Rhetorical Appeal

within Modern
Documentaries

By. Hannah Lehew

Professor Jan Babcock

ENGL 137H Section 010
10/09/16
 Chronic illness is an all too common and far too neglected problem. According to the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about half of adults worldwide have been

diagnosed with at least one chronic condition.

Sweatshops are a plague on democracy and a significant environmental threat.

These are the core audience messages contained within two documentaries designed to

influence the opinions and actions of viewers toward specified objectives. The documentary

Trial by Fire, directed by Charles Mattox, aims to promote awareness for one specific chronic

conditionComplex Regional Pain Syndrome or CRPS. The True Cost, directed by Andrew

Morgan, attempts to expose the negative impacts of sweatshop labor and promotes fair trade

goods within American society. Mattox and Morgan both use interviewing as their principle

technique to try to connect and personalize the impacts of their subject matter within humanity

and, perhaps, through association, the individual lives of their target audiences. Both films also

attempt to connect their audiences to subject matter through the lenses of the audiences

everyday lives and decisionswhether through the commonplace personalities of the people that

are introduced with chronic illness, or the stark contrast between the lives of sweatshop
employees and western consumers, or within the common trends in the clothes we purchase

without ever really thinking about where they come from. Both documentaries focus primarily

on pathos appeals, secondarily on ethos, third on kairos and finally on logos to persuade their

target audiences.

Pathos appeals are achieved front-and-center within both documentaries through the

use of personal recollections by those negatively affected by their problems. The use of mixed

age and ethnic groups within Trial by Fire and The True Cost interviews highlights the large

range of people affected by CRPS/sweatshops and provides viewers a face to sympathize with

and associate to the cause. This is the most painful 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week disease

known to man, says Randy Koehler, a Trial by Fire interviewee facing type-II CRPS. Diane

Kordek, a type-II CRPS mother explains that at one point she considered suicide to escape from

torturous, unbearable pain, and a fear of becoming unable to care for my own daily needs.

Beyond patient interviews, 19 year-old Hannah Grace Bernard passed away just two days after

the end of filming for Trial by Fire. Mattox and his crew were devastated by this loss and

decided to dedicate the film to Hannahs memory. By memorializing Hannah and her tragic

story, Mattox provides viewers with perhaps the most visceral pathos appeal imaginable

placing an exclamation point on the seriousness of the disease to drive home why research is an

absolute necessity.

Morgan was inspired to film The True Cost after learning of a 2013 factory fire in Dhaka,

Bangladesh that killed over 1,000 innocent workers. Morgan's film provides a documentary

account of a 23-year-old Bangladeshi garment factory worker named Shima, highlighting, among

other tragedies, that her income is only around $10 per month. Shima testifies to how she and

other workers tried to start a union in a failed attempt to improve their factory's unsafe working
conditions and to earn a living wage. The response when they gave the factory owner their list of

demands: They were severely beaten. Stories like Shimas appeal to the disparity between the

dismal lives of these workers and the privileged lives of consumers that are the benefactors of

their suffering. For viewers, these true stories help erase the divide between a day with hunger

and a casual day of shopping. The intended message of inequity is clear as it attempts to move

the viewer from an emotional response to direct consumer action with the ultimate goal of

helping reduce the effects of sweatshop labor by creating more conscientious consumers that will

demand change on behalf of the powerless through their buyer choices.

Both documentaries contain strong ethos indicators that are reinforcedalbeit in the

backgroundby the directors biographies, which may be found within the learn more tabs on

both promotion websites. Mattox is renowned for disease advocacy and has received the Blue

Circle Champion award for his work with the International Diabetes Association. Mattoxs

credibility (as well as a sympathetic appeal) are bolstered through first-hand experience assisting

his mother in dealing with CRPS. The authority of Trial by Fire is also reinforced by favorable

reviews from CRPS clinical and patient communities and through critical acceptance as the

recipient of six awards from various film festivals including the Hollywood, Florida Film

Festival where Trial by Fire received the Best Director of a Documentary award.

Morgans credibility is acknowledged through international recognition as a film director

for his work on Improving a Better Tomorrow. He studied cinematography at the Los Angeles

Film School and co-founded a hybrid filmmaking studio called Untold Creative. Morgans

biography is joined by the biographies of each member of his creative team to further increase

credibility on The True Cost website. Most of his team has extensive experiences within the
fashion industry that accompany their journalistic experiences to bring their individual, yet

complimentary perspectives to the table.

Both documentaries also include specialist interviews to provide objectivity and increase

ethos and logos. In Trial by Fire, CRPS specialist Dr. Ashraf Hanna of the Florida Spine

Institute details his experiences with CRPS patients as well as the use of intravenous Ketamine

as a viable treatment option. After the premiere of the documentary in Tampa, Florida, a live

question and answer session with Mattox and Dr. Hanna provided another layer of access to

subject-matter expertise through direct panel-audience feedback. The True Cost features

interviews with Stella McCartney, Livia Firth and Vandana Shiva who are all known pioneers in

fair trade advocacy. The use of expert, specialty testimony in both documentaries gives viewers

another layer of perspectives about the issues at hand and thereby further strengthens each

documentarys credibility through authoritative dialogue.

With patients becoming more open about their experiences, now is an excellent timeframe

to air Trial by Fire. Since its release, Trial by Fire has received excellent commentary from those

suffering with the disorder as well as positive accolades at the various film festivals. It has

inspired action toward research without much cause for opposition. An attached GoFundMe site

has raised $26,800 for CRPS research as of this writing.

The True Cost on the other hand elicits levels of guilt from its viewers that might cause

them to reject further input. The controversial tone and associated guilt may be contributing

factors to The True Cost receiving critical comments and a Google search-based Rotten Tomato

score of only 68 percent. The True Cost contains very explicit calls to action for consumers to

shop for fair trade items that will last and to donate used items to be reused and repurposed either
domestically or overseas. The documentarys website also provides viewers with a list of fair

trade businesses to buy from in order to stop supporting sweatshops. A critical viewer (or one

that is feeling guilty) could easily perceive this listing as a lobbying attempt on behalf of fair

trade businesses to sway consumer decisions toward specific profit interests instead of worker or

environmental interests.

The logos appeals within both documentaries are provided through statistics but also in

more subjective ways. Through pathos appeals to suffering, logical inferences of taking action

toward research or reform occur by default. In Trial by Fire additional statistics beyond

information received during Dr. Hannas interview are not required because the film achieves

logic toward research by focusing on the inherent logic of helping patients. By seeing first-hand

how lives are affected by CRPS, the viewer is driven toward the logic of research and treatment

as viable means of alleviating the suffering. The True Cost relies on a greater measure of

statistics from reliable sources such as The Clean Clothes Campaign as well as expert testimony

to portray the scale of the issue and further support the idea of a call to action. One of the most

impactful facts within The True Costone that adds yet another layer to the logic of changeis

that the fashion industry is the second most polluting right after oil. Many might not otherwise

consider the impact clothing could have upon the environment but are quickly hit with factual

reality after viewing the film. This statistic also plays back more subjectively into pathos by

making viewers feel increased ownership by being contributors to more than just one problem.

This dual dilemma of workers and environment bolsters the urgency of the problem and the logic

behind changing spending habits in response.

While both documentaries effectively use ethos, pathos, logos and kairos techniques to

influence viewers to take action, Trial by Fire is better received by audiences mainly because it
lacks the moral dilemma forced within The True Cost. Both tend to lean most heavily on the

power of emotional pathos appeals through testimony. The credibility of the directors and

subject matter experts provides the second-most layer of appeal. Finally, statistics and more

subjective logic arguments (that rely on pathos and ethos to be formed) round out the methods

used in hopes of swaying the opinions of viewers toward their respective causes.

Works Cited

"About | True Cost | A Fashion Film." The True Cost, truecostmovie.com/about/.

"Chronic Disease Overview | Publications | Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion |

CDC." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/overview/.

"Dr. Ashraf Hanna Featured in New Documentary, Trial By Fire, Showcasing How IV Ketamine

is." PR Newswire: Press Release Distribution, Targeting, Monitoring and Marketing,

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dr-ashraf-hanna-featured-in-new-documentary-trial-by-

fire-showcasing-how-iv-ketamine-is-successfully-treating-crps--rsd-patients-300211953.html.

"A Pain That Few Know... | Huffington Post." The Huffington Post,

www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-cainjackson/a-pain-that-few-know_b_8975800.html.

"Trial by Fire." Facebook - www.facebook.com/trialbyfiremovie/.

"The True Cost." Facebook, www.facebook.com/pages/The-True-Cost/880283732091633?

fref=ts.

"Watch Trial by Fire - A Film Based on CRPS/RSD Online On Demand on Vimeo." Vimeo,

vimeo.com/ondemand/trialbyfiremovie.
Pictures

"'The True Cost' Exposes Dark Side of Clothing Industry." Digital Trends, "'The True Cost'

Exposes Dark Side of Clothing Industry." Digital Trends,

www.digitaltrends.com/business/a-documentary-funded-by-kickstarter-unstitches-

the-horrors-of-the-clothing-industry/.

"Trial by Fire Film on RSD/CRPS by Charles Mattocks - GoFundMe." GoFundMe.com,

www.gofundme.com/trialbyfire.