Ashali Knox
Mr. G
Writing 101
07 October 2020
Rhetorical Analysis
I chose to write my Rhetorical Analysis on the Netflix series “When They See Us.” The series was based on a true story and it is mainly about a group of young African American teenagers being wrongfully convicted of a crime they did not commit. On April 19, 1919, a female jogger, named Trisha Meili, was beaten, raped, and left for dead in Central Park, located in New York. Throughout the series, the director, Ava DuVernay, recompensed careful attention to the horrific power of language was used, especially how the prosecutors and journalists referred to the teen boys. The author establishes credibility by basing her series off of a true story.
To begin with, she uses different scenes that actually occurred in New York and included them in her series, but she changed some things up to make it truly her series. The author uses the black teens because she knew how this would really open the eyes of many Americans and she wanted them to actually understand how things were during this time frame. For instance, in the scene where the boys were being interrogated by investigators without their guardian around and how they wanted them to confess to something they didn’t commit just proves how bad they really wanted to solve the case no matter what and how they were going to do it. The author uses syntax by referring her characters and scenes off of true events. To me, if the author hadn’t written her series this way, it wouldn’t have as much impact and meaning as it does today.
Furthermore, the author uses ethos throughout the series or some of her interest based on how she wrote and scripted every episode. Since this is a very known and popular series on Netflix, many people learned and were impacted from this. She establishes a sense of credibility by conveying her respect and integrity to the ones that watched her series. She makes certain claims that many people during that time and today could really relate to. For this series and many others like this, she has the ability to construct an urgency for change and difference in the world of her audience.
The author really uses rhetorical devices to inform her audience about how the lives of many African American teenage boys were affected during that time. From her using specific characters to the scenes she included in her series, she is informing her audience on how wrongfully black teens are treated by the justice system, the people who are supposed to protect them.