Cultural Rhetoric

Several years ago, I remember watching several commercials in which Subway would use top sports players in their commercials in order to promote their product. One in particular that I remember is the commercial with Michael Phelps. In the commercial, it shows Michael swimming and training for the Olympics. In the middle of his training, the announcer is saying how training is a lifelong passion, and then his mother comes in with a Subway footlong sandwich, and then the announcer states that that passion is fueled by a passion for footlongs. This is an example of a false cause fallacy because it is saying that Michael became a famous and successful swimmer because of his passion for footlong subs. The next line is a sneaky one that many don’t catch, but the announcer then says, “That’s why Debbie Phelps is always there for her son Michael.” Seems harmless enough but it is really an appeal to emotion. It is saying that in order to be a good mother, you need to buy Subway for your ki...

Billboards have a common appearance in our everyday lives because they are used to grab your attention as well as make you think or act a certain way. Billboards are usually placed on the sides of highways and busy streets in order for many people to see them. The Elm Grove Police Department in Wisconsin uses this to their advantage by the creation of interactive billboards which were made to help spread the idea of “slower is better” while driving. Each of the billboards showed the speed of each passing driver, which was then used to represent the amount of money a person might have to pay if they were to get into an accident, how many days they could spend in the hospital due to their speed, and the percentage of having a car crash based off of their speed. By showing this kind of information to drivers, this makes them think twice before they make the choice to speed or drive too fast for the road conditions. I think the arguments made by the usage of the billboards are reasonab...

Looking up fallacies is always funny. There are nerdy jokes, political argument, and panda pictures. I was looking at some of these laughable pictures and a came across a picture of a panda. My love for pandas immediately drew me to it. Upon taking a closer look I read what it said; "If silent movies are black and white and pandas are black and white, then pandas must be silent movies!" That statement is a logical fallacy. A logical fallacy is an argument based off of an illogical statement or invalid information. A non sequitur fallacy is a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow the previous argument or statement. Basically that means that because thing 'B' has something in common with thing 'A' it must also have the same relation to thing 'C' that thing 'A' has. Just because pandas and silent movies share the trait of being black and white does not mean that they are mutually the same, as we can tell. This form of rhetor...

A few days ago, I saw Dove’s men’s shampoo commercial on Facebook. It started with an office worker walking through an office. He stopped in front of his fellow worker’s desk and called him. The fellow worker lifted his head, flipping his unrealistically gorgeous long hair with a sound effect. Seeing that, the man stood stiffened, staring at his coworker with confusion on his face. Then the hair started to fly around again. The man asked, “Did you do something on your hair? Because I see that women’s shampoo commercial effect.” The coworker remembered that he used a girl’s shampoo in the morning and rushed out the office to a store, fluttering his hair. He grabbed a Dove men’s shampoo and washed his hair with it. After that, he looked in the mirror confidently with a normal length man’s hair and breathed a sigh of relief. Then the commercial said, “Women’s shampoo isn’t made for you. Dove Men+Care is.” The advertisement was trying to make the viewers think that men should use men’...

I was watching TV with my sisters one night over Christmas break and Cheerios commercial came on. The commercial was about a family: the Dad had to work a 3rd shift and you could tell it was a struggle for everyone. It starts with the mom and son eating breakfast and the dad leaving. You see the son, Max, looking slightly heartbroken. Then the camera shows a house at night. The little boy gets out of bed and sneaks into the kitchen. He opens the fridge and is pulling out the milk when his clearly exhausted dad enters. When he sees his son awake, he asks what he is doing and, with complete innocence the little boy replies “I just wanted to eat breakfast with you.” At this point, my sisters and I all went “Aww!” (as I am sure most of women would say). The commercial ends with the father and the son sitting at the table eating cheerios. The commercial was effectively trying to persuade you to buy cheerios. The video almost entirely relies on pathos to make its argument strong. I thin...

It was a Sunday afternoon and we were watching football. This commercial came on about buying a new clothing trend. They had Zac Efron modeling clothes. He was modeling underwear from Abercrombie and Fitch. Then They had another commercial with Justin Bieber modeling the Calvin Klein underwear. This was appealing to Illegitimate Authority. It’s this fallacy because they used two celebrities to model. They only used them because they were good looking.  Not everyone looks like Justin Bieber and Zac Efron in underwear. This lowers men’s self esteem. Some fat kids might find this insulting. This can make kids go into a non-eating habit. One kid in my class said and I quote “ Abercrombie doesn’t like fat kids.” I don’t know if he was upset. He sounded kind of angry. This is the exact things that I am talking about. Kids don’t like when they use fit people to model clothes that some can’t fit into. Zac Efron and and Justin Bieber are two males that are super fit. Sometimes this...

Last week I was watching TV, and saw a commercial for Old Spice. Everyone knows Old Spice for the ridiculous commercials. Although they are very funny they have no logical standpoint. Some of them say that they can make you fly, have extreme strength or even pick up any girl anywhere just by using Old Spice. Although I cannot speak from experience, I am very sure that Old Spice cannot make you fly, will not make you like superman, and will not be the only factor in getting girls to like you. Terry Crews, the poster boy for Old Spice, is a very muscular, outlandish character. They want to persuade you to believe that wearing Old Spice will make you more manly more muscular and all around better. It might make you smell better, but that’s about it. Despite the commercial being completely misleading and a little weird, it seems to be effective, Old Spice is a very popular brand and its commercials are pretty popular. No matter how strange or funny these commercials are they are effectiv...

Today while I was flipping through the ‘Spring Preview’ issue of the magazine Bazaar, I came across an advertisement for Clinique’s Clinique Smart, which is supposedly a new ‘custom repair serum’. For those of you that don’t know, Clinique is a cosmetic company that sells over-priced makeup and skin care products. This new product is claimed to be capable of using its patented technology to custom repair skin as needed, where needed, for all ages and ethnicities. The advertisement also says, “Meet a serum smart enough to understand your skin’s past and change its future.” First of all, can we just talk about how ridiculous it is to personify a skin care product!? Not only do they talk about this product as if it has mystical powers, they also speak as if this product can mentally “understand your skin’s past” and physically “change its future”. I don’t know how effective this product is, as I have never used it, however, my guess is that it does not actually have these powers. To p...