Visual Rhetoric of Fast Food

Rhetorical Analysis of Maybelline Advertisement.

Throughout history, the issue of beauty has always been a concern for women. In society, it is relatively common for women to be judged by their appearance rather than by their virtue. Society also decides the standard of beauty. This leads to women consciously and unconsciously conforming to this idea of beauty. The idea of being slim and tall like a model, looking youthful, and having flawless skin are some constructed ideas that women aspire to have. The fear of being hideous, which women harbor inside, is beyond what it appears. Thus, entrepreneurs take advantage of this fear and turn it into profits by creating major companies that have more than enough power to control major decisions in society. One of the many successful companies is a cosmetic company called L’oreal. They promote their beauty products by making use of media through advertisements and rhetoric. One of the ads advertises the product by saying: “Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Eraser Treatment Makeup”. This Maybelline ad is an example of the rhetoric of power because it appeals to beauty standards that judge women’s social value on their ability to conform to a strict criteria of physical beauty by utilizing the rhetorical elements such as ethos, logos and pathos to achieve its goal.

(Ethos) There are some ways that this ad uses ethos in order to achieve its purpose. First of all, Maybelline is a famous and trusted brand for beauty care. It is supported by a large number of celebrities who work for them for the ads and as spokesmen. Christy Turlington is the model used in this ad. She is a very famous supermodel and many people recognize and idolize her. Due to Turlington’s popularity, women get the feeling that in order to look attractive, they must look like her. With Turlington as the representative of this ad, she increases the trustworthiness of the product by conveying the idea that the product is the secret behind Turlington’s beauty, thus applying the product to oneself would make a woman as beautiful as her. In addition to that, people can acknowledge that the product itself is trusted by seeing the words “7 years of research and 3 patents” on the ad. It lets people know that the product has been tested in a long period of experiments and has been given the approval from experts and authorized group. These appeal to the product’s trustworthiness and at the same time it conveys the idea that women should conform to this standard of beauty.

(Logos) This ad features logos through its use of terminology. The use of pseudo scientific names such as “micro corrector applicator” appeals to logic and knowledge. This implies that the product is created by using new technology. It is all scientifically made and people who make this product know what they are doing with the intention of delivering the best product for the consumers. Despite of being named with a fancy scientific name, the fact that the supposedly ”corrector” is just a sponge you use to spread out the concealer, does not affect the performance of the product. Thus, the use of rhetoric here has succeeded in luring people into buying the product. It is also necessary to mention its logical fallacy. Everyone knows that the use of an eraser is to remove and this “eraser” will do the same in which it will remove the imperfection. Despite the logic, it is impossible for any human to not have pores on their skin. It is important to notice that the ad uses an excessive retouch done by photoshop. It is misleading and so far from reality that it contradicts to what the product can truly give the consumers. From here we can see that the ad gives people a false belief of the standard of beauty and in a way, it says that anything flawed should be erased in order to be beautiful.

(Pathos) The last rhetorical element L’oreal uses is pathos. In the ad, we can see the depiction of a beautiful woman who supposedly has this imperfection in which many average women have;: wrinkles, dark spots, dark underbags, crow’s feet, fine lines, etc. From this point of view, the ad is trying to appeal to women’s emotional state: their insecurity of being unattractive based on their age. The ad uses the comparison of before and after look of the model who uses the product. It shows the parts of the face where the product has and has not been applied. The audience can see that the skin looks better after the product has been applied. It is clearly very appealing to women who want to have skin that looks just like that and thus the ad achieves its purpose of spreading the standard of beauty this way. Other than that, the use of color in this ad is a factor to its appeal. The red color as the background expresses sensuality, passion and boldness. The ad wants to convey a message that says, “Don’t be afraid to make a statement. Show your best face to the world”. It appeals to women by creating the feelings that women can look elegant, bold, passionate and youthful if they use this product.  

    In conclusion, the use of rhetorical elements such as ethos, logos and pathos contributes to the success of many companies such as L’oreal. By appealing to knowledge, feelings and trustworthiness, L’oreal has successfully achieved its goal in of convincing people and society to conform to the standards of beauty. Furthermore, through the rhetoric of power depicted in this “Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Eraser Treatment Makeup” ad, the company implicitly reinforces a belief regarding how women are supposed to look and this has surely put women under more oppression in society.

Growth Essay

Poverty, Obesity and the Role of Media

A nation that is filled with wealth and knowledge, there are undoubtedly problems that come with its glory. The United States is placed second as a country with the highest population in the world. As mighty as it may seem, there are issues exist with its approximately 312 million inhabitants. Poverty and obesity are a few of the common issues that the United States needs to take care of. But, one might ask, “How can a country so grand be troubled with an unlikely issue such as poverty?” and “What is the relationship between poverty and obesity?” And how is the media involved in the circle of these issues? It is important to see the relationships of poverty, obesity and the role of media in addressing this problem.

The truth is that there is a causal relationship between poverty and obesity. Obesity is the second leading cause of death in the United States with smoking coming first. According to an article by  National Center for Biotechnology Information , there is an apparent relationship between the amount of wealth and obesity. The greater wealth a country has, the higher the rates of obesity of its people. The U.S. is one of the wealthiest countries in the world and correspondently has high obesity rates with one-third of the population is obese. So how is poverty causing obesity? In contradiction to the general trend, “people in America who live in the most poverty-dense counties are those most prone to obesity.”(1)

Obesity, poverty and lifestyle. These factors are interconnected as one leads to the other. Poverty shapes the lifestyle of the people who live in some parts of the country. The low wages prevent lower and working class parents from providing enough food for their kids and it leads them to an unhealthy way of living. With no sufficient amount of nutrition taken, they will eventually start gaining weight and this leads to obesity. Even though there are plenty of organization and institutions such as food drive and the volunteers that help these families by giving them food supplies, often time these consumptions are the ones with long shelf life such as canned food, soda or chips, which are not healthy. Children might not have any complaints in consuming snacks and candies since they do not have much knowledge and are not yet well informed about how to differentiate which is healthy and unhealthy. And so, this would affect greatly especially on these growing children who need to consume adequate nutrition to maintain their health. 

It is perplexing that many of these families are living under the poverty even with one or two family members having full time job or under assistance program. When looking demographically, the areas in which many poor family live also have very little access to healthy food. In many cases, it is difficult for these families to go and find a place where they can buy vegetables and fruits. Because of this low availability of nutritious food in the area, often time they have to deal with the distance problem and fares which require them to spend extra money. The problem is that there are too much fast food restaurants while there is little to no supermarket or farms. Burdened with the time and budget limit, parents are forced to make a decision between eating healthy, meaning that they have to spend more money on transportation and pricey vegetables and eating fast food which is much cheaper and fulfilling.

This is a problem that everyone should be concerned about. There is no telling which families will become the victim of poverty and at the same time obesity. Based on the relationship with general trends, “Obesity rates increased by 10 percent for all U.S. children 10-17 years old between 2003 and 2007, but by 23 percent during the same time period for low-income children. This national study of more than 40,000 children also found that in 2007, children from lower income households had more than two times higher odds of being obese than children from higher income households.”(2). From here we can see that the rapidly increase of obesity for kids is troubling but, the fact that the 23 percent of it comes only from the lower income kids is very worrisome. By looking at this, we can begin to see the dots that connect poverty to obesity.  

Let’s take an example of a parent who wants to spend ten dollars for tonight’s dinner. She is confronted with two choices. First, she can go drive a few miles to a local supermarket which sells fresh meat, vegetables and fruits. Say, one gallon of gas costs her four dollars, so she is now left with six dollars in her wallet. With the remaining money, she can get 3 apples, 3 lb bag of potato and 2 lb of tomatoes. Second choice, she can go to McDonalds which can be reached within a walking distance. For ten dollars, she can get 2 Big Macs, 2 McChickens, 4 small fries and 4 small sodas. Choosing between what’s healthy and what’s fulfilling is not easy. Parents make decisions by considering their kids’ needs at the present time and their future. If she chooses to get the ten dollar menu from McDonalds, her kids will not have to starve for the next day but it will be bad for their bodies. On the contrary, her kids’ health will be ensure if she chooses to buy vegetables and fruits, but there will be no more food left for them to eat in the next day. This is one example of the everyday life problems that these families go through constantly.

It is surprising that the influence of media has great effects on the way people live and eat. Many advertisements that we see on television, on the road, on brochures, magazines and pretty much anywhere, have influenced our everyday lives in many aspects.When you are waiting for the train in the subway or when you are surfing on internet, you might see many kind of advertisements. The most common ones are usually food advertisements, especially fast food. Many fast food companies such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and other major companies dominate the scope of food commercials through media. Billions of dollars are spent on advertising their products in order to attract more and more customer into buying and consuming their products which many are categorized as unhealthy. The company’s annual advertising budget has been estimated to exceed $2 billion — making it “unmatched in the industry,” (3) Because of this, other competing companies are struggling to sell their products. It is especially hard for small businesses or local farmers who sell organic and natural products since they will not have many chances to advertise and introduce their products. I believe the power of controlling the market cannot be achieved without superior techniques in advertising and effective methods in conveying the messages. McDonald’s appealing ads and its friendly mascot “Ronald McDonald the clown” have easily attracted customers, especially kids. I think this method can be seen as rhetoric as it is an art of communication and it aims to inform and at the same time persuade particular audiences in other words, the consumers. The power of advertisements can also be seen as propaganda in which a biased belief or an idea is expressed in such a way that it is able to influence the audience to think and behave in a certain manner. By looking at this, I would say that anyone who controls the media and owns the rhetoric of power will usually dominate the others and have the upper hand. A few examples of these power holders include the politicians, activists and of course major food companies such as McDonald’s.

In controlling the media and people, the art of rhetoric must be used effectively. To be able to use the elements of logos, pathos, and ethos when expressing ideas and persuading audiences, the person must own a remarkable knowledge and social skills. And so, it is important to be able to use rhetoric in the right way in order to achieve your purpose. In this case, McDonald’s has successfully used the art of rhetoric to attract tons of both domestic and international customers, sold its products in a very large quantity by establishing numerous of company’s branches in many parts of the world, and earned billions and billions of money as profits. Although the riches of McDonald’s increase the income of the country, it has a side effect which is obesity. This is how the relationship between wealth, poverty and obesity are connected. As McDonald’s keeps selling more and more food that have high amount of sugar and calories, the people will put more and more weight to their bodies. This can lead to many health issues such as obesity, diabetes, liver damage and even cancer. The expenses of hospital’s charges and medicines will take up a great amount of money. While this problem exists, another problem such as a lower productivity at work due to the weight gained will eventually result in poverty. In the bottom line, this is the way media is used to benefit from poverty and at the same time this shows how media indirectly contributes to the increase of obesity in the United States.