Sex, Lies and Fear
As consumerism and worship of the Mighty Dollar increase, the prevalence of three key players becomes
more evident. What was once ethos, logos and pathos in Aristotle’s Greece has become sex, lies and fear in
the modern Western media.
Sexualized advertisements appeal to the lowest, carnal self. Rather than ethos (appeals to moral character
and credibility), logos (appeals to logic and reason) or pathos (appeals to emotion) modern ads employ
sarkikos, or appeals to carnal hunger. So much of advertising relies on sarkikos today. From Carl’s Junior
commercials, where half-dressed hotties put entire sloppy burgers in their mouths to video games that
show sexualized women as prizes, modern Western media appeals to the consumers’ deepest lust.
Lies also pervade the media, especially advertising. When a company knows that its product kills, they paint
it as though it saves lives. Sure, cigarettes will one day put you on a respirator, but in the meantime they
will quite possibly resurrect your social life making your life more rich and lush.
When a product is full of sugar and likely to make you fat and diabetic, the marketing department labels it
as low-fat (rather than high-sugar) and slaps a picture of a jogging woman on the front to trick your mind
into thinking that the product is good for you.
And all news and ads whether or not they include sex or direct lies want you to be afraid. Their purveyors
want you to fear the world so that you consume products to assuage your worries.
What about TV shows and video games?
TV shows exist for the ads that are played in between scenes, and TV shows provide both a mirror and a
nudge to popular culture. TV shows and video games teach us what is presently and imminently normal,
acceptable and possible. When “The Big Bang Theory” shows nerdy young men studying science juxtaposed
to an attractive, instinctively-wise-but-not-book-smart young woman, young kids are taught that men study
science and women function as foils for those men. The women, themselves, don’t study science. They
don’t need to be learned as long as they are beautiful.
Video games, like TV shows, exist to make a profit, to create an escape and arguably to produce a mollifying
effect. While their storylines have become more complex, their messages have remained simple: men are
violent and women are sex objects. Because video games allow their players the same chemical thrills of
actual, real-life achievements yet with none of the dangers, they create passive, couch-potatoes who stay
home and consume rather than participate in a vibrant democracy. The laws, then, become increasingly
more and more biased toward the corporations that create the products that stupefy the people.
And the stereotypes! The media perpetuates stereotypes, not necessarily purposefully, but effectively
because Aristotle’s ethos requires that advertisers establish credibility with their audience, and the easiest
way is to do that is to lower themselves to either the level of the audience or to a level beneath the
audience (so the audience feels good about itself and buys whatever products are being sold).
In a nutshell: all forms of communication are rhetoric, and all forms, to some degree, consist of ethos, logos
and pathos; and I would argue that, now, that triangle of rhetoric has evolved (or devolved) into a diamond
of sex, lies, fear, and sarkikos.
What are your thoughts?