities’ lives passifies ordinary people in accepting the stratification of the elite businesses and the ordinary citizens. Though pseudo-events and celebrity worship may not be exactly complementary, the similarities of both leaves the public to be utterly vulnerable unless they begin to critically think for themselves.
In my research project I would like to discover what other forms of false consciousness surround us on a daily basis. I would also like to discuss how social media and celebrities enforce social classes and why we let them. In that topic I would also reflect on how celebrities have become the ultimate class to be apart of. Social medias like You-Tube and Instagram have brought in a whole new idea on what it means to be famous and in my personal opinion, being famous is the new American