Journal 3

The 3 artifacts I decided to choose were based off of "audience" and they are a play, David Mamet's American Buffalo, a movie poster, La La Land, and a sketch of a movie theater. The play obviously uses rhetoric to tell a story, convince an audience who the good guy is and who the bad guy is, and comment on society today and how money can drive a person to do outrageous tasks.

The movie poster for the new movie La La Land, shows a couple dancing with a beautiful night sky in the background and the contrast of the girl's yellow dress. Just seeing that picture makes someone think of words or terms like love, beauty, fun, song, etc. The poster even says on it "here's to the fools who dream." With the movie being called La La Land you can already get a sense of a dreamy, feel-good type of movie. This sort of rhetoric is barely using words to get the meaning across.

Lastly, the sketch of a movie theater is simply all white with rows of seats and a screen. The only word it has on it is "PRESENTS" written across the movie screen. This is a very simple idea yet it is already getting a point across that something is going to be shown and someone is going to watch it.

All of the artifacts have something to do with audience and entertainment and how rhetoric is used in our daily lives where we least expect it such as in the movies or in a stage production or play.
For the play, Gladwell's point about the social life of paper and how it is used in our daily lives is very important. Even though the play is meant to be staged, for a theater scholar, reading a play is just as important as seeing it. Being able to read through the play and make notes in it, especially if you're an actor and you are on your feet reading from it or doing a scene (similar to the air traffic controllers) it is almost a necessity. In the movie poster, Wysocki's comments on contrast and design hold true as you are looking at how the girl's yellow dress completely contrasts the dark purple sky, sparking a feeling or emotion. The words on the poster and the font as well are used similar to a font used for old Broadway shows, telling the audience that this movie could be about old Hollywood or musicals, which it is.