It Ain T Easy Being Bisexual On Television By Amy Zimmerman

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Misrepresentation affects us all to some degree. Maybe one night you didn’t get enough sleep and you were grumpy all day. That’s an unfortunate misrepresentation, but what about if the media displayed you as a grumpy person every day? “It Ain’t Easy Being Bisexual on TV” by Amy Zimmerman seeks to describe the current state of bisexuality’s representation in the today’s media by analyzing a popular TV shows. Daily Beast, a liberal leaning website, published this article in August of 14. The piece is Intended for those who understand the concerns and identity of bisexual individuals and take interest in popular culture. This article only fails to accomplishes the aims of the writer. Zimmerman’s limited substance diversity, excessive assumptions, and ambiguous writing styles which all detract from accomplishing her goal with this piece. To start with, the context of Zimmerman’s work being put in the Daily Beast ultimately hinders her from making a greater social statement. …show more content…
Zimmerman is an author for the website Daily Beast, a website that specializes in pop culture and political articles. The work contains elements of both areas and this ultimately hurts her what she aims to makes points about things out-side of the pop culture realm. In this article she describes the problem as one of a broader social misunderstanding of bisexuality and that the roles seen on TV and movies is a manifestation of this misunderstanding. After reading several of her articles, one notices that she tends to discuss topics that are not about popular culture and its relationship to society, but instead her articles focus on day to day relations of members of pop culture groups. The substance of the article looks to evoke both the logical and emotional side of the readers. Zimmerman employs logos when she writes, “Out of that miniscule number of bisexual roles, only two were male characters. Of course, homogeny is an irritating yet omnipresent aspect of the television experience much like Simon Cowell or infomercials?” (562). This shows how Zimmerman takes something that could be used more in a logical manner but instead she aims to connect with the audience resulting in a cliché generalization about the media. This simplification was a way to connect with the audience. However, the statement fails the purpose, as it does not truly describe why the disparity in representation exists. One cannot accurately describe the representation of bisexuals in the media by not addressing the factors that have led to the misrepresentation. Another example of the variety of substance appears at the very end of the work. …show more content…
Zimmerman appeals to pathos when she states, “For those who are growing up in families, institutions, or regions that do not accept their desires of lifestyles, this positive media reinforcement could become an invaluable inspiration, as essential to continued life as food or air.” (566). This strong statement awakens the fear and the memories of being an outcast. This statement deviates from the main purpose of this paper resulting in confusion. With this section Zimmerman seems to be persuading people to evoke change in the media, yet a majority of her writing was describing the current state of affairs in regards to bisexuality and the media. This led to confusion to the reader as the purpose has changed. Lastly, the style in this piece was in limbo, it is neither a formal work or colloquial. For example, on page 564 Zimmerman has one sentences reading, “To understand

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