In the developed countries people often concentrate their lives around money and success, as their basic needs for food, shelter and safety are already satisfied. People tend to complain about the salaries that are too small or insurance that does not cover all the essential expenses they have. People live their lives and do not know about the atrocities and tragedies that are happening in the world every minute. The situation in Africa is the one everyone should be aware of to help those who suffer every day. Invisible Children is a 2006 documentary created by three young filmmakers from the USA, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole, who travelled to Africa to film their adventures. However, the life took a different turn and they started filming the documentary about the situation in North Uganda, where the rebels, known as “Lord’s Resistance Army” (LRA) are terrorizing the country in order to overthrow the government. To achieve their purpose the rebels abduct children from the very early age and turn them to merciless soldiers. The documentary shows that a lot of kids have to live in unbearable conditions in the constant fear of being kidnapped by LRA and thousands of them fleeing from the villages every night to hide underground from the dangers. The film demonstrates the life of those innocent kids, who suffer every day, but remain resilient and hopeful for better future. The directors of Invisible Children successfully apply the traditional rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos and logos to achieve their rhetorical purpose, inform the audience about the situation and convince them to help those who suffer in Africa.
The goal of the documentary is to convince a wide range of audience. First of all, Invisible Children is aimed at people from developed countries, who are not familiar with the situation in North Uganda and have never been in Africa, so they do not understand the way people live there. It is seen from the first moments of the movie, as the context of the situation is gradually introduced for those who are not aware of what is happening. Secondly, the movie is aimed at those who search a way to help global community with their time, talent and money, as it is indicated in the end of the movie. The film’s audience includes wide ranges of people of all ages and social classes to increase their awareness of the issue and encourage them to join the movement to help the suffering children in Uganda. Especially, the information presented in the movie may be useful in middle and high schools to introduce the topic for the younger generation. The secondary audience includes representatives of organizations and governments, who can influence the situation on the larger scale, donate money and organize peaceful aid missions. Therefore, the primary audience of the movie is a wide range of people from affluent nations or those who are not aware of the situation and the secondary audience includes organizations and governments with the resources to manage the situation in a peaceful manner.
The directors of the movie establish their credibility and trust successfully appealing to ethos. Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole are average young Americans with whom a lot of people can identify with in the developed countries. They are young and go to Africa with no particular aim in mind, but find their story in North Uganda and turn it into the documentary. They begin gaining trust of the audience right in the beginning of the movie, as the first scene is an interview with the filmmakers, where they answer the simple questions, such as “Have you ever been abroad?” or “What am I most afraid of?” (Russell, Bailey, and Poole). Their answers are not the answers of the experts in the field or professional researchers, but simple young men’s answers, who have never been abroad and the only thing they expect from the trip are adventures and hope not to die there. They mention that they bought their equipment on eBay (Russell, Bailey, and Poole), as if they want to prove that they are the same people as those who are watching them. It may seem a little unprofessional, but this way they establish the contact with the majority of their audience, who also have never left their countries and do not have the knowledge about the situation in Africa. The audience feels that the authors are the same people as they are and gradually they discover the issue together in the flow of action in the documentary. The scene, where they hunt a snake, make “the most boring shot ever” (Russell, Bailey, and Poole) and vomit, also may seem confusing, as it may seem that it plays against the authors. But as the scenes change one another it becomes obvious that this way they wanted to establish contrast between their childish attitudes at the beginning and how they change, while they are travelling and watching the way people have to live. In this realm, these scenes are also helping to build credibility within the audience, as they prove that even though they did not know anything about what they are going to encounter in Africa, they have managed to learn their lesson and take their task very seriously. They interview journalists, politicians and activists for expert opinions and it helps them to increase overall credibility of the movie. Generally, the filmmakers manage to gain trust and preserve strong authorial credibility from the beginning to the end of the documentary.
The appeal to pathos is the strongest in Invisible Children, as the filmmakers use the combination of personal and emotional narration, music and images to evoke compassion, fear, and anger in their audience. It is widely applied throughout the film and actively influences the spectators. The story of “Night Commuters” in Gulu around which the documentary was basically filmed is the most touching. The scene shows how hundreds of people, the majority of which are children have to come from the villages to the town every evening to spend the night in public places, hiding under verandas of hospitals from the rebels, who can come any minute to abduct them. The pictures are striking and directly appeal to the emotions of the audience, evoking compassion: a group of boys, who sleep in the corridor under the hospital, try to remove water and insects from the floor, where they spend their nights. They study together in the total darkness with one little candle and without having a ruler for math tasks. The boys are happy, when they have an opportunity to eat something once a day. One of the boys tells that he no longer can cry about his murdered best friend, because he fears so badly that he also would be killed if someone sees him, “when I think of him I can cry, but nowadays I cannot cry” (Russell, Bailey, and Poole). These images combined with powerful words have strong influence on the spectator, as they make the audience empathize. At the same time people feel uncomfortable seeing such unbearable conditions, which are the norm for those children. Simple but touching words of the boy with the images of the wet corridor and poor hungry boys around, whose only wish is the end of atrocities cannot leave the audience unemotional. Another scene that besides the compassion evokes anger and even outrage at the culpable is the scene in the hospital, where different kinds of casualties are shown. The sequence of images with starved infants, raped girls, crippled children, who were forced to kill or had to watch their families or friends murder, teenagers with amputated arms and legs and mentally ill, who could not bear the atrocities and absolute poverty. The narrative continues to tell how children are made to kill under the fear to be killed themselves and how it influences their mental health and destroys their lives. This scene uses strong vivid language that immediately evokes the desired response and the audience feels outraged and hates the rebels, who ruin the lives of the kids. The scene that combines the sound with images is also very powerful. In this scene the boy Jacob tells that he does not want to live anymore and that if his brother, who was killed by the rebels was alive, he would tell him, “I love you, but now I miss you We are not going to meet, but we may meet in Heaven, you see?” (Russell, Bailey, and Poole). The words alone are strong, but they are followed with a few minutes of Jacob’s crying with the images of rows of people sleeping together on the floors of the huge underground shelter. The scene uses language, sound and images to make the audience feel fear for the destiny of those children and understand their pain, as everyone has close people, whose life is very important for them. At the same time, it evokes compassion, as people understand the feelings the boy has, so they want to help him. Pathos is used extremely effectively, as it actively pressures the audience with the touching and horrifying stories evoking tears and the whole range of emotions and sensations that help the authors in achieving their persuasive goal to inform and involve people in the process of fighting for African children’s rights and future.
Logos is also established in the documentary and it contributes to overall success of the argument. As the documentary may be intended for the audience that is not familiar with the situation in Uganda and Africa in general, the movie provides several insights in the situation and the history of the conflict. The film-makers consult and interview the experts in the Uganda’s issues, who actively participate in the movie and explain historical background and social implications of the events. The first expert, who is mentioned in the movie, is Dan Kidega, who is the member of Uganda’s Parliament, and therefore, knows a lot about the situation with children in the country. The other experts, who are interviewed include journalists, Dennis from New Vision, Jon from The Monitor and Caroline from Historian (Russell, Bailey, and Poole). Together with Jeff, aid worker, these experts explain the origins of 17-years war in Uganda, tell about Joseph Kony, the leader of the rebel movement, who wants to overthrow the government and who manages the abductions of children to join the soldiers. The involvement of this range of specialists and people directly connected to government and media makes the information presented by the film-makers more credible and trustworthy. The audience, who is not familiar with the Uganda’s history and current problems can find out more about the issues from the experts in the field. The film-makers also use factual data, such as the numbers of abducted people, the scopes of hunger and historical facts. However, these numbers are approximated and their sources are not acknowledged openly, so it harms the logos of the documentary. The audience is not given the ways to check the information that is presented, because the sources of statistics are not named. Nevertheless, the story does not focus on those factual details, as the majority of trustworthy information comes from real-life images that demonstrate the conditions people have to bear, the attitudes they face and the suffering that has become the norm of their lives for people of Uganda, but may seem striking for the viewers from the developed countries. The authors also play on contrasts to show that children’s lives are not only suffering and that they remain resilient and hopeful for better future. Such contrasts also give the story credibility, as they show the life of people from different perspectives. It helps the audience to understand that these are really the conditions people have to bear, and shows how strong these people are, as they do not give up, but continue living. Anyway, the images combined with factual data and experts’ opinions make a strong appeal to logos that positively influences the persuasive aim of the documentary, providing the audience with all the necessary knowledge of the topic.
Invisible Children by Russell, Bailey, and Poole is a documentary with the strong rhetorical capacities. It effectively informs and persuades the audience with the help of masterly used rhetorical strategies. The movie addresses the wide range of audience that includes both people unfamiliar with the issue and those who are interested in contributing to the problem’s solution. With the help of personal stories and images, the film-makers gain trust of the audience and prove that their work is trustworthy. Touching images and stories as well as emotionally-colored appeals help to influence the audience of the deep emotional and sensational level, while experts’ opinions, data and real-life images prove overall credibility of information. Even though, there are several flaws in the rhetorical strategy of Invisible Children, it manages to effectively persuade people to act and help those who suffer in Uganda.
Work Cited
Invisible Children. Dir. Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole. Invisible Children Inc., 2006. Film.
