Rhetorical Analysis Documentary Film Super Size Me Paper

Rhetorical Analysis Assignment: Documentary Film “Super Size Me”

The word ‘Rhetoric’ refers to the use of symbolic artifacts (including words, phrases, images, gestures, performances) to influence and persuade an audience.

A rhetorical analysis breaks down the artifacts used by an author or speaker into parts and then explains how the parts work together to persuade an audience.

This is accomplished, in part, by examining traditional rhetorical appeals, which include the use of ethos, pathos and logos.

These rhetorical appeals are often utilized in documentary films to influence and persuade the audience

This assignment asks you to view a documentary film and to analyze the rhetorical strategiesemployed by the filmmaker in the construction of the film’s argument.

The paper should not be a summary of the film, nor should it be a review based on your personal reaction to it. The aim of the project is to identify the film’s argument, and  to analyze the rhetorical strategies  used to develop the film’s specific purpose i.e. thesis.The paper will be4 to 5 full pages in length with an additional work cited page that includes the documentary and any other sources you may use. The paper will follow the guidelines of MLA.

The paper will include the following:

· A brief summary of the basic plot of the film; summarized in your own words and not copied and pasted from the internet.

· The documentaries specific purpose i.e. thesis; what claim is it making (what it is trying to persuade us to do).

· Specific examples of rhetorical theory used to influence and persuade the audience; including:

o Ethos: Credibility of the documentary’s character.

*Competency:

· Exterior influences found outside of the film: the documentarian’s reputation, experience, background.

· Internal influences found inside the film: the credible sources used i.e. the experts interviewed and what makes them an authority on the subject as witnessed in the film, which could include their reputation, experience, and background.

*Character:

· How the documentary displayed its intentions and concern it has for the audience. How the documentary appeared trustworthy, objective, honest, and similar to the audience. Were any of the fallacies discussed in the textbook evident? Is so what effect did they have on the ethos of the film. How the film handed opposing views (if applicable).

*Charisma:

· Personality and likeability of the documentary and or documentarian. Consider the tone of the documentary; the way the subject matter, audience, Americans, etc. are portrayed.

o Pathos: Emotional appeals

* Use of emotional narratives (stories) that creates sympathy that attempts to affect the audience’s attitudes, values beliefs, and or behaviors.

*The films use of images, words, sounds, music, set design, camera angles, and other various film techniques as tools to affect audience’s emotions.

o Logos: Logical appeals

*Statistics, facts, and expert testimonies presented in the film.

· You need to use the terms ethos, pathos, and logos in your writing.

· Conclude by making a judgment about the film’s rhetorical effectiveness.

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Iris Fung
Professor Benjamin Bates
Communications 101 Public Speaking
24 May 2017
Rhetorical Analysis: The True Cost of Fast Fashion
Directed by Andrew Morgan, the scope of The True Cost is ambitious. The documentary
discusses how the fast fashion industry emerged in the late 1990’sand rapidly became an industry
that is now predatory and unsustainable. Starting with the collapse of Rana Plaza in Dhaka,
Bangladesh, Morgan brings the viewer through a dizzying number of cities– Milan,
Copenhagen, Hongkong, Phnom Penh, New York, Texas, Los Angeles, Dongguan, London,
Kanpur. Speaking from these various outposts of the global fashion industry are a full spectrum
of voices–the victims, the whistleblowers, the sympathizers, the corporations, the reformers.
Each one builds a story of the industry as having a devastating effect on the global economy, the
environment and human lives.
The True Cost reveals that, since the modern Fashion industry has penetrated into every
corner of the world, it’s reform is a critical to creating a more just world. Morgan’s intention to
persuade is clear from the beginning, where he says “I came into this story with no background
in fashion at all, beginning with nothing more than a few simple questions. What I’ve discovered
has forever changed the way I think about the things I wear. And my hope, is that it might just do
the same for you.” Morgan impresses on the viewer an honesty about his own lack of knowledge,
allowing the audience to identify themselves with him. Like himself, Morgan expects his
audience to be an American, or from an industrialized Western country, and also that they are not
a part of the fashion industry and do not know it’s inner workings.
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It is also clear that his intentions are to help the audience, to share knowledge he believes
to be beneficial to them. To help him tell this story, a full cast of experts and experiences are
included. This includes academics, factory owners, factory workers, journalists, established
fashion designers, activists, CEOs, doctors, farmers and policy makers. At one point, the
president of Cambodia is interviewed. Each one is an industry insider with valuable opinions that
are passionately conveyed with the body language of somebody deeply invested and genuinely
caring. Where Morgan had established that he had little knowledge of the industry, he builds a
strong, almost irrefutable sense of authority on the subject through these other voices.
As Morgan explained his intentions, alternating scenes of glamorous Caucasian models
and factories crammed with of workers in third world countries flash before the viewer. The
message is powerful and immediate; the fashion industry is tied to a long history of global
inequality. As models preen and pose in front of fawning photographers, one is made that much
more moved by the factory workers hunched over their sewing machines. Both are women, yet
their lives, polar opposites.
Next, Morgan uses live footage and news coverage of the collapse of the Rana Plaza in
Bangladesh to provoke a crisis of conscience in the audience. The scenes are chaotic and noisy,
with rescue workers frantically clearing an area ridden with dead bodies, the concrete floor slabs
of the collapsed building in the background. Crowds of women stand behind them crying while
holding pictures of potentially dead friends and family. All this, spliced with recordings of news
anchors describing the rising death toll.
From here, The True Cost begins to unravel the fashion industry and its effects. To
explain the violent riot in Phnom Penh that pitted factory workers against the Cambodian police
force, Morgan again harnesses the raw power of news footage. Faced with scenes of senseless
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police violence and the incredulousness and victimization of factory workers attempting peaceful
protest, The True Cost makes it impossible for us to deny
that the human cost of fast fashion is real.
Multiple times, Morgan features interviewees being reduced to tears as they describe the
ways in which the industry has ravaged their communities and denied them basic human rights.
Bangladeshi factory worker Shima Akhter sobs as she says, “I don’t want anyone wearing
anything which is produced by our blood,” as she describes the humiliation and anguish of her
community immediately following the tragedy.
At the funeral of a Cambodian factory worker beaten to death during the protest for fair
wages, Cambodian president Sam Rainsy begins to cry as he says, “We will continue this fight,
so that all Cambodian workers will have decent living conditions.” To see the leader of a country
express such grief is deeply moving and quite rare. These scenes have immense power, as they
humanize the sometimes invisible connection between Western consumers and Third-world
factory workers. Powerful human stories are backed up by equally powerful statistics.
The true scale of the outsourcing of garment manufacturing to other countries is
astounding, when Morgan reveals that compared to the 1960’s when 95% of garments were
made in the US, currently only 3% of clothes bought in America were made domestically. A
Chinese factory owner states that his facility produces “one of every 6 dress shirts sold in the
US.” This unstoppable shift in global production to third world countries is underscored with
these statistics. Morgan goes on to say that the fashion industry is currently a 3 trillion dollar
industry. And yet it is later revealed that one in six people in the world work in the fashion
industry in some way, and Bangladeshi and Cambodian factory workers make less than $3 a day.
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The global scale of this inequality is something that the viewer cannot deny, making
these injustices even more urgent. The sheer range of negative problems and causes covered by
The True Cost are almost overwhelming. For a 30 minutes of 90 minute documentary, Morgan
forces us to deepen our analysis by looking at industrial cotton farming and advertising.
Monsanto, a corporation familiar to any experienced documentary viewer, rears it’s ugly head.
Morgan states that one cannot understand fast fashion without understanding the industries that
have fueled its rise, and he is not wrong. Though my attention span was tested, Morgan perhaps
strengthens his integrity because it’s obvious he is only trying to be complete in his analysis.
And where Morgan moves his analysis quite quickly from big topic to another, he is
careful and consistent to explain the relationship between issues during his transitions. The
audience is then able to follow his story that is almost dizzying in geography, but tied together
with his ability to make the connections logical. While uncovering the wide-ranging problems
and causes, it becomes obvious there can only be one solution.
Towards the end, Morgan states it explicitly–a revolutionary move away from the neoliberal capitalist system. This is argued primarily through Marxist economist Richard Wolff,
though it is supported by various experts introduced earlier. Morgan asks rhetorical questions
over soaring instrumental music as a call to action, “Will we continue to search for happiness
through the consumption of things? Will we be satisfied with a system that makes us feel rich
while leaving our world so desperately poor?”
Overall, The True Cost is effective and powerful in building a case against the fast
fashion industry, and indeed the values of materialism and capitalism that created the monster.
While it offers less in terms of concrete solutions that are more than stirring words, answers are
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perhaps too much to expect from a documentary that is ultimately trying to inspire rather than to
prescribe. The True Cost is a relevant documentary that feels important for our time.
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Works Cited
Morgan, Andrew, director. The True Cost. BullFrog Films, 2015.