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Life is boring compared to the constant explosions, fights, and plot twists on TV. Life before the TV was enough for some people, but now that our lives revolve around what show is on, it doesn’t seem to compare. The rhetoric used in this essay makes the reader step back and analyze the way they spend the majority of their time. Barbara Ehrenreich’s first important use of rhetoric in this reading is when she compared the American people, through an extended metaphor that lasts through the piece, to root vegetables (paragraph 1, 2, and 3). Americans are completely sedentary as they watch their programs every night. You could leave a person for an hour, come back, and find them in the exact same spot. Television portrays lives more captivating and exciting than our own, ergo we feel our lives are somewhat boring, so we stay in front of that screen to see how life could be if we got up. We do not get up, however, because then we would miss the action. From personal experience my mum has become hooked on the FOX show, Bones. The serious forensic anthropologist offers a life that a kindergarten teacher cannot, and does not want to see first hand daily. My family enjoys most comedy mystery series such as Bones, Monk, Psych, and Castle because it gives us the chance to figure out a crime from the comfort of our couch. Solving murder is something different and it is fun to break open within an hour. In many of these series, the main characters do not own televisions because they are too busy solving crimes. This is something that does not happen in day-to-day life for any of us, and we are happy to keep it that way. If is enjoyable to view these crimes through the TV, but none of us would want to see that in real life. Another rhetorical strategy used is italics. The eye is automatically drawn to the perfectly emphasized slanted words. Three phrases in Ehrenreich’s piece are in italics, and they are as follows: “watching television,” “really watching,” and “real.” When theses words are given emphasis, it reminds the reader that what she is writing is the truth, and people on TV don’t spend hours watching it like their viewers. The emphasis causes the reader to sit up and think about the truth being shown on the page. Ironically, one of the most popular new genres on television is reality TV. From the little bits I have seen there is nothing real about it. Is the Biggest Loser the same way “real” people lose weight? Do most of us spend time dancing with stars or have wives who are just “swapped” for a week? Are we all in an amazing race to complete tasks while touring the world’s wonders? No, we are not. Reality TV conveys “real” people who are put in very unreal situations. It’s interesting how many people are spending their real lives watching un-real reality television. When watching an addicting show, it is difficult to turn it off. I believe Ehrenreich is challenging Americans to think about the time they spend watching television and being couch potatoes. Instead of mindlessly watching others lead exciting lives we should find excitement in our own.
The WORST Years of Our Lives
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see the original prompt on page 11
