A Rhetorical Analysis Of Oprah Winfrey's Speech

The Cecil B. DeMille is an honorary accolade bestowed upon various individuals in the film industry for their outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. In 2018, Oprah Winfrey was the first African-American woman to receive this award. Winfrey was nothing short of powerful when delivering her speech. Her message of equal representation in Hollywood, the need for the press, and speaking against sexual harassment and assault is displayed through the use of personal anecdote, emotionally vivid imagery, inclusion pronouns, and speech patterns that of the nation’s greatest leaders.

Winfrey delivers a statement of equal representation of gender and race in acting roles through a personal anecdote of when she was a young girl. Her heartfelt story of watching the first black man to receive the Oscar for best actor during the height of the Civil Rights era showed that there was not equal roles and honorability given to people of color. Her humanizing image of “…watching from the cheap seats…” gave a relatable persona of having an arduous life. Winfrey’s experiences at a young age can be considered similar to those watching her on a TV screen, which has more people agreeing with her arguments in the speech.

Furthermore, the deliverance of the fundamental necessity of news outlets in today’s society is through inclusive wording and imaginative diction.

Winfrey provides a feeling of togetherness as she uses pronouns such as “we” to give a message of unity to support the press, and the awareness they bring. Her powerful diction reveals her position that America needs the news, especially in the speculative society to “…[keep them] from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice, to tyrants and victims, and secrets and lies…” (Winfrey 1). Her vigorous diction reveals to the audience that the importance of news sources is vital to developing opinions, and exposing truths and lies within

society.
Moreover, the importance of speaking out against harassment and assault of women is brought forth through Winfrey’s use of many strategies such as ethos, brutal imagery, and inductive reasoning. Winfrey makes the audience feel included by using ethos and repetitive phrasing to describe the influential roles woman play in society as “they are domestic workers and farmer workers…they’re in academia, engineering, medicine, and science…” (Winfrey 2). This technique makes women and young girls all around the world feel included in her speech. Additionally, the raw imagery in the historical allusion of Recy Taylor provides the brutal truth of abuse towards women in the 1940’s, and inductive reasoning to relate to it in the present. Winfrey used Recy Taylor’s story of being “…raped, and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church” to garner the emotions out of the audience. By telling this brutally honest story, she uses inductive reasoning to broaden the topic by stating situations like Taylor’s can never happen again, and consequences for obscene and unethical actions will arise.
The message of hope and unity throughout the speech is used by some of the most influential leaders in American history such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. Oprah Winfrey delivered an eloquent speech with a powerful message, using the same caliber with the help of important strategies that bring out human emotion, and the call for change.