Repeated Idea 1: Quick-fix problem solving

Various examples on the front covers of "quick fix solutions". Numbers are often used to place numerical values on these solutions to give a time-scale. This gives the reader a clear image of how "quick" the solutions claim to be.

Articles within the magazines themselves elaborate upon these quick fix solutions.

They often provide personal experiences in order to make them more believable.

Familiar formula of Men's Health

A familiar formula throughout each issue of:

• conquering/fighting
• dealing with stress
• role model 'banner sell'
• easy weight loss
• dangerous foods
• giving sexual satisfaction
• anxiety-promoting sell-line
• masculine words - lean, strong, tough, fitter, faster

The representation of masculinity on the front cover is the embodiment of the desires/aspirations/goals conveyed by the sell-lines. His gaze directly addresses the reader in an act of interpellation.

Men's Health

Typical characteristics of Men's Health:

• the layout of creates a strong brand identity
• there is always an emphasis on losing weight - quickly/enjoyably/effortlessly
• regular "what women want" sell-line
• banner strap-line dedicated to role models
• advice about beating your rage
• tips about muscle foods/diet
• 'warning' sell-lines which (possibly) provoke anxiety about the future

Oedipus Complex

The Oedipal complex is a term used by Sigmund Freud in his theory of psychosexual stages of development to describe a boy's feelings of desire for his mother and jealousy and anger towards his father.

Essentially, a boy feels like he is in competition with his father for possession of his mother. He views his father as a rival for her attentions and affections.

In order to develop into a successful adult with a healthy identity, the child must identify with the same-sex parent in order to resolve the conflict.

Freud suggested that while the primal identity wants to eliminate the father, the more realistic ego knows that the father is much stronger. According to Freud, the boy then experiences what he called castration anxiety - a fear of both literal and figurative emasculation.

Freud believed that as the child becomes aware of the physical differences between males and females, he assumes that the female's penis has been removed and that his father will also castrate him as a punishment for desiring his mother.

Narcissistic Identification

Narcissistic identification is the form of identification following abandonment or loss of an object. This experience of loss starts at a very young age.

 An example: wearing the clothes or jewellery of a deceased loved one.

 In "Mourning and Melancholia" Sigmund Freud, having 'shown that identification is a preliminary stage of object-choice',

argued that the experience of loss, set in motion a regressive process that 'served to establish an identification of the ego with the abandoned object'.

 In "The Ego and the Id", he went on to maintain that 'this kind of substitution has a great share in determining the form taken by the ego and that it makes an essential contribution towards building up what is called its "character"'

In terms of media contexts, Narcissistic Identification refers to the experience of being able to put oneself so deeply into a character (feel oneself to be so like the character) that one can feel the same emotions and experience the same events as the character is supposed to be feeling and experiencing.

Myth of Narcissus

Narcissus or Narkissos (Greek) in Greek Mythology was a Hunter from the territory of Thespiae in Boeotia who was renowned for his beauty. Nemesis (a Greek Goddess)  was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the Gods). Nemesis saw how proud and arrogant Narcissus was towards those who loved him and so attracted Narcissus to a pool where he saw his own reflection in the waters and fell in love with it, not realising it was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus died.