The Effects of Popular Culture: A Look at Three Examples

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Popular culture has an effect on everyone’s life in this world. If we don’t look like the pretty faces our television and movies advertise to us, than our life tends to be more difficult growing up. Our country provides fast food chains that are deleterious to our health, but since corporations made them popular, the average American thinks nothing of it. Even though a lot of American popular culture isn’t the best choice in our lives, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Nora Ephron, and Eric Schlosser use this theme of popular culture in their essays.

In Cofer’s “The Story of My Body”, the author talks about her experience growing up in a world where her culture and looks does not fit into America’s popular cultured society. For instance, Cofer is Puerto Rican; her skin color was different from the majority white population. Cofer recalls her first understanding on the meaning of skin color when a store worker refers to her as “colored”. In the same store the author ended up getting kicked out of the store because she touched this doll she wanted for the longest time, the store worker called her a Puerto Rican and was referring to her as being dirty because of the color of her skin and ethnicity. In addition to popular culture affecting opinions of skin color, American television had a role to play in Cofer’s self-conscious image of herself. Cofer remembers watching a television advertisement showing skinny men and women promoting a product, showing off their “perfect” body. Cofer admired Wonder Woman’s body as it was a perfect image in her mind of what she wanted to have. Finally Cofer gives examples of how popular culture embraces its people who have aesthetic features. Cofer read “that people are drawn to big-eyed round-faced creatures” (32...

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...r being forced off the land” (495). Small towns are being turned into rural ghettos because of the big businesses moving in. As you can see, Schlosser shows us how America used to be about farming and preparing meals, now it’s about buying unhealthy foods that put our farming community out of business.

There are positive and negative effects of popular culture. American Popular culture is formed by its media and its citizens. Cofer, Ephron, and Schlosser show us the dynamics of popular culture from a girl growing up against racism, photographs being criticized because of the uncommon content, and fast food causes and effects on society.

Works Cited

Cofer, Judith. “The Story of My Body.” Open Questions (2005): 328.

Ephron, Nora. “The Boston Photographer.” Open Questions (2005): 434, 435, 437.

Schlosser, Eric. “What We Eat.” Open Questions (2005): 491, 495.

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