Category Archives: rcl

All around campus, there have been posters hanging that state “Proud to Support Penn State Football” and also “Proud to Support Penn State Academics”. I feel like both of these posters are largely representative of rhetoric present in the Penn State community. In the wake of everything that has happened, these various buildings on campus and stores around town are sending a message to the public that Penn State is still the great university that it has always been. I also feel like the signs represent the community’s attempt to keep student morale up. The scandal brought a lot of publicity to the Penn State community and I think that the student body is definitely getting hit hard. It’s nice to walk around downtown and see one of the posters in almost, if not every window. These posters also show that this university is not only focused on athletics, but on academics as well. In fact, if you talk to any student academics is most likely the reason that they chose Penn State. These is a shift from the media’s perception of Happy Valley as being a place where we live, breath, and eat sports and that is not the truth. The poster sheds light on the fact that Penn State is a great place to receive a great education. Lastly, I think that the poster stands to show that Penn State still is a great university and an enjoyable place to be. It represents the community’s support for the university and reiterates the point that the students are still something to be proud of.

Throughout the film, “Do the Right Thing”, the characters lacked any form of a rhetorical conversation. Each was focused on only their own opinion, to the point that it escalated to violence. I found it interesting that the people did not have any civilized conversations.  They were always yelling at each other and spouting out racial slurs. To me this was very aggravating because they weren’t solving any problems. This movie is a perfect example of how violence can erupt when rhetoric is not present. Had Sal listened to Buggin’ Out or vice versa then the whole situation could have very easily been avoided. Spike Lee’s use of vulgar language throughout the movie stopped the characters from having any decent conversations. The use of such words ultimately lays the foundation for incidents such as Radio Raheem’s death and the burning of the pizzeria. Also because of the tensions present, the groups of people were unable to reach any type of common ground, again laying the foundation for the future tragedies. I also think that the use of the vulgar language emphasized the power of words. Each group of people had different terms to refer to their opponents and this only added to the previously standing tensions that existed between the races. I personally did not like the movie because of the lack of concessions, but I also think that it shows how important rhetoric is in order to achieve a civil conversation. Each of the characters and their willingness to only have their opinion heard exemplifies how people need to make concessions in order to achieve some form of stability.