I was highly looking forward to taking this class my first semester back at Longwood after a semester away. I’ve taken a class with Dr. Guler before and it was my favorite, and seeing that this class was about pop culture, something I really enjoy, it made me excited to be back in the classroom. I enjoyed the structure we used in the classroom – it helped me understand the course’s curriculum, such as the rhetorical methods we used and how to use them. Professional writing and rhetoric have become a passion for me since coming to college, and I learned how to use different methods in order to achieve a better understanding as a rhetor. There have been so many obstacles brought on this semester and without a doubt, I can say that this class is the only class I had that kept any sort of structure.

Rhetoric is one of those ideas that has been shaped and reconstructed in so many different ways throughout history. There is the classical definition of Aristotle that defines rhetoric as the “faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion”, to the many different contemporary definitions we have today. In this class, we’ve gone over rhetorical theories such as Symbolic Convergence theory that focuses on the audience, as well as neo-Marxist theory which focuses on materialism and hegemony. The wonderful thing that I love so much about rhetoric is that it is an ever-changing idea that fits so many concepts. It allows people to think in so many different ways, for so many different outcomes.

Throughout my time as a Professional Writing and Rhetoric student, I have seen a lot more depth in understanding the relationship between nature and the power of rhetoric and persuasion. The theory that has helped me grow that understanding the most is the neo-Marxist perspective. Since this perspective centers around what society deems plausible, okay, or just, it has taught me to see more of the implications of a hegemonic society. When doing my Critical Essay #2 on the movie Carol, I was able to see just how strong the relationship between nature and rhetoric is. In this sense, “nature” is society – it is the thing that dictates all feelings and beliefs. I have been able to see how media influences society and how it can change it for either worse or for better. Rhetoric is meant to make us question these changes and the hierarchy in which they come from; it is meant to make us ask questions in order to better understand, and it is meant to help us give criticism where critique is needed. In this course, I have been able to challenge society and hegemony through my writing and my beliefs, and share those thoughts with my peers. The amazing thing about rhetoric is that I have been able to use it as a means to educate myself in many layers – instead of just understanding what a potential implication means to me, I am able to think about the many potential implications and what they mean to anyone. Being able to discuss ideas such as feminism and having other students engage in those conversations with me has been rewarding, to say the least. I have felt comfortable being myself and not hiding any aspects of myself in the classroom (online or not). That’s why rhetoric is so universal.

I think I have done an exceptional job of using the methods we’ve discussed this semester and analyzing them on my own front. There were some that were definitely more challenging than the others, such as the Symbolic Convergence Theory, but others really helped me shape my understanding of society. The way that this class has been so amazing at feedback has helped all of us become better at being analysts. This class may have been an elective to some, but there is no doubt that with the way this class got things done this semester, we have all become so much better at being rhetors – one thing I remember from Dr. Lettner-Rust in a previous class is a time where she said anyone can be a rhetor. This class is a true testament to that. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to take this class with. I’ve seen so much growth in myself as a writer because of their honest, selfless, and thoughtful feedback through peer reviews and class discussions. We have been a class that cherishes the provoking of though (looking at you, Glenn).

Since this is my passion and something I see myself doing as a journalist, I know I will be able to use the lessons I learned in this class to provide a better sense of understanding in the journalism field. Comm studies may be a direct link to journalism, but I truly believe that professional writing and rhetoric has helped me have a much deeper understanding of words their meaning when I am in my career. I will be able to report on things occurring in a hegemonic society as someone who doesn’t adhere to those ideologies herself, and I will be able to use these things as a means to change the course of history, as small or large as my impact may be.

Rhetorical Situation
Carol is based on the book, The Price of Salt (1952) by Patricia Highsmith. The film is set in 1950s New York City and tells the forbidden love story between Carol Aird, an older mid-divorced woman, and Therese Belivet, a younger, aspiring photographer. They first meet at the mall where Therese works, and Carol leaves her gloves at the counter. Entranced and intrigued by the woman she just met, Therese mails them to her using a slip Carol filled out with her name and address in order to have the product she bought shipped to her. Therese is invited to her home and Carol’s husband is skeptical of Therese because he knows about Carol’s homosexuality from a past affair. Since they are in the middle of a divorce, Carol’s husband wants to have a judge consider a “morality clause” as a means to keep their daughter, and Carol flees the city, taking Therese with her. The two meet a traveling salesman who ends up being a private investigator following the two. The PI ends up recording Carol and Therese kissing and having sex as evidence, and Carol leaves Therese abandoned to try and make things right with her husband. The two meet again later after Carol decides to allow her husband to have custody of their daughter so she can be her authentic self. The end of the movie implies that Therese goes back to Carol after being hurt and rejecting Carol’s advances.

Carol through a Radical Feminist Perspective Lens
I chose the Radical Feminist Perspective for this artifact because it “assumes that inequities and oppression stem from how the system creates men and women differently (subject and object gender identities) and the value (or lack of value) associated with them,” (Sellnow 168). In Carol, the two main women in the movie, Carol and Therese, are seen as inferior to their male companions and oftentimes, criticized and verbally attacked for standing up for themselves. Carol has a very dominating personality over her husband, which is why he tries to “shut Carol up” by threatening to take their daughter, Rindy, away. The goal of radical feminist critique is to “reveal how objectifying hegemonic beliefs and behaviors based on sex, gender, or sexual orientation are reinforced or challenged in some way,” (168). This is appropriate for Carol because the movie is about how hegemony is trying to be reinforced into two people who reject it. Since the movie is set in the 1950s, women are typically seen as objects in the film. They are expected to cooperate with the “man of the house” and the men in their lives. Therese, for example, has a boyfriend who she does not enjoy being intimate with (because of her closeted sexuality). While he does not force her to be intimate with him, he makes many remarks about how it isn’t right. Later in the film when she comes out to him, he tells her that “it isn’t right”. He then goes on to try and manipulate Therese by telling her that a woman could never give her what a man is meant to. These statements are meant to reinforce hegemony. However, both Carol and Therese reject these ideals and fight back against a patriarchal structure in order to be with each other. The only exception to this is when Carol leaves Therese to go back with her husband in order to not lose her daughter. Carol and her husband still divorce, and Carol agrees to go to psychoanalytic treatment (reinforcing hegemony), then stops attending because she knows she cannot be fixed (rejecting hegemony).

Potential Implications
By making a rejected attempt at reinforcing hegemony in the film, there could be implications of acceptance in the film. The film itself shows that homosexuality should not be punished, despite the obstacles in it. It also shows that society is not always morally correct, even when it thinks it is.

The Rhetorical Situation
Carol is based on the (my favorite) book, The Price of Salt (1952) by Patricia Highsmith. The film is set in 1950s New York City and tells the forbidden love story between Carol Aird, an older mid-divorced woman, and Therese Belivet, a younger, aspiring photographer. They first meet at the mall where Therese works, and Carol leaves her gloves at the counter. Entranced and intrigued by the woman she just met, Therese mails them to her using a slip Carol filled out with her name and address in order to have the product she bought shipped to her. Therese is invited to her home and Carol’s husband is skeptical of Therese because he knows about Carol’s homosexuality from a past affair. Since they are in the middle of a divorce, Carol’s husband wants to have a judge consider a “morality clause” as a means to keep their daughter, and Carol flees the city, taking Therese with her. The two meet a traveling salesman who ends up being a private investigator following the two. The PI ends up recording Carol and Therese kissing and having sex as evidence, and Carol leaves Therese abandoned to try and make things right with her husband. The two meet again later after Carol decides to allow her husband to have custody of their daughter so she can be her authentic self. The end of the movie implies that Therese goes back to Carol after being hurt and rejecting Carol’s advances.

Neo-Marxist Analysis
According to Sellnow, a neo-Marxist perspective allows rhetors to “expose how material conditions and economic practices shape dominant ideology regarding taken-for-granted assumptions about who ‘ought to be’ and ‘ought not to be’ empowered,” (135). More generally, how texts in pop culture reject or reinforce the status quo. I chose Carol for this perspective because the entire movie is about rejecting societal norms in order to be happy, even if it is a huge obstacle. In Carol, Carol and Therese are rejecting hegemony, the “privileging of a dominant group’s ideology over that of other groups,” (137). This is because instead of following the social order of heterosexuality, they are engaging in a romantic and sexual relationship with each other. Because of this, Carol’s husband is trying to take everything he can away from Carol – especially her daughter. This is the consequence she faces as a result of rejecting hegemony. Othering is the “devaluing consequence of hegemony that perceives those not in the empowered groups as different and as a them,” (137). In the 1950s, homosexuality was seen as a disease. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-I), homosexuality was described as a “sociopathic personality disturbance”. During the  ’50s homosexuality considered hard to treat. Psychiatrists back then believed that it could be treated with psychoanalytic treatment, which Carol ends up receiving as part of a court order in the divorce.

Sellnow describes interpellation as something that occurs when a text leads readers or watchers to identify with certain roles. Using characters as models and anti-models is one way texts do this. According to Sellnow, models are those who act “normal, attractive, and desirable” while anti-models are characters who act “abnormal, unattractive, and undesirable” (139). I believe that in Carol, the audience is led to identify with the anti-models. In societal terms, Carol and Therese are the anti-models because their behavior is “abnormal” and wrong. This means that the audience is taught to reject hegemony in order to side with the anti-models since the movie also perceives characters who reinforce hegemony as antagonists. This makes Carol an oppositional reading because it “challenges the status quo argument about who ought to and ought not to be empowered” (140). More specifically, Carol is a subverted oppositional reading because it rejects hegemony outright, from the very beginning.

Implications of Carol
With the setting of the film, I think Carol shows how far the United States has come with the idea of homosexuality. Given that 70 years ago, it was seen as a disease and now we have the federal right to get married, there have been huge strides for the community. A potential implication of the film could be that it is okay to love who you love even if others say it is wrong. The empowerment that occurs in the movie only does so when the leading women reject the status quo in order to do what they love.

For this post, I am analyzing Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is one of the first movies I think of when it comes to fantasy due to its imaginative imagery and ideas.

Rhetorical Situation
The movie is centered around Jack Skellington, Halloweentown’s pumpkin king, who has become bored with the same annual routine of frightening people. While taking a walk, he accidentally stumbles on Christmastown, the complete opposite of Halloweentown; bright colors, feelings of love and gratitude, and what he calls “warm spirits”. Jack decides he wants this world, so he plots to bring Christmas to Halloweentown by kidnapping Santa Claus and taking over the role. Jack realizes his plan doesn’t work out for the best, and it teaches him a lesson on what the true meaning of Christmas is. 

Fantasy Theme Analysis
According to Sellnow, the goal of the fantasy theme analysis is to use it as a methodology that rhetoricians use to “identify, understand, and interpret those converged symbols,” (110). Symbolic Convergence Theory works well for this artifact because there is a high amount of symbolism that makes the movie what it is. The Nightmare Before Christmas has accumulated a massive audience since its debut in 1993 – nearly 30 years later, the movie is still the inspiration behind other films (Coraline) as well as designer fashion collections (VANS, Converse).

VANS comes out with a collection of The Nightmare Before Christmas shoes every year and have done so since the film came out – they tend to be sold out almost every year.

One of the main ideas of the movie that tends to gravitate everyone in is Jack’s love for Sally, a rag doll who is the only one who has doubts about Jack’s plan. Despite her doubts, she still supports him, but ultimately is the reason Jack understands why his plan will not work. Their relationship is even referenced in Blink 182’s 2003 hit, “I Miss You”.

“We can live like Jack and Sally if we want
Where you can always find me
And we’ll have Halloween on Christmas
And in the night we’ll wish this never ends
We’ll wish this never ends”

With that being said, it’s obvious the movie has acquired a huge amount of popularity and still has a great amount of reception to this day. The sanctioning agents in the film vary. For Jack, it would be the quest to bring Christmas to Halloweentown, while for Sally, it would be the quest to get Jack to see himself how she sees him. One indirect motive in the film is that Jack is trying to make Halloweentown better this way because he doubts himself.

Implications
As I mentioned before, there were a lot of implications from this artifact. Sellnow suggests considering “the impact of a shared social reality within a community,” (117). I believe that the movie’s constant role in designer collections and music show the impact the movie had on 90s and early 2000s pop culture, well blending into culture today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyaGIaJsmTg

Brief Overview of the Rhetorical Situation
Coraline and her family move from Michigan to Oregon. As her parents struggle to complete their gardening catalog, Coraline is often left alone because they put their work above her. Their new home, Pink Palace Apartments, has a dark history – the kids who lived there before them all mysteriously disappeared. Because of this, Coraline’s family is the first one with a kid in 50 years to live there. Coraline’s neighbor and only friend, Wybie, gives her a doll that eerily looks exactly like her. Little do they both know, the doll is a tool from another dimension used to lure Coraline to it. The other dimension is the same as the one she lives in, with a twist – she is paid attention to, fed, and loved. However, Coraline learns to discover that love comes with a cost. Her “other mother” is actually a Beldam that is trying to keep her soul in order to live. This movie’s advertised audience is children, but it’s been argued since its release 11 years ago that it should be intended for more mature audiences due to the visuals and the concepts.

Dramatistic Analysis of Coraline
According to Kenneth Burke, the ultimate goal of the dramatistic perspective is to understand what motivates people to behave in certain ways. This can be a really good away to analyze characters in a fictional text; it’s useful because it allows whoever is analyzing the text to deepen their understanding of not only plot but the characters as well. This analysis is important for my artifact because of the complexity of the plot and the characters, as well as the importance of the characters in relation to the storyline. In Coraline, there are two sets of every character except Coraline herself, and these characters have different motives in terms of either helping or deterring Coraline from saving her parents and getting back to a safe life.

The Pentad in respect to Coraline
Act: The main act of the movie would be Coraline trying to get her parents home after they are taken from the Beldam. She has to play a game with the Beldam where if she loses, she has to stay with the Beldam and have buttons sewn into her eyes, whereas if she wins, the Beldam has to set her and the other ghost children go.

Agent: The agent would be Coraline in this film, though there are many supporting characters. The other characters in the film are crucial to the plot and the development of Coraline as a character.

Agency: Some of the tools used to carry out her mission are the ghost children, the rock eye, the comrade cat, and her neighbors. The other characters in this movie act as tools to help Coraline save herself and her parents.

Scene: See video (introduces Beldam); The AU is set up with everything Coraline loves, which is what reels her in.

Purpose: The purpose she has for killing the Beldam is to save herself and the ghost children. This is justifiable because the Beldam is evil.

Ratios
I see both a scene-agent (A relationship between the agent and the scene). A scene can pose restrictions on the agent; in a narrative, the person and place should have some connection) and act-agent (A relationship between the agent and the scene) ratio here in this movie.

Coraline (2009) is a film that might be more intelligent than it is supposed to be for its intended audience. It’s rated PG, but still has scenes that could be considered “unsuitable” for children under 8 years old. It explores many thrilling topics such as kidnap, evil magic, and even murder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skkzfkUK1jg

Rhetorical Situation
Coraline and her family move from Michigan to Oregon. As her parents struggle to complete their gardening catalog, Coraline is often left alone because they put their work above her. Their new home, Pink Palace Apartments, has a dark history – the kids who lived there before them all mysteriously disappeared. Because of this, Coraline’s family is the first one with a kid in 50 years to live there. Coraline’s neighbor and only friend, Wybie, gives her a doll that eerily looks exactly like her. Little do they both know, the doll is a tool from another dimension used to lure Coraline to it.

The other dimension is the same as the one she lives in, with a twist – she is paid attention to, fed, and loved. However, Coraline learns to discover that love comes with a cost. Her “other mother” is actually a Beldam that is trying to keep her soul in order to live.

This movie’s advertised audience is children, but it’s been argued since its release 11 years ago that it should be intended for more mature audiences due to the visuals and the concepts.

Narrative Analysis
The narrative perspective is a method for examining ideological arguments conveyed through storytelling (Sellnow 53). Essentially, it is used to find the moral of a story. I believe this analysis fits this movie the best because there are many underlying themes and ideas to this story. The main one being, always be grateful for what you have, as you never know when it can be taken from you. This is important for the storyline because the whole reason Coraline gets herself in the mess with the Beldam is because she isn’t grateful for the life she has – while it isn’t entirely her fault, she’s young and naive, and her “Other Mother” takes advantage of that.

Coraline is a story that ties many concepts together in a short amount of time – however, the storyline is still very coherent as it all comes together in different pieces throughout the movie. Each time you watch it, you notice more and more references to something else in the movie that you didn’t notice the first time. Given that this is a fantasy/thriller movie, looking at the structural coherence of the film is the most sensible. The story obviously doesn’t seem plausible since it’s a work of fiction, but it definitely makes sense within the realm of which it is written. The movie wouldn’t be what it is without the characters, who continually grow in the film to be more independent and willing to fight. The movie starts with Coraline’s family moving in. Then, as she goes to bed that day, she discovers the “Other world” that’s been waiting for her. She sees that her neighbors are also in this world, but they are more dynamic characters in the “other world” than they are in hers. She then starts to realize that the world she prefers is not all its cracked up to be, and needs to escape. By then, it’s too late, so she has to find a way to get out of the Beldam’s grasp and back into her world where she can live with her family peacefully.

The characters are especially important to analyze here because there are two of almost every character except Coraline. In the “real world” that Coraline actually lives in, all of the characters are static and don’t have much of a personality. Some key characters in the film are:

• Mel and Charlie Jones (Coraline’s parents)
• Mr. Bobinsky, Miss Forcible and Miss Spink (Her neighbors)
• Wybie Lovat and his grandmother (The apartment owners who allow the Jones family to stay there)

These characters in the other world are the exact kind of people that Coraline wants them to be – they interact with her, they keep her entertained, and they give her love. None of these things are happening for her in her reality.

Implications of the text
I think it’s really interesting to look at the possible implications of Coraline considering it’s a kids movie that isn’t really categorized as such. I do think that for its time, it’s a really important film about independence and creativity. Even though I believe the true moral of the story is “be grateful for what you have”, I think it also highlights the importance of safety, and relatively touches on the topic of “stranger danger”. While Coraline thought she knew her Other Mother and Other Father, she didn’t; and the Beldam used that to her advantage. This movie is a good lesson for children on gratefulness as well as safety, while also showing that fear can be one’s highest motivator.

For this post, I will be analyzing John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address with a Neo-Aristotelian approach.

Rhetorical Situation
On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as President of the United States and gave one of the most famous inaugural speeches in U.S. history. On the balcony of the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., Kennedy spoke to both his supporters and those who didn’t vote for him in order to gain the trust of the American people. The location is important because many other presidents before Kennedy have been sworn in at the exact same location, continuing a pattern of American history.

Throughout the many different voters at the time, Kennedy’s primary audience would have to be the people who did not vote for him – his address is a perfect way to unify all of the United States and help citizens feel better about his Presidency.  In preparing for this moment, he sought both to inspire the nation and to send a message abroad signaling the challenges of the Cold War and his hope for peace in the nuclear age. The exigency of this speech surrounds the Cold War and the fears of the American people surrounding nuclear tactics.

The Five Canons
Kennedy uses a lot of artistic proofs in his speech, particularly emphasizing ethos and pathos. The entire speech surrounds a strong appeal to ethics – not only his own ethics but those of American citizens. He makes strong arguments surrounding the core of common American values and uses those values to convince his audience to make a change in the United States. He appeals to the shared background of this proud and disciplined generation of “heirs of [our] first revolution” and asserts that this generation will prove their patriotic loyalty by leading America to join in the effort to assure the “survival and success of liberty”.  He assures that all Americans are members of the great American ‘melting pot’ whether they were born here or not. While we may have different ethnic or racial backgrounds, all who live in this proud country are all people who believe in values such as liberty, freedom, and justice. We are all descendants or supporters of the brave patriots who fought in the revolutionary war to stand for these same principles, and by referencing this shared heritage, Kennedy is able to further unite the American people.

His address is arranged accordingly to the ideas he presents throughout – he starts with addressing those around him – “Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, Reverend Clergy, fellow citizens:” and then moves on to talk to his audience. The address moves on to the differences between the time of the speech and the past and how Americans must embrace and combat that change. “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe–the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” He then moves on to address different parts of the world and talk on how they should be unified and allied together. He emphasizes the importance of time and emphasizes the strength of the country.

The style of this speech may be what makes it so iconic – Kennedy uses a lot of amplification, parallelism, and anaphora that have deemed to be memorable lines since. One of the most famous lines in the speech is, “And so, my fellow Americans:
ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.”That line is an example of parallelism. Another example is the line, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

Along with style, an important device Kennedy used to make his speech memorable is repetition. He emphasizes the words “we” and “us” to spark a feeling of unity. He also adopted the same style of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address by uses short but convincing sentences. The repetition of phrases like, “Let both sides … Let both sides … Let both sides …” puts an emphasis on unity once again, which was the main idea of the address.

When watching the speech, you can tell Kennedy cared about what he was saying. His delivery was not only articulate but passionate and convincing. He comes across as patriotic and ambitious. When referencing any hardships with other countries, rather than sounding harsh or stern, he is genuine.

Effect and Implications
It’s important to note that Kennedy wanted to emphasize how he did not want to go to war but wanted to negotiate peace. He also didn’t want any trace of partisanship in the speech because he believed that he was the president of all parties, not just the Democratic party. Kennedy knew of the great importance of this speech since he won the election by one of the smallest popular vote margins in history. People who witnessed the speech or heard it broadcast over television and radio praised him –  elementary school kids even wrote to him with their reactions to his ideas. Following his inaugural address, nearly seventy-five percent of Americans expressed approval of him and his ideas because of how well he expressed his morals and values.

Hello! My name is Rachael Poole and I am a junior English Major with a concentration in Rhetoric and Professional Writing. I’ve created this blog for my ENGL 301 class that will focus on the rhetorical criticism of film, pop culture and multimodal texts. This blog will serve as a portfolio for all of my analyses of rhetorical texts throughout this semester and show how rhetorical criticism and analysis can be used in everyday life! I feel that this blog will be helpful to not only my fellow classmates but future students who take this course and others like it.

This course is similar to the Organizational Rhetoric class that I took last year in that we are offering an analysis of different texts and ideas. Because of my experience in that class, I feel that I will exceed in this class, also due to the fact that I am genuinely interested in the course material outlined for us this semester. This class will help me further my understanding of different rhetorical perspectives as well as help further my writing skills as a professional writer. I am excited to see what this class holds for me in future assignments.