Final Project

I found this video on www.youtube.com. This same video is also a commercial often seen on TV. The video/commercial is addressing those watching who have the means to donate to the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BC SPCA). However, its strong use of pathos provokes viewers to change the channel every time it comes on.

In the reading titled “Pathetic Proof: Passionate Appeals” by Crowley and Hawhee, Crowley and Hawhee specifically address how advertisements appeal to the audience’s emotions in order to get the audience to respond to advertiser’s messages. Crowley and Hawhee state: “Contemporary advertisers and political spin artists also understand the important role played by emotion in our responses to their messages. The most obvious modern use of emotional appeals appears in advertisements that appeal to consumers’ desire for success (“be all you can be;” “just do it!”) or their fear of losing status in their communities (“don’t let this happen to you!”).” (Crowley and Hawhee, 3) Although the BC SPCA video does not appeal to consumers’ desire for success or their fear of losing status in their communities, there is still a clear use of emotional appeals within this video working to appeal to viewers’ love of animals (the interpretation here being “don’t let innocent animals suffer”).

The main emotions provoked by this video are sadness and pity. According to Aristotle, “pity may be defined as a feeling of pain caused by the sight of some evil, destructive or painful, which befalls one who does not deserve it, and which we might expect to befall ourselves or some friends of ours, and moreover to befall us soon.” (Aristotle, 77) Aristotle goes on to define what people pity as well. “All unpleasant and painful things excite pity if they tend to destroy pain and annihilate; and all such evils as are due to chance, if they are serious. The painful and destructive evils are: death in its various forms, bodily injuries and afflictions, old age, diseases, lack of food. The evils due to chance are: friendlessness, scarcity of friends (it is a pitiful thing to be torn away from friends and companions), deformity, weakness, mutilation; evil coming from a source from which good ought to have come; and the frequent repetition of such misfortunes.” (Aristotle, 77) This video provokes pity as these animals have experienced bodily injuries and lack of food. These animals have also endured owners who were sources of pain and suffering rather than sources of good.

One way the video provokes sadness and pity is by zooming in on the sad faces of the animals. The audience sees an example of this right away as the camera slowly zooms in on the first dog shown that is being cared for by a professional. The audience doesn’t know what has happened to this dog, but the dog clearly has a sad look on its face, appealing to the audience’s emotions and making them wonder what has happened to the dog. The video also provokes sadness and pity through the text presented at the beginning of the video. The BC SPCA utilizes the emotional impact of three statements in order to appeal to the audience’s emotions: “every single hour in BC, an animal is violently abused,” “3,000 animals were rescued last year,” and “for hundreds of others, help came too late.” The last statement is especially powerful as it leaves the audience to only imagine what horrible things happened to the hundreds of animals that were helped too late. The viewers’ feelings of hatred toward abusers in this situation are addressed within the reading titled “Affective Economies” by Sara Ahmed. Ahmed states, “Such figures of hate circulate, and indeed accumulate affective value, precisely because they do not have a fixed referent.” Ahmed goes on to say, “The impossibility of reducing hate to a particular body allows hate to circulate in an economic sense, working to differentiate some others from other others, a differentiation that is never ‘over,’ as it awaits for others who have not yet arrived.” (Ahmed, 8) In this situation, the viewers are differentiated from the abusers. The emotional affects of the statement are circulated more intensely as the viewers do not know specifically who or what the actual threat is to these animals. In addition, in order to further break your heart, the video shows animals with various handicaps. The German Shepard that can’t walk strongly provokes sadness and pity as the dog tries to walk across the room in pain and, eventually, cries out for help.

Finally, the video utilizes Sarah McLachlan’s song, “Angel,” to put the viewers in a more emotional state. Within the reading titled “Pathos and Katharsis in ‘Aristotelian’ Rhetoric: Some Implications” by Jeffrey Walker, Walker discusses that music can be used to draw out specific emotions from listeners and to put the souls of the listeners into a specific state. Walker states: “While in medicine the application of a pharmakon causes the secretion of ‘juices’ from the body, resulting in a pleasurable feeling of well-being, in the case of logos or music, the pharmakon is a particular techne – such as the application of a particular rhythm or melodic mode – that causes the soul of the hearer to be ‘put into a state’ or to have its ‘disposition’ rearranged according to the ‘disposition’ of the pharmakon or techne applied, and this ‘state’ is expressed behaviorally and physically as a particular type of pathos: ‘fearful shuddering’, ‘much-weeping pity’, ‘lament-loving longing’, and so forth. The expressed pathos is caused to ‘come out of’ the soul by the pharmakon/techne, just as ‘juices’ are caused to come out of the body. But the different pathe that logos or music may draw from the soul are not necessarily bad or harmful ‘juices,’ for the listeners may be ‘put into a state’ of courage or delight, as well as any other mood, and the katharsis of a pathos from the soul does not involve its being ‘purged away’ but rather its becoming manifest.” (Walker, 4) Sarah McLachlan’s song, “Angel,” causes viewers’ souls to be put in a somber, disheartened state. This state is manifested behaviorally and physically when viewers’ eyes begin to water and their faces begin to reveal their feelings of sadness and pity.

According to Crowley and Hawhee: “Emotional appeals are based on the
assumption that human beings share similar kinds of emotional responses to events: fathers everywhere weep for lost sons; an old man who has lost his family is pitied by everyone, even his enemies. While this may not be true across wide cultural differences, it certainly is the case that people who live in the same community have similar emotional responses. If this were not true, governments would not be able to incite great numbers of people to volunteer for military service during wartime (which is an irrational thing to do, after all).” (Crowley and Hawhee, 7) Here, the emotional appeals within this video are based on the assumption that most people care about animals and how animals are treated.

This video works to inspire the audience to donate money to the BC SPCA. The interpretation that ties the affect of the video to this desired behavior is that the audience does not want more innocent animals to experience what the animals in the video have experienced. Therefore, the audience is asked to believe that their donations will save animals from being abused and neglected.

“In other words, the ancients taught that emotions hold heuristic potential. The emotions even seem to be a means of reasoning: if someone becomes afraid, realizing that she is in a dangerous situation, she quickly assesses her options and takes herself out of danger as quickly as she can. Emotions can also move people to action. If someone feels compassion for someone else, he helps the suffering person.” (Crowley and Hawhee, 8) Here, the audience feels pity towards the animals. This acts as their reasoning and moves them to donate money to the BC SPCA.

It is important to note that Sarah McLachlan is an actual supporter of the BC SPCA as this contributes to the video’s successful affect on viewers. Viewers learn this about Sarah McLachlan within the video as the BC SPCA introduces her as a “BC SPCA supporter.” The persuasive power of a rhetor is discussed within Rhetoric by Aristotle. Aristotle states: “Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.” Aristotle goes on to say, “It is not true, as some writers assume in their treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses.” (Aristotle, 7) Sarah McLachlan establishes ethos and credibility as she is a supporter herself. Viewers are able to put their faith in Sarah McLachlan as she is a good person. Her personal character as a humanitarian easily wins over and persuades the audience.

I also found this next video on www.youtube.com. This same video is also a commercial often seen on TV. This video/commercial is addressing those watching who have the means to donate to the Christian Children’s Fund.

This video can be compared to the BC SPCA video as they both have a lot of similarities that can broadly be attributed to most charity ads. Both videos do not want the public to allow suffering to continue (in this case, now the focus is on children rather than animals). In addition, both videos provoke sadness and pity in similar ways. The Christian Children’s Fund video zooms in on the sad faces of the children just as the BC SPCA video zooms in on the sad faces of the animals. The last child shown within the video strongly provokes sadness and pity as they zoom in on his face and stop the video just as he appears to frown.

The Christian Children’s Fund video also utilizes music to set the mood for viewers. This video features a slow version of “Amazing Grace.” “Amazing Grace” is a powerful song choice as the song usually provokes strong feelings of joy, patriotism, and sadness. Here, the song provokes sadness. The singer’s deep voice demands seriousness from the audience while the slow pace of the song allows the audience to focus on the children and the lyrics together, provoking sadness. The video of the children together with the words “amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see” provoke viewers to think of how the children are “saved” and “found” when they donate.

Works Cited

Ahmed, S. (2004). “Affective Economies.” Social Text, 22. Retrieved May 4, 2011, from http://instructors.dwrl.utexas.edu/davis/files/Ahmed--affective%20economies.pdf

Aristotle. (2004). Rhetoric. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc..

The BC SPCA ad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gspElv1yvc&feature=player_embedded

The Christian Children’s Fund ad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9fDpfsorcw&feature=related

Crowley, S., & Hawhee, D. (2004). “Pathetic Proof: Passionate Appeals.” Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Studies (3 ed., pp. 251-284). New York: Pearson.

Gross, A. G., & Walzer, A. E. (2000). “Pathos and Katharsis in ‘Aristotelian’ Rhetoric: Some Implications.” Rereading Aristotle's Rhetoric (pp. 74-92). Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press.