The ways that the celebrities are portrayed in the article and the magazine are different but in the portrayal there are some elements that are similar. In the heat magazine it shows the celebrities: Jedward, JLS, Strictly come dancing judges and X-Factor actors. In these photographs they are all smiling or posing, dressed in glamorous clothes. These glamorous celebrities posing act as role models to the teenagers that buy the magazine. The audience sees the celebrities like that and wants to be glamorous and as well. The celebrities in the article are depicted as: Simon Cowell: a little Lego man, Amanda Holden: A little plastic Barbie doll, Piers Morgan: A rubber squeaky toy. The author describes the judges as fake and plastic people who are not part of our real world. They are also described as toys, and toys are controlled by the show and seen as insignificant and ridiculed. There is also an element that is shared by both. All of the celebrities are portrayed as fake. The toys in the Scotsman article are very fake and similarly in the magazine, the Celebrities are either smiling or posing, not in their natural positions-fake.
The metaphors that are used in both very dissimilar. The Heat magazine uses the sentence “Driving the neighbors up the wall” as a slogan. It implies that the Teenagers who buy the magazine are larger than life. They are seen as loving and scandalous and also a little bit rebellious. The other metaphor that was found in the magazine cover was the title: “Heat”. It suggests to the reader that the magazine is not about the world’s economy but about the latest gossip and what’s “hot” in the celebrity world. The metaphors in the Heat magazine are used to attract the attention of the teenage readers and make them buy this celebrity magazine. In comparison, the metaphors that the Scotsman article uses suggest that the audience in a Talent T.V show is animalistic. It uses metaphors similar to “ It’s a bear pit of humiliation…” and “ The circus is about to begin…” and finally, “They had become the audience at the Colosseum or at a cockfight.” It suggests destruction and that the audience of the Britain got Talent is an audience at a freakshow or circus. It also proposes that the audience watching a talent T.V show is unintelligent and uncultured, which is similar to the audience and consumers of the Heat magazine.
The layout in both texts states a lot about the audience and purpose and so it is useful to compare them. The layout of the Heat magazine is confusing and has lots of colors: Red, Yellow, Purple, Blue and Pink. It exceeds the rule of three colors maximum on a cover and makes the magazine look busy. The cover reflects the inside of the magazine that is hectic and includes a lot of gossip that the readers will want to catch up with. The title is in red letters. The red insinuates conflicting emotions, similarly to the world “love” which the reader can relate to, as these emotions are the ones that the reader is going through the moment. It is also red because of the traffic light theory. The red in a traffic light means, “Stop.” Maybe the magazine editors made the title red to attract the audience, “Stop, and read me”. The puffs that appear around the main body of the cover excite the reader but they also somewhat taunt them. They are showing them little tidbits of information but they can only read the full story if they buy the magazine. The magazine has put as much of these that would fit on the cover. The layout in the article is the exact opposite than the one in the heat magazine cover. It is organized and well thought out. It is authoritative, for example: “Allow me to explain the format.” This sentence is used and gives an authoritative tone that the reader cannot help but agree with. The register is formal as the audience for the broadsheet newspaper is cultured and educated. The layout suits the broadsheet newspaper readers. It uses lots of negative language which the reader may not notice at first but will have an impact on the reader subliminally.
Being on stage and being a celebrity is portrayed in different ways and those ways will be compared in this paragraph. The heat magazine uses Shine graphics that reflects the celebrity’s life. It implies that if you go on stage it is a plan to live your dream and become famous and glamorous. In contrast, the article describes someone’s performance as: “real people having their very real feelings hurt and dreams dashed to the cruel soundtrack of the laughter of 3,000 people” It is suggesting that not all contestants are going to end up glamorous and famous like the celebrities we see. Another example of how the article describes the way the contestants are feeling is: “but for many of these performers… it’s a nightmare.” This sentence records that it is a dream for most people but for some contestants it is not so good. The article shows a negative side of what talent T.V can be about whereas the magazine shows a very small percentage of the people who apply to these shows. It shows the ones that succeed.
