Rhetorical Analysis – 13th
The documentary called 13th is the thirteenth amendment to the constitution as well as the title of this documentary. Ava DuVernay is the director and one of the two writers of 13th. The rhetorical elements pathos, which happens to be the graphic pictures and videos displayed, logos for the shocking statistics of black numbers versus the white numbers, and finally the well-known people here that are brought in for the interviews which is the ethos in 13th. 13th demonstrates the amendment that was to supposedly end the cruel, dehumanizing labor called slavery for minorities, especially people of color. The documentary shows the light at the end of the tunnel was just another dark tunnel by making slavery legal due to the exploitable loophole since it just extends the racism instead of ending it. DuVernay uses pathos, logos, and ethos to persuasively portray her message that she is telling and showing the audience in 13th.
13th starts with Barack Obama, who is the 44th president of the United States, giving us info about the US prison population. As everything goes back to the 13th amendment now being part of the Constitution, the 13th amendment to the Constitution states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction” (DuVernay). That means that if someone gets convicted, then the 13th amendment no longer applies to the person. Combined with the South’s restrictions, for example, Jim Crow laws that enable restrictions on blacks’ basic rights and the infamous “separate but equal” clause that further segregates the two races. Slavery is still possible due to the loophole the 13th amendment creates with the help of the South’s Jim Crow laws. The “war on drugs” further complicates the segregation of blacks by associating blacks with drugs then incriminating them to make them easier to arrest. With this marks the beginning of the mass incarceration for people of color and the prison boom where prison populations are skyrocketing out of control.
The ethos in 13th was demonstrated using credible sources like Barack Obama, Michael Hough of ALEC, Malkia Cyril, Richard Nixon, and The Clintons. John Ehrlichman, an advisor to Nixon, admits the war on drugs was for throwing people of color in prison by “getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily” (DuVernay). Richard Nixon brings up the war on drugs while “President Ronald Reagan turned that rhetorical war into a literal one…The modern war on drugs was declared by Ronald Reagan in 1982″(DuVernay), and If “you’re black with crack cocaine, you’re going to prison, for basically the rest of your life. And if you’re white, you pretty much get a slap on the wrist.” (DuVernay). Malkia Cyril, an executive director with the center for media justice, explains that ” black people in general are overrepresented in news as criminals.”(DuVernay) When she said over-represented, she means “that they are shown as criminals more times than is accurate, that they are actually criminals, based on FBI statistics.” (DuVernay) because of this, people who view the news media criminalize people of color and give them the new name “Super Predator.” Political lobbying groups can have a huge influence on the law-making process, and one of those groups is ALEC. ALEC which stands for the “American Legislative Exchange Council” gets the lawmakers to introduce bills that could become law in a state, for example, the “Stand Your Ground” law that “created an atmosphere where gun sales boomed” (DuVernay). ALEC makes legislation that benefits its contributors for example ” Walmart is the biggest seller of long guns in the U.S., has been the largest retailer of bullets in the world.” (DuVernay) Who benefited from the gun sale boom. Michael Hough, a Maryland State Senator that supports ALEC, says the accusations put on ALEC for being “in favor of imprisoning a bunch of people” (DuVernay) is false and calls the addressed facts as being “almost like folklore.”(DuVernay) The events also occur when ALEC also passes the SB1070 “that gave police the right to stop anyone they thought looked like an immigrant” (DuVernay) which further increases the prison population.
One of the pathos, which is the emotions that a person may feel, is demonstrated by the fact that blacks are portrayed as “Beasts” that needed to be controlled” (DuVernay), criminals, and the term “Superpredators” (DuVernay) that’s is shown in a scene in the blockbuster film Birth of a Nation. In this scene, the white woman sitting on a log sees an African American slave crawling out the bushes. She decides to throw herself off a cliff when he gets a little closer to her since she thinks she will get raped by the African American slave (DuVernay). The negative lens painted resulted in police shooting of incapacitated blacks, black people getting fire-hosed by firefighters or the mobs of angry white folk, being thrown in prison when innocent, and facing lots of persecution. The KKK, also known as the Ku Klux Klan, now has a better reason to lynch and hang blacks for whites to see their beaten lifeless body thinking they are killing dirty uncontrollable beasts instead of human beings.
Logos demonstrated in 13th is the mind-blowing statistics used for example the US containing “5% of the world’s population but having 25% of the world’s prisoners” (DuVernay) Combined with the fact that “1 in 17 of white people being prisoners for versus the 1 in 3 black people” (DuVernay). Also, that prison population in 1970 started at 357,292 and grew to 513,900 in just a decade later to the ending population of around 2 million people by the start of the 21st century (DuVernay). The logos here presents the fact that the prison population count is unreasonably high since some of the prisoners should not be there. Also, that the audience should look at the bigger picture when judging someone than condemning them due to their skin color.
While 13th is persuasive, there is some bias with the credibility of the sources or ethos used in 13th. The representative of ALEC, Michael Hough, wasn’t the most excellent representation of the opposing side’s argument and his words of choice were not too convincing at best. They should add more people on the opposing side instead of the amount someone can count with one hand. Because of this, the ethos in 13th is a bit on the weak side compared to the logos and pathos used.
13th is the documentary by Ava DuVernay uses logos, ethos, and pathos to portray her message persuasively. DuVernay shows this with her logos, for example, the statistics given about the black imprisonment rate versus the white imprisonment rate. The people represented to give credibility to the message she wants to give that being ethos with pathos that gives the audience gruesome pictures and videos of lynching blacks that makes people’s stomachs or hearts ache. The 13th amendment was supposed to help blacks and minorities, but instead, the amendment’s wording creates an exploitable loophole that now works against them.
Works Cited
13th, Directed by Ava DuVernay, Netflix, 2016.
Lunsford, Andrea A., Michal Brody, Lisa S. Ede, Beverly J. Moss, Carole Clark Papper, and Keith Walters. Everyone’s an Author. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2017. Print.
Rhetorical Reflection My Rhetorical Analysis is on the slavery movie 13th which was about the effects of the amendment that was supposed to help minorities like blacks. The beginning like the thesis and my summary of the film was in good shape. My concepts of pathos, ethos, and logos were fine when I explained the definition of the concept while showing how pathos, ethos, and logos worked was something I should have elaborated instead of giving more of a summary to explain them. Sadly, I should have looked at the paper again, due to the amount of unquoted sentences that need quotation which cost me a lot of points with accidental plagiarism. I also had a short rebuttal that I still need to add a bit more to and also a work cited. This paper was honestly a mess that could have been avoided if I used a bit of caution and a better review when I was done.