Journal Entry
Peace Little Girl (Daisy)
The rhetoric I have chosen for my first journal piece is one of the most controversial political commercials in history. I have included a transcript here, but if you have a media player I strongly recommend that you click the link and choose the Peace Little Girl (Daisy) thumbnail (it is the second from the top in the left hand column). The sounds and images are essential to really understanding the impact of this commercial. Some of you may have seen it before, or heard about it. The commercial was only run once on television and then pulled because it had such a profound effect on television audiences.
Peace Little Girl (Daisy)
Click Here For Daisy Commercial
Transcript:
SMALL CHILD [with flower]: One, two, three, four, five, seven, six, six, eight, nine, nine ....
MAN: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.
[Sounds of exploding bomb.]
JOHNSON: These are the stakes: To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the darkness. We must either love each other, or we must die.
ANNOUNCER: Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.
Analysis:
The commercial begins with the innocent voice of a little girl struggling to count the petals of a daisy. She sits in nature with the sounds of birds chirping in the background. Then a male voice overpowers the littlle girl in a different kind of countdown as the camera zooms into the eye of the little girl to reveal an explosion.
The statement made by Johnson represents a tacit persuasion pattern. Isocolons are structured in an either/or pattern:
to make a world in which all of God's children can live
we must love each other
or
to go into the darkness
we must die
The announcer's statement (voiced over a black background with the phrase "vote for President Johnson on November 3rd ") represents the directive. According to Lanham, this simple phrase would reflect high style because it is serious, dramatic, and emotional.
As a matter of fact, the whole commercial represents a high style. The drama of the mushroom cloud, the emotional draw of the child juxtaposed to the dramatic countdown is meant to be persuasive from a pathos perspective. There is no logic in the argument; it functions on fear. It isn't surprising that this commercial is considered one of the first mudslinging commercials in television history. The implication that a vote for Goldwater means certain death is a pretty serious accusation.
posted by Yvette Heasley @ 6:02 PM
1 Comments:
I guess it depends on what you mean by "I remember Goldwater." Did you like him as a candidate? In which case this commercial might have irritated you still causing a reaction. Or if you didn't like him you may have at least felt agreement with it. I only have experience with the commercial as a historical study and I always try to consider the social climate of its time, sort of like we do with literature that is classic and contraversial. Would the people of the 1960's have had more of a reaction because an atomic threat seemed more relavant to them? I understand what you are saying Kathy, how does time period shifts change the effectiveness of an argument. Would a persuasive argument on, say, women's liberation have as much impact today as in the 1950's or the 1920's? are these techniques described by Latham expected to hold up through time?
Post a Comment
<< Home