TOW Post #2: Documentary Rhetorical Analysis

            In 2006, Eugene Jarecki released a film titled Why We Fight. Filmed during the Iraq War, this documentary dissects America’s military machine with a keen eye to answer the question: Why does America engage in war? Through personal stories of soldiers, government officials, scholars, journalists and innocent victims, the film examines the political, economic and ideological factors, past and present, behind American militarism and involvement in wars. Why We Fight describes the rise and maintenance of the United States military–industrial complex and its 50-year involvement in wars led by the United States, especially its 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The documentary asserts that in every decade since World War II, the American public was misinformed so that the government could take them to war and fuel the military-industrial economy maintaining American political dominance in the world.

            In his documentary, Eugene Jarecki argues that we fight in order to make our defense companies rich and because of our desire for world domination. Jarecki constructs his documentary to show the American public just how militarized our government has become since World War 2 and to persuade viewers that the wars we enter are downright wrong. The most prominent rhetorical strategies Jarecki uses are archival footage and expert testimony. Rather than guiding the film with narration, Jarecki features interviews with foot soldiers, Army recruits, Pentagon personnel, decorated veterans, members of Congress, national security advisors, top military strategists, and many more that talk about the core philosophies of American military strategy and how they have changed since the end of the Second World War. For example, the documentary opens with Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address that warned America about the dangers that may arise from the growing militarized nation saying, America "must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex." Additional archival footage is seen when Jarecki includes video from several different wars and military events ranging from the dropping of the atomic bomb to the March 19^th, 2002 bombings of Baghdad. Although in various forms, the archival footage interspersed throughout this documentary serves as evidence in Jarecki’s argument. Once archival footage is placed into the larger context of a documentary film to support or refute an argument, it shows the audience that what he is arguing has been going on for a long time. The expert testimony from various historians, and presidents such as Reagan, Kennedy and Bush had the same effect of tying various time periods together in one argument: America has the tendency to fight unjust wars.

Additionally, the director uses several points of juxtaposition in comparing various aspects of wars. For example, Jarecki juxtaposes the apparent need for war versus the true realities and horrors of war. By doing so, the audience sees that the wars we fight really are not worth it because we walk away with worse than what we stared with. Additionally, Jarecki constantly juxtaposes various presidents in the context of those who enjoyed war and like to show-off America’s power (Truman), and those who were not the biggest fanatics of war (Eisenhower). In doing so, Jarecki makes presidents like Truman look like the “bad guy” and completely immoral. Finally, Jarecki uses various metaphors to convey his opinions. For example, Jarecki gets himself into a pattern of setting the United States up as an imperialistic bully who will do whatever it wants, when it wants, and whoever tries to defy her will be in trouble. By create images like the one described above, Jarecki creates a specific tone and makes his audience feel a certain way about a given person, place or thing. In this case, Jarecki makes people almost despise the United States for her cruel behavior towards the rest of the global community. 

Overall, through the use of several rhetorical strategies including archival footage, expert testimony, juxtaposition, and metaphors, Jarecki was able to create a documentary that showed his audience that war is completely unnecessary and a huge time waster to say the least. He used the power of rhetoric to make his audience feel a certain way and think a certain way. In the end, Jarecki made it so a counter argument seemed nearly impossible. 

Citation:
Why We Fight. Dir. Eugene Jareki. Perf. Joseph Cirincione, Richard Perle, Chalmers Johnson, John   
       McCain. Sony Pictures Classics, 2006. DVD.

TOW Post #1: Reflection

      Every Sunday since September, time has been taken out of my day to construct yet another TOW of the week. Although not my favorite part of the day, I cannot deny the fact that these TOWs have aided in the improvement of my writing as the year has progressed. Looking through my previous TOWs, I can certainly see the improvement manifested.  Although the degree of improvement from post 1 to 28 is large, I think my greatest improvement can be seen in one aspect: my analysis of rhetorical devices. Back in September, the act of rhetorically analyzing was completely foreign to me. Looking back at my first couple posts, it is hard to find a TOW that does not consist of the sentence, “The two rhetorical elements used most frequently in this article are logos and pathos,” or the infamous, “There are several rhetorical elements used in this article.” However, has the year progressed I have stepped away from the general rhetorical devices that can work with just about any piece of writing and moved towards devices that were text-specific. For example, although still not perfect, I wrote, “In order to convince parents of the negative effects of even harmless TV, Seth Mullins had to use rhetorical devices that would show his audience both the “evidence” supporting his argument as well emotions to display the horrors of television. So, throughout his article, Mullins used forms of both quantitative and qualitative exemplification to support his argument.” Again, although not perfect, it was definitely an improvement from the cookie-cutter logos and pathos that became habitual. Additionally, earlier in the year, my rhetorical analysis consisted of solely a statement of the devices and what they looked like in the text. However, as the year progressed, I began to pay more attention to why the author chose to use the device he used not just how. This looked something like, “The description that accompanies this heart-breaking story of a struggling family creates a sense of sadness that makes readers not only feel bad for this family, but realize how fortunate they are to be in their situation.” Overall, out of all the various pieces of a TOW, I feel I improved the most in the rhetorical devices portion of the assignment. However, like anything, there are still pieces I have yet to perfect.

            At the conclusion of every TOW, we are supposed to consider whether or not we think the author accomplished his or her purpose. Almost every one of my TOWS since September follows the standard format of: Through the use of (rhetorical device #1) and (rhetorical device #2) the author was able to accomplish his purpose of… I could definitely find a way to improve upon this. On the reverse, I can confidently say that I have mastered what I would call “the basics”. I am now able to pinpoint the author’s purpose without merely stating the obvious as well as determining the target audience without simply saying the “general public” or the “youth of America”. I try to be as specific as possible when it comes to both the audience and the author's purpose. And lastly, considering a TOW is supposed to be a rhetorical analysis of the text at hand, I think I have definitely mastered my summarizing abilities. Meaning, rather than summarizing an article in five or more sentences, I have managed to get the main idea across in a sentence or two in order to make room for the important piece: the rhetorical analysis.

            Although tedious at times and seemingly never ending, I cannot deny the fact that I have improved as a writer with these weekly TOWs. The purpose of the TOW assignments, in my opinion, was two fold. On the obvious note, considering practice makes perfect, the TOW assignments were meant to make us better rhetorical analyzers by practicing every week. Through the continuous look at both visual and written text, we were able to delve into various texts and look at the way they were written. Additionally, the TOW assignments were meant to make us educated and informed members of society. By reading news articles weekly I know I was able to remain in the loop despite my busy schedule. After reflecting on my TOW writing, I would definitely say that I benefitted from writing TOWs in the same ways as mentioned above. I improved my rhetorical analyzing skills while enriching my mind with articles that kept me up to date on news around the world. Most importantly, TOWs made rhetorically analyzing less intimidating and distant which helped me to conquer the crazy ride of AP English. 

Against Headphones

                 For numerous decades now, headphones have become a standard accessory for American teenagers. Whether in the north, south, east, or west, it is customary to see kids walking around with their ears plugged, oblivious to the world around them.Virginia Heffernan, a writer for the New York Times, wrote an article dictating the history of headphones. In addition, by providing her audience with a plethora of numerical exemplification partnered with a cause and effect arrangement, Heffernan persuades parents of teenagers to limit their children’s headphone use because of the detrimental consequences they will suffer.  

            Through out her article, Heffernan supports her claim by providing statistical evidence to aid in the development of her logical argument. For example, she starts her article, “One in five teenagers in America can’t hear rustles or whispers”. Although a rather odd statistic, Heffernan uses the numbers to lead into her argument and support her claim. She later continues stating, “The number of teenagers with hearing loss — from slight to severe — has jumped 33 percent since 1994”. As seen, Heffernan uses various statistics to illustrate to her audience how the consequences she is talking about are not made up in the least bit. Heffernan then transitions into a cause and effect arrangement where she rattles off several consequences of constant earphone usage. Heffernan describes how headphones create a, “private auditory experiences” which is making children extremely anti-social. Overall, both the cause and effect arrangement and exemplification shows Heffernan’s audience the logical side of her argument and forces the parents to actually listen to what she is saying.

To conclude, I do believe Heffernan’s rhetoric succeeded in showing parents the dangers of extensive headphones use. Both her exemplification and cause and effect arrangement helped Heffernan support her claim making it not just a statement, but an argument.