According to the father of the rhetorical method, Aristotle teaches us that rhetoric has three main domains: Pathos, which is an appeal to emotion, Logos, which appeals to logic, and ethos, which appeals to the credibility of the speaker (Austin 177). Using the tools provided by the rhetorical method, we can now dissect arguments to further understand their meaning and plausibility. Placing our three video assignments under the microscope allows us to examine them with more scrutiny.
Placing Drunk History- Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks on the metaphorical conveyor belt of rhetorical analysis, we observe an inebriated comedian that’s having quite a bit of trouble getting her first words out. If this doesn’t automatically raise a red flag on the reliability of the speaker then you may need to reevaluate how ethos is defined. When was the last time that anyone ever took advice from their drunken friend, let alone a history lesson from them? Although the storyteller does get some topics right, the real plot lies in the omitted…show more content… The audience receives the implementation of hyperbole in exchange for laughs rather than actual reliable evidence. It’s true that the election of 1800 sparked tension between two long-time friends, but the only quote that comes even remotely close to this speakers claim is the way that John Adams is described as a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."However, it was also not Jefferson himself who made this statement, but his hired muscle behind the smear campaign, James T. Callendar. Consequentially, like its video counterpart before it, this recording also makes an attempt at logos, but fails to do so
