Blog City

The advertisement utilized by Sizzler in 1991 is interesting to say the least.  The ad as a whole consists of around four minutes of actual footage utilizing various forms of rhetoric in order to persuade the viewer to eat at sizzlers.  The three main ways that the ad utilizes rhetoric is through the creation of ethos within the customers established through their perceived wealth, the establishment of pathos in the viewer through references to American Values, and the exaggerated appeal of the food creating a light sense of logos in the viewer.

Through utilizing various forms of jewelry and clothing, the author of the ad presents the idea that only the wealthy eat at Sizzler’s.  Throughout the advertisement virtually every adult is dressed in some form of luxury clothing.  Multiple men are presented in suits, all women possess some form of jewelry, and any men not in suits are in business casual clothing.  While there is no over dramatic creation of viewable wealth, the advertisement creates the perception that only those of the upper class dine at Sizzler’s.  Through the creation of this dynamic, it makes the consumer subconsciously believe that if they eat at Sizzler’s, they are a part of this upper class.

The add then parallel’s this sense of wealth by appealing to the overall values that America possesses.  Through the proper utilization of the sailor and his girlfriend, a reference is made to any time that the viewer has felt that same love.  This love is then escalated to a family scale, as constant couples and children are portrayed throughout the advertisement.  Through doing this, the viewer feels not only the sense of love and family so dear to the American citizen, but also that those who eat at sizzlers are ultimately successful.  The American dream is to have a home, family, and control of one’s own destiny.  The add, through making every customer appear this way, appeals to this dream in all Americans.

Finally and most basically, the add appeals to human logic by putting forth the notion that people should dine at Sizzler’s because they have good food.  Throughout the ad a multitude of delicacies, from steak to lobster, are seen alongside all of the happy people, as discussed earlier.  Through over exaggerating the grandeur of the food and drink as a whole, while simultaneously showing that the restaurant serves alcohol in the form of wine, many would-be customers are persuaded to dine at Sizzler’s.

Despite the overall obnoxious, cheery demeanor that the Sizzler’s add possesses, it is a very poignant rhetorical device.  The add manages to create the depiction of wealth and luxury, while simultaneously appealing to the average American’s major values.  This tends to be a very narrow, difficult line to tread, but the add does it seamlessly.  Then, through the strategic placement and exaggeration of the restaurants delicacies throughout the ad, it finalizes the idea in the eye of the consumer that the restaurant possesses good food, good people, and has the same values as the average American.  While the add was effective however, I do believe that a similar message, with greater impact, could have been delivered if the add had been more concise.

I have to say of all the deliberations I attended, this one was by far my favorite.  In terms of how the deliberation was structured, it was poorly worded in the three approaches.  The first approach was treating players as students first, the second one was as employees, and the third approach was treating them at some middle ground.  In general, it was believe that there was a combination of being an athlete and an employee that was required, so in that respect I feel that there was a quite a bit of polarization in the three separate approaches.

However, what really made me love this deliberation was all the different opinions present.  Personally, I am of the opinion that athletes should get paid, at least at top tier sporting schools.  Students going to Alabama for football aren’t going there for the education, and the physical and mental stress placed on them by the program is much greater than if they were playing for a very small school.  As such, the pay would be somewhat justified, as long as it wasn’t a significant, multi-million sum of money.

I must say that my opinion was in the minority however.  The prevailing decision was that by giving scholarships like they currently are, the schools are de facto paying the athletes.  Through expanding this program to provide a monthly stipend for food, books, etc., paying athletes is basically already here in that respect.

One point of view that I did find interesting however, was signing players in the same way the NFL creates contracts for their athletes.  In this case the prevailing opinion was that scholarships should be removed in this case, and it is upon the player’s fiscal responsibility to ensure the costs of school was covered.  I wholeheartedly supported this opinion, however I feel that most coaches would disagree, not trusting their players with that kind of money and then putting it on them to remember to pay for their tuition.

However, another point people continued to harp on was that playing sports in college was a 40 hour a week job, and that students should be compensated for it.  The major comparison was to people who were attending the university on academic scholarship not being forced to work this massive 40 hour work week.  One major point I brought up against this was that (generally) students attending a school on academic scholarship are taking much harder major and classes than students attending the school on athletic scholarships.  While I do understand that this statement is incredibly general, I do feel that it is somewhat accurate.

Overall, as I said, I loved this deliberation and found it much more interesting and engaging than the vast majority of the other deliberations that I attended over the semester in RCL.  In general, the deliberation processes this semester taught me a lot about having constructive discussion without argument, and this is going to be one of the major points I take away from the class moving forward.

Recently I decided to attend the 23rd Annual Kenneth Burke Lecture in Rhetoric.  Having no idea what to expect, I went in with an open mind.  After a few awards were given out we got to the meat of the program, which was a speech by Northwestern’s esteemed Dr. David Zarefsky.  He came to give a speech on the rhetoric that Lincoln utilized.

When I saw Lincoln’s name on the brochure, I immediately expected it to be a rhetorical analysis of the Gettysburg Address.  This seems like it would be the most obvious topic of rhetoric utilization within speeches.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the presentation was no on this speech, but on his second inaugural speech.  The main topic of discussion was the the utilization of “somehow”, “may”, and “if” within the speech.  I was actually incredibly impressed with how much thought actually went into Lincoln’s decision to utilize these three words.

The major reason for using somehow was to reconcile everyone’s differing thoughts for the cause of the war.  A major point he made in his speech was how “interest”, a major point utilized within many of Lincoln’s speeches, was representative of that way in which slavery was in the economic interest of the South.  He stated that this economic interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.  By utilizing somehow, everyone’s reason for the war in their own mind becomes justified.   Through vagueness, everyone’s belief regarding the cause of the war is justified, and people feel a personal connection to the war.

He then later goes on to place the word “may” within the speech.  By doing this it gives Lincoln the sense of uncertainty moving forward, but also of not being certain.  It makes the idea of slavery seem to have a chance to be supported by God, and not definitively say that it was the cause of the war.  As a result, it isn’t gloating over the North’s win, nor is it justifying the South’s actions.  By staying ambiguous Lincoln is able to keep calm within the community without alienating a single side.

Finally, the speaker than goes on to justify the use of “if”.  This makes him seem not all knowing in the way that politicians today typically are (He cited Georg Bush and another man misquoting Lincoln), and as a result makes his speech more personable.  Through the utilization of the term if, it creates the idea that the people of the period must put their faith in God and hope that their actions were just.

In general, I thought that the speech was great. I had never considered how much thought could go into using three simple words like somehow, may, and if.  It really opened my eyes up to how difficult crafting speeches can be.  In addition, it showed how much power could be had in a short speech.  This speech turned into Lincoln’s living will I believe the speaker stated, and it really does seem to embody his belief for moving forward with reconstruction at the time.  I feel that despite the negative attention this speech received at the time of publishing, it was almost as great as his Gettysburg Address.

A second deliberation that I attended was on the role of University Health in Penn State’s.  This deliberation turned out to be the prime one which I thought was funny seeing as it was a very mild topic. However, being the last listed, non-rescheduled deliberation, that was to be expected.  Almost 40 of us ended up being crammed into a small room on the lowest floor of the library (The room was impossible to find; I spent a good 30 minutes looking for it).

Now with such a big audience, one wouldn’t expect them to disappoint.  But they did.  The approaches they chose were very strange across the board in my opinion, and they did a very poor job of contextualizing the actual role of University Health within the Penn state community.

The first approach that the group introduced was basically socialized medicine on a university wide scale.  This basically amounted to a tuition hike for everyone in order to pay for those who couldn’t afford it.  The main problem that I had with this approach was that it would end up increasing the price of tuition for everyone, including those who can’t afford medicine to begin with, which seems counter intuitive.  In addition, the services University Health provides are very mild, which I will touch on later.

The second approach that the group introduced was focused on the student being the only one responsible for their health, which was for the most part in no way related to the first approach.  A big idea here that we discussed was that it’s the student’s responsibility to keep themselves healthy and it wasn’t on the school to keep the students healthy in terms of diet and exercise, an idea which is blatantly obvious in my opinion.

The final approach focused on problems within University Health itself.  The major problem that came up was the wait time, which seemed simple enough.  I had never experienced this, so to hear that people had horror stories was a surprise.  However, at the end I asked a student complaining if they made appointments or just walked in, and they said they just went in and asked for help.  Honestly I had no idea how they expected not to wait a long time when they didn’t schedule an appointment.  This had me a little confused.

The biggest problem with the deliberation as a whole that I had a problem with was the way the deliberation group didn’t contextualize University Health.  Everyone across the board was acting like University Health was a hospital and that they should be able to receive treatment there and not be sent to a hospital.  The group really needed to put forth the fact that the center was for simple problems, not emergency care.  One person said they broke their foot and were angry that University Health made them take a hospital to the ER; they just wanted treatment at University Health.  No one really seemed to understand that University Health was not capable nor able to provide higher care treatment from a liability perspective.  I tried to bring this up, but no one really paid attention to this point when I said it.  This was a major point in my opinion that needed to be emphasized and it was something sorely lacking about the deliberation.  Overall, I found the deliberation to be somewhat bland, and while it did facilitate constructive ideas, the ideas made were either out of context or incredibly obvious.

This even turned out to quite the fiasco, we arrived to Schwab auditorium and the doors were locked.  Luckily someone conveniently opened the doors and we slipped in.  Apparently the even pulled much more interest than was expected.  Once inside, greeters were blocking the doors to the auditorium, and they basically were telling everyone the auditorium was full and we either had to stand in the waiting area and listen or leave.  Despite this, a few passionate fans of Sarah tried to barge through, ultimately being kicked out by the aggressive greeters, but luckily we were able to stay in the waiting area and hear the presentation over the loudspeaker.

Overall, I felt that this event was very enjoyable and provided a unique perspective on police reports.  The story she told involved a police investigation of a man that started as a missing person’s report who was eventually found dead.  A repair man stumbled upon his body in a park when he was using the bathroom in the woods, and immediately reported it to the cops.  As to be expected, this immediately drew a lot of interest to him, and he was questioned.  He told officers that he was driving home and had to pee, but they were skeptical due to the fact that the body was almost 200 feet from the place he stopped his car, and hidden under a log opposite the road, therefore there was a high probability he knew what he was looking for.

They then questioned him about bottles found near the scene of the crime.  The repairman was really into drinking beer, but upon pressuring admitted that he drank whiskey and rum when he was in the car.  Ironically, this made him seem more innocent, as the bottle was brandy.  The main reason he was being so aggressively questioned however was due to his criminal history.  He had been caught multiple times for streaking, the most recent of witch involved flashing a women who turned out to be an officer and then running off.  The officer however proceeded to take clothing from the mans car, and the man was caught when he reported the clothing missing.

However, in the end this man end up being found innocent.  An initial polygraph revealed that he was lying, but after a second polygraph, when he didn’t seem nervous, he was found to be innocent.  In the end the man wouldn’t talk to Serial and the case is still open I believe.

The most interesting part I found about this presentation was the way in which the speaker described gathering the information.  She said she went through stacks of reports and was able to recreate the story in an entertaining way by noticing very small details within the reports.  I was amazed about how much skill it took to reconstruct a small story like this.  I believe the speaker said she went through almost a thousand pages of police reports to craft the 30 minute podcast.  I also thought it was funny how serious she said her fact checker took reports.  She said basically every one of her reports was corrected even more so than when she worked for a science journal I believe she said.  Overall, the experience was enjoyable however.