Recently, FCKH8.com released a video,
“Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism,” of little girls between 6
and 13 years-old dressed up as pink princesses to say f*ck in the name of
feminism. By doing so, FCKH8.com hopes to bring awareness of sexism. They ask
for donations in support of “anti-sexism” organizations. Both newsbusters.org
and foxinsider.com covered the topic but have used different language in order
to prove the different views upon the video.
On newsbusters.org, the author
includes numerous quotes from various people in support of video and its
intentions. The author uses these quotes as a form of ethos to establish its
credibility. The author also uses words with positive connotations such as “pretty
terrific” “passionate” “heart” and “brilliant idea” By doing so, the author is
able to connect with the reader because most readers tend to agree with
positivity. The author also chooses to include that FCKH8.com is a “company
with an activist heart and a passionate social change mission: arming thousands
of people with pro-LGBT equality, anti-racism and anti-sexism T-shirts that act
as ‘mini-billboards’ for change.” Words such as “racism” and “sexism” stand out
and usually have a negative vibe that people tend to stray away from. So the
author chose to use this quote because of the word anti in front of those
negative words. By doing so, the author would be arguing that they are against “racism”
and “sexism” which is a positive thing. Because those words usually stand out,
positivity would stand out.
On
foxinsider.com, the author argues against the video for anti-sexism and claims
the video “shows young girls dressed as princesses, reciting obscenities to
sell T-shirts for FCKH8.” The author chose to use words with negative
connotations in order to persuade its readers to not support FCKH8.com. The
author uses words and phrases such as “obscenities” “used as props for profit” “ashamed”
“corrupted” and “poor parenting”. People tend to stay away from negativity.
Because this negativity is associated with FCKH8.com, the author is trying to
make people stray away from contributing to its organizations. The author also
uses phrases such as “young girls” and “beautiful young girls” to emphasize the
idea of innocence. This is used to support their argument that their innocence was
easily used and manipulated for selfish reasons. The author writes, “Kimberly
Guilfoyle, a mother herself, called it poor parenting. “The adults that made it
should be ashamed of themselves, too,". By including a quote from a
mother, the author is able to use pathos in order to create an emotional connection
with its readers.
This is the kind of stuff as to why I dislike the internet. While I agree that females should have equal representation and rights, it's not okay to teach children to use this type of language under the basis of promoting an equal rights movement. I don't think the newscasts were very effective at all relaying what this video is. Since, as you mentioned, they tried to make the reader form an opinion based on the report, they didn't effectively state what is actually happening in the video. I don't think that the way the makers of the video handled this any better. There are plenty of ways to get your point across without having to drop an F bomb every few seconds.
ReplyDeleteSome people. >-<