The paper "Maxim: Representing the Perfect Women" has been one of the papers that I got really interested in writing because I really like the theme. Most of the magazines portray the women as physically perfect and this has created a stereotype in American society. It was easy for me to structure the paper since I used three different advertisements and describe them in each paragraph deeply. I was able to see something in advertisements that when people just at the first glace can not perceive it. I chose this major paper over the other one because this topic interests me a lot and I was more able to argue about it.
The two outcomes that stood out the most are:
Outcome #2: Using other resources to better support the argument.
Outcome #3: The use of rhetorical devices such as tone and style for a certain audience.
Outcome #2
The thesis of the essay was that advertisement creates a negative stereotype of women in society. This was clearly demonstrated through the use of examples from Maxim magazine and combining these with the theory that we learned from the books of Ramamurthy and Winship with respect to the formation of stereotypes like the following:
"The creation of female stereotype is done by creating the idea of women as objects of sexual desire which is transmitted to men to enforce an acceptance of women based on their physical appearance"
This relation between the texts analyzed and the magazine makes a strong case of proving that Maxim magazine does indeed create stereotypes. The main points of the female stereotype of the beautiful woman were discussed through the use of examples from an Axe deodorant, a Cadillac Escalade and the Skyy vodka advertisement. In all of them women appear portraying the stereotype discussed in the essay and combining this with the theory of Ramamurthy and Winship creates a solid base for the arguments of the essay.
Outcome #3
This outcome was demonstrated in the essay by addressing the essay to the academic audience using a complex tone with an argumentative claim of how a specific magazine portrays women as perfect. Word choice is widely used throughout the entire essay; it is strong, but understandable. The connection of sentences is smooth first going form a general introduction, to the claim, to examples and an overall conclusion emphasizing again the claim. The starting sentence "Magazines can convey a message that forms stereotypes in society depending on the target audience and the purpose of the magazine" demonstrates the tone that is being used and that the target audience is educated, which can be seen from the type of language used. An adequate use of tone, style and audience targeting allowed me to create a strong thesis, which is summarized by the quoted sentence above.
