Documentary Walmart
Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Prices Robert Greenwald uses a strong appeal to ethos, a slippery road argument, and a text track to bring attention to his audience about Wal-Mart. He establishes his argument by first presenting a claim made by the Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott and then showing the contrary to that claim with many examples from real people. Through these arguments the audience can determine that Wal-Mart is simply a bad company and they should stop spending their money there. Greenwald appeals to ethos many times throughout this documentary. He uses a strong patriotic tone this brings a sense of American values being tarnished through this company. He establishes this patriotic tone by telling the stories of the “average Joe” and how they’re companies had to close down due to Wal-Mart. These “feel good” stories are ones that deal with traditional values that were set by these self-own businesses that were affected by Wal-Mart. Greenwald establishes ethos by interviewing regular Wal-Mart employees, throughout their interview they talk about family values and how Wal-Mart puts their family at stake. Greenwald also ties in the role of discriminating against races and women, this leads the audience to believe that all Wal-Marts discriminate against races and women and therefore are bad companies. Another powerful tool Greenwald unleashes is the heavy influence brought on by religions, he establishes this by interviewing rabbis, and preachers and showing how they too are standing up against Wal-Mart. This allows the audience to connect because religion is the number one way to influence people to rise up. He establishes a slippery road argument in documentary to make it seen that if one Wal-Mart opens up then all business shut down. He does this by presenting the story of hardware store and then showing random places that have shut down and put them through a black and white tint to provide a feeling of a ghost town to the audience. Greenwald uses a