A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Lunch Date

Zachary Gosnell

Professor Lisa Clark

Interpersonal Communication SC155

27 September 2017

My Perspectives on The Lunch Date

As I watched The Lunch Date I started to form many different impressions of the woman. In the beginning of the film it showed many homeless people in the station which she noticeably ignores them. When the woman is walking through the station, my impression formation theory, of her was that she was upper-class clue to her well-groomed appearance and her elegant attire. As she is walking thru the station she looked to be uncomfortable, perhaps afraid as she was making herself aware of her surroundings. I felt this was an environment that was all new to her. Her selective perception had her very observant. The primacy effect of

my perception of the woman is clue to her demeanor and attitude towards the people around her.

While the woman is walking in the station a well-cleaned black man bumps into her, causing her purse to fall to the ground. The contence of her purse spills out onto the ground. She kneels on the floor to retrieve the contence of her purse. The well-cleaned man tries to help her retrieve her items, she speaks sharply at him. “You’re making me miss my train.” (Davidson 1989). She shoves the content back into her purse, and runs to the train. It is obvious she missed her train. Standing on the platform she looks nervous and unconfutable being in the station alone.

I felt like there are social issues in the film, because the man who runs into her and causes her purse to fall is black. He is well-dressed and only wants to help her. Her reaction to him wanting to help her is that he wants to steal from her. Next, she realizes that her wallet is missing and she decides to go to the dinner where she buys a salad with her spare change. She takes her salad and bags to a booth where she, when she realizes that she forgot

her fork. When she returns to the booth she is shocked to see a homeless lack man sitting in the booth eating her salad. She explained to the black man that the salad was hers but the black man refused to give it back to her, she decided to be defiant and she starts to eat the salad from his plate. When the black man finished, he gets up and he returns with two cups of coffee. When the black man brought back the coffee for them I could see that the woman’s attitude changed by impression formation theory. I felt that she was being mindful to what was going on. The impression I got was that she was other- oriented for a brief time because of her actions and behaviors. After a few sips of coffee, the woman gets up and leaves. She realizes she has left her bags and she thinks the bags are gone only to realize that she had been in the wrong booth and her salad was still untouched where she had sat it. When leaving the dinner, she passes another homeless man. I would have thought that she would have at least acknowledged the homeless man but she didn’t, she instead treated him the same way as she did in the beginning of the film. After having a moment with the black man in the dinner you would have thought she might change her view of the homeless man. I felt like most people would have had a change of heart after sharing a meal with a homeless man. I felt like she did not return any gestures of kindness.
Additionally, I felt that there were underlining social issues. As a white woman on her own she succumbed to stereotypes and kept her belongings close to her and she attempted to protect herself from a harmless situation. The woman’s perception of the black man caused her to behave in a negative way. As a society, I think we associate homeless people with recklessness, lack of manners and crude behavior. I felt like everyone was on her side because she was well-dressed and well mannered.
Inconclusion, I feel like the film showed how we stereotype people just at the first glance. The Lunch Date shows how we fear the differences of people around us. The lunch Date also showed me that people are less fortunate and can be misjudged easily. The black homeless man showed the woman compassion where he shared his salad with her in the dinner when he knows that it was his and not hers at all and then he brought her a cup of coffee. By this point I thought the man was maybe not homeless and maybe worked at the dinner. I feel like instead of stereotyping and fearing people because they are different from us is wrong. Instead try to understand the person before judging. We should not be judging people, because we don’t know what they have been through. We should try to get to know them for the person they are instead of what we think they are. We should see people for their real selves and not the ones we think about them. We should keep an open mind about other people.