Sathya Tadinada

Period 3

20 December 2020

Revenge of the Pork Person

Examples of Hyperboles:

1. “A man can have a belly you could house commercial aircraft …”

2. “… this man can have B.O. to the point where he interferes with radio transmissions …”

3. “The leading cause of death among fashion models is falling through street grates.”

Response to Prompt:

I believe Barry’s ideas are still valid to a certain extent in our modern society. Even

though the book was published in the mid 1990’s, there are several elements that still hold true

today. For example, he claims that men are very confident (sometimes overly so) about their

physical appearance and that is being shown a lot in media, especially movies. There’s always

that one character in a movie who is overconfident about his looks while everyone else around

him disagrees with that mentality. Likewise, he also mentions how women make their physical

appearance one of their top priorities and look to fashion models for inspiration, which is very

much true today. There are definitely more women who subscribe to fashion newsletters and

actively follow the lives of models.

Another valid observation that Barry made was that fashion models are “mutated women,

the results of cruel genetic experiments performed by fashion designers …” While this is

obviously hyperbole, there is still some truth behind it. Lots of fashion models in our society are
extremely unhealthy in terms of their BMI. Many of them have similar body proportions to a

Barbie (a very unrealistic doll) and are medically classified as anorexic. The accentuated features

of these models include hips and other “appealing” body parts. However, since most women look

up to fashion models, they become products of this “genetic manipulation” as well. In

conclusion, there are several elements of Dave Barry’s “Revenge of the Pork Person” that are

still valid and recognizable ideas in today’s society.