Jenna Layton 2/5/16 Jenna Layton Instructor Maari Carter ENC2135 5 February 2016 When I heard the word genre I used to think it only pertained to the different forms of music such as Jazz, Rock, Pop, etc. However, after being introduced to this topic in ENC2135, I can now say that I know a lot more about genre and the conventions that come with it. I never realized how many conventions of genre there actually are and how they provide such an in-depth analysis of different texts, images, music, and films. As we learned more about genre in class and were made aware of the paper requirements, I decided a documentary film would be the perfect topic for me to write about. This is because I enjoy watching documentary films and learning new information. With the documentary genre, I decided pull examples of conventions of the documentary film genre as well as examples of ethos, pathos, and logos from the film Blackfish. I thought this would be an ideal movie to analyze when it comes to the documentary genre. This analysis of the documentary Blackfish allowed me to focus mostly on examples of ethos and pathos. This documentary focuses on informing and persuading its audience by using emotional appeals (ethos) as well as ethical and logical appeals (ethos and logos). To prove this, I pulled examples of ethos that are provided in Blackfish and put them in my paper. An examples of this, as the interviewee is talking on screen, their name and past or present occupation pops up at the bottom left/right corner of the screen and they continue to talk about some fact that relates back to the movie. This analysis is one example of a convention of genre as most documentaries have an interviewee. Before
Jenna Layton 2/5/16 writing this paper, I did not have much previous knowledge about genre. This generated some troubles with writing certain parts of the paper. Therefore, the hardest part of writing this paper was analyzing logos throughout the movie. This is because I feel that logos did not play a prevalent role in Blackfish as it mostly focuses on ethos and pathos. As I focus on finishing up the final edits of my paper I plan to find more examples of logos from the film Blackfish and incorporate those examples into my paper. This will also add to more analysis of the different conventions of this genre because examples of logos are often found in every documentary film. Aside from what I could have done better I also believe there are parts of this paper that I have done well on. I believe I did an efficient job in the introduction of the paper when I sort of explained exactly what genre is or can be. I also explained examples of pathos used in the film Blackfish and how this type of appeal can sway the audience’s emotions. Along with explaining pathos, I also provided a well-written explanation of ethos commonly found in the documentary genre. To back up these conventions, I provided a few examples of ethos that were in the film. Before writing this paper, I barely had any idea of what genre was, but I knew about pathos, ethos, and logos. However, I didn’t know as much as I know now. For instance, before this course I didn’t know that ethos, pathos, and logos were also known as rhetorical appeals. I also didn’t know that genre had different conventions. As said above, “I never really realized how many conventions of genre there actually are and how they provide such an in-depth analysis of different forms of text, images, music, and films.” Overall, this project taught me how to analyze the different conventions of a certain genre as well as analyze rhetorical appeals, also known as pathos, ethos, and logos.