TOW #6 – Article: The First Time I Fell in Love by Mark Duplass

Mark Duplass is the writer and producer of the movie Blue Jay. His movie is about high school sweethearts who accidentally reconnect 20 years later. In the article Duplass tells the story of his first ever love. He goes through when they met to how they fell in love and worked as a couple then finally to how they broke up. At the end of the article Duplass mentions how he used to wish he could go back and talk to his teenage self so he could teach him how to love correctly and maintain a healthy relationship. However, in the paragraph after he recants that statement and says that he wouldn’t change that experience for the world because it helped shape who he is.

            Duplass’s purpose is to convince people to live with no regrets. He wants his audience to realize that every little thing that they’ll ever experience in their lifetime helps creates who they are. It doesn’t matter if it was a good experience or a bad one it affects them either way. Duplass uses an anecdote of his first love to help him get this across to his audience. The anecdote describes a bittersweet experience that Duplass uses to portray the good and bad events. In the beginning of his relationship he learned what it was like to fall in love and how great of an adventure it is. Then by the end of the relationship Duplass was forced to see how complex relationships actually are and how people can change over time. He acknowledges how he carried what he learned for the rest of his life and even implemented them in other relationships he was in.

            His primary audience for the article is people who just got out of a relationship. This is shown through the context of the article which is the ending of a longer term and serious relationship. However, his secondary audience is anyone because his purpose can be applied to all aspects of life not just romantic relationships.

TOW #5 - Trump Speech by Michelle Obama

            On October 13, first lady, Michelle Obama spoke about presidential nominee Donald Trump and his actions towards women at a Hillary Clinton campaign event. Michelle Obama has been the first lady for the past eight years and she has gone through two presidential campaigns. Like a large majority of people voting she has followed the election and has heard about Trump’s treatment of women. Michelle’s speech was sparked by the recent leaked audio tape of Donald Trump and Billy Bush. On the tape Trump and Bush are heard making disrespectful comments about women and even mentioning sexually assaulting them.

            Michelle’s main purpose of the speech is to convince voters to vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. Her primary audience is people who are eligible to vote for this year’s election. However, since she is at a Hillary Clinton event a majority of her audience is already against Trump. Michelle uses aggressive diction when talking about Trump and his behavior towards women. Words like, ‘shameful’, ‘cruel’, and ‘frightening’. She tries to portray to the audience that everything Trump says has a negative connotation towards women. Michelle also achieves her purpose by listing the effects that could possibly come out of Trump’s presidency. She mentions how young girls will feel less confident and valued by the way Trump talks about women. She also talks about how young boys and men will begin to repeat the things that Trump says and thus creating an unsafe environment for women.

            Michelle achieves her purpose by providing true facts about Trump being a disrespectful and superficial person towards women. She rebuts the other side of people thinking Trump’s comments with Bush were just ‘locker-room talk’ by acknowledging the nature of the topic. She continuously says in her speech how Trump can only bring negative changes to the country if he wins presidency instead of positive ones like Clinton will.

TOW #4 - IRB: Eating Fire, My Life as a Lesbian Avenger by Kelly Cogswell (Part I)

            Kelly Cogswell was a lesbian born in Kentucky. When she came out to her mother at age 18 her mother told her that she ‘just hadn’t found the right man’. This prompt Kelly to move out and go to New York, the city, where she believed, she would finally be accepted by someone. In Eating Fire, My Life as a Lesbian Avenger, Kelly retells the process and perils of the activist group the Lesbian Avengers. Kelly was considered one of the unofficial heads of the organization from a little after it began to the moment it caved in on itself.

            Halfway into the book I believe that Kelly’s purpose is to inform people of the truths of what happened in the Lesbian Avengers. At the beginning of the end of the Lesbian Avengers, Kelly mentions that a lot of lies were spread about the group. A majority of the lies were about the group being racist and exclusive. Through Kelly’s retelling the group doesn’t come off as racist, they actually did a lot of work for lesbian Latinas. Anything that was accused of being racist seemed accidental or interpreted the wrong way.

            The primary audience is the lesbians who believed all the lies about the Avengers. Then the unintended audience is just people everywhere. However with the unintended audience the purpose then changes from clearing the group’s name to just bringing light to the group’s existence.  All the events that the Lesbian Avengers curated never seemed to get much media attention. If they got any at all it was one line in an article that generalized them and never really properly described what they were fighting for.

            Regarding Kelly’s primary purpose of revealing the truth, I do believe she accomplishes it. Throughout the first half of the book she mentions the rumors and lies that were being said about the group and then disproves them with facts and true anecdotes. Kelly also achieves her purpose with her unintended audience. For the most part the whole first half of the book is the story of the Lesbian Avengers, with the exception of a few personal stories included.