The article ‘Sun Vampires’ appeared in The Big Issue in May 1997. The Big Issue is aimed at a wide audience, including the younger generation, and is an effective way to reach the youth through a magazine, including young adults using tanning beds. The Big Issue is sold by the homeless on the street and can usually be found in any town centre or city. The heading of the article I am analysing is ‘Sun Vampires’ and this in turn contradicts itself as vampires are associated with darkness, whereas the sun is bright and heated.
This will engage the reader as they will be intrigued to find out what the article is about. There is also a use of a paradox within the heading. It is a rather strange as it uses a ‘vampire’ within the heading alongside the word sun. This implies that tanning is unnatural and somewhat freakish. Straight after the heading there is an elongated sub-heading that further supports the idea that tanning is an unnatural thing to do and also links tanning to an addiction. Williams also uses a neologism, “Tanorexics,” that suggests to the reader that she is treating tanning like a psychological addiction.
She links the word ‘tan’ with the word anorexia. I believe she does this as we know that anorexia is a horrible illness that is conditionally linked to how people feel about the way they look; the link specifically being an obsessive view of the way they are presented. Anorexics don’t eat as they believe they will get fat and ‘tanorexics’ tan as they believe they will be presented better with darker skin tones. We learn that the sun bed users would do anything for their tan.
We know that it is starting to become more than just an addiction as Williams says “They’re desperate for a sun fix. ” The word ‘desperate’ really exaggerates how much the ‘sun vampires’ want and need their fix and is a great technique that Williams uses to her advantage to persuade the reader. Williams then links the sub-heading with the main heading when she says “They spend hours incarcerated in high-tech coffins. ” The writer is pointing out the irony that sun worshippers are actually putting themselves in an early grave, rather than enhance their appearance.
Towards the top right of the article there is an illustration of a badly burned woman’s body laid within a tanning bed. Her hair is singed and her body is completely black, there is also smoke coming off the body. This is intense image is placed there to shock the reader. Within the first paragraph, there is a rhetorical question used, “Have you been abducted by aliens for experimental tests? ” This engages the reader and there is more irony in the image of the ‘big plastic cocoon,’ which is actually unnatural a cocoon would normally protect, whereas a sun bed actually endangers the user.
