"Much Ado About Mousing"

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“Much Ado About Mousing”

This piece is in the format of a newspaper article in the broadsheet ‘The Independent Review’.  Styled as a critical review, the piece is intended to inform the reader about an episode of ‘Tom and Jerry’, a cartoon aimed at young children.  However, I decided to imitate the verbose style of a broadsheet critic, and I also aimed to mock the overly analytical, presumptuous tone that the media often exudes, by relating every minor incident of ‘violence’ in the cartoon to extreme cases of brutality in society.  

I chose to implement the typical discourse structure of a newspaper article, with short, bold introductions and a succinctly clear headline.  I chose the headline “Much Ado About Mousing” as it is wordplay on the Shakespearian play “Much Ado About Nothing”, and the readership of ‘The Independent Review’ would most likely realise the pragmatic meaning of the pun.  It also raises the question whether the satirical style of the article really is much ado about nothing, and analysing the content of ‘Tom and Jerry’ in too great a depth.

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I used complex lexis, to appeal to the more refined audience: “unashamed trivialisation”, “sadistic depravity” and “ferocious contempt” are a few examples.  In many cases, I used words that would not be found in typical tabloid newspapers; I would have incorporated more simple synonyms if I had written the article for ‘The Sun’.  The language is Standard English, with a formal register to add gravitas and sincerity to the article.

I have mostly used compound and complex sentences, as these are flowing and add diversity to the article.  However, I did include some simple sentences to create impact:  “Yet the ...

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