Teenage Girl Blossoms into Beautiful Object

http://www.theonion.com/articles/teenage-girl-blossoming-into-beautiful-object,31061/?ref=auto

The Onion strikes again.  In an article this past January, the satirical writers at the Onion produced another satirical masterpiece: “Teenage Girl Blossoms into Beautiful Object.”  This time, their pointed wit took aim at the literal objectification of young women.  The Onion has a longtime standing platform as a satirical webzine that exposes social issues without ever directly addressing the problem or a solution.  The goal of this article, to remark on society’s behavior toward young women, was achieved predominantly through diction.  Every word chosen distanced the subject, Ashley Parker, from the idea of being an individual human being and pushed her towards becoming an object of desire.  For example, lines like “mere receptacle,” “lovely piece of meat,” “striking assemblage of physical attributes,” “shapely, ravishing thing devoid of intellect and personality,” and, “dazzling sexual apparatus” portrayed Parker’s “staggering metamorphosis” into the world.  Instead of being a unique, feeling, and ambitious person Ashley became no more than sexual prey.  Another frequently-used device in this piece was repetition.  Over and over again the author describes Ashley’s transformation from a person to a thing.   For example, he/she wrote “the rite of passage that all females make from girlhood into entirely disempowered objecthood,” “Parker had become a particularly alluring instrument of purely physical pleasure in the months since she was a young, conscious, independent preteen girl,” and, “she used to be…[capable of subjective experiences]…Now …she’s such a lovely vessel for displaced sexual frustration and voyeuristic lust.” These quotes, coupled with many others helped the Onion to direct its dry humor towards the issue of female objectification.