Susan Boyle article

       Article: It wasn't singer Susan Boyle who was ugly on Britain's got talent so much as our react to her- The Guardian, Thursday 16th April 2009

What effect do the two rhetorical questions have on the reader? What tone do they set?

‘Is Susan Boyle ugly? Or are we?’  This makes the reader think about how we judge people and whether the comments and doubt that Susan Boyle could sing made us as the audience the ugly ones. The rhetorical questions grab our attention and has a direct effect on the reader by using a personal pronoun ‘we’ to make us feel involved. By starting off by almost saying that Susan Boyle is ugly, this makes us feel empathy for her. This sets the tone as quite harsh and critical.

    How would you describe the author’s attitude to Susan Boyle? Support your point with embedded quotations.

The author is quite harsh and rude to Susan Boyle, she immediately critisises her appearance and how she comes across describing her as “small and rather chubby, with a squashed face, unruly teeth and unkempt hair”. This shows how society sees and judges people, it shows that we judge people quick by the way they look and dress, just as we did with Susan Boyle. Although the author seems harsh the way she talks about her appearance when we read it, it is what most of us were thinking as she came out on stage preparing to sing.

     What do the details about Susan Boyle’s private life add to our picture of her? Why has the journalist included them?

This is another example of how people are quickly judged by others. When Susan talked about her private life being “unemployed, single, lives with a cat called Pebbles and has never been kissed” this depicts her as the stereotype of the unsuccessful candidate. The journalist included these details as it adds to the point of judging people. Telling about her private life adds to what we had already judged her by her appearance, it just confirms what many may have already imagined her life to be like such as “never been kissed” and “lives with a cat called Pebbles” based on her appearance. It also adds to the expectation of what she would be like at singing, by her appearance many already thought she would be bad, and these details adds to that. All this makes the surprise even bigger.

     The author uses a rhetorical question to begin the second paragraph: explain the effect that this has on the reader.

By starting off with a rhetorical question again, as it did in the first paragraph, grabs the attention of the reader and again gets you thinking. Here it is talking about why we, as society, think that ugly women can’t do things like pretty girls. By adding “rather than weeping and wishing they were someone else” makes us think and have empathy for those who the writer is referring to.

       She mentions several British celebrities (you do not need to know who they are): what is the purpose of contrasting these men with the statement she makes about women?

She uses these male celebrities, who she describes as ugly, to contrast against the point that women cannot be ugly and successful especially in the media business. She emphasizes this point by adding the male celebrities to add to this point, by showing that men can be ugly and successful but women can’t, they have to be typically beautiful to be successful in the media, otherwise you are not wanted.  

     Do you agree with what she says? Think of the purpowith se of the final two sentences: what effect do they have on the reader?

Although I do partly agree with her point that women cant be ugly and successful but men can, I don’t agree with the harsh tone she puts it across in. Especially in the last two sentences, she almost critisises those people who are on the news because something bad has happened to them, and they are the exception of being typically beautiful and appearing on tv/media.