Rhetorical Analysis Of Naomi Mcdougall-Jones's Speech

In November of 2016, Naomi McDougall-Jones stood on a TED Talk stage and expressed her life experiences, as well as statistical information, about the reality of being a woman in Hollywood. Her aspiration is for all men and women who are involved in the film industry to receive gender parity. Naomi specifies that she is an advocate for both men and women, and that her goal is not for the female film industry to dominate the male film industry (16). She declares that her audience is all people who watch movies as well as filmmakers, businesspeople, and entrepreneurs because these are the people who have the power to enact social change (13-15). Naomi uses ethos and pathos throughout her speech in order to raise awareness for gender parity

in the film industry. The use of logos in her speech, however, is imperative to coax her audience to participate in the revolution towards gender parity.
During the entire opening of her speech, Naomi establishes her credibility, which is also known as ethos. She does this to enlighten her audience on why she is adequate to be speaking about the struggles of being a women in the film industry. She tells the audience about her life experiences in the film industry all the way up to this point in her life. She graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, ready to play “smart, willful, complicated, interesting, complex, confident female characters” in movies (3). However, it didn’t take long for Naomi to find out that Hollywood was not going to just hand her those roles. Her agent even said to her, “I don't really know what to do with you. You're too smart for the parts that are being written for women in their 20s, and you're not quite pretty enough to be the hot one, so I think you'll work when you're 35" (4). She also tells the story of how her and her actress friend made their own movie and were then told by a successful male producer that they would have to hire a male producer so that people would trust them with their money, and that people don’t really want to see movies that are about women, that is “just the way it is” (4). By telling these stories to her audience, Naomi is establishing her credibility so that the audience will know that what she is saying is trustworthy and they will become engaged with what she is speaking about.
Naomi’s use of pathos, or emotion, within her speech compliments her use of ethos.

She establishes her credibility by telling personal stories that also cause the audience to feel sympathetic towards her. Her stories demonstrate the struggles that she, and other females, have experienced as being women in the film industry. Naomi also uses pathos by repeating the phrase “it’s just the way it is” throughout the first half of the speech. She repeats this phrase several times to emphasize that this phrase is how the world goes along with the already existing system, however, the world will always be that way unless someone does something about it (6). Naomi again uses pathos with her energy throughout the entire speech. Her tone is upbeat and the way that she moves on stage shows how passionate she is about what she’s saying. Her energy causes the audience to feel the same

energy.
In Naomi’s speech, the most powerful element used to persuade the audience is logos, or logic.

She declares several interesting statistics and also brings attention to the fact that the large majority of the world is affecting gender inequality in the film industry, not just Hollywood itself. She appeals to the majority of the world’s population with logos by saying that, “if you have watched mostly American movies in your lifetime, 95 percent of all the films you have ever seen were directed by men. Somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of all of the leading characters that you have ever seen were men. And even if we just talk about the last five years, 55 percent of the time that you have seen a woman in a movie, she was naked or scantily clad” (8). By making these statements, Naomi is pointing out that in reality, it isn’t just Hollywood that is causing gender inequality, it is also the people who simply just watch movies. It is safe to assume that the majority of the people in the audience watch movies and so this part of the speech is meant to be very appealing to them. Naomi also uses logos in her speech by describing her four-point plan for a revolution against gender inequality in the film industry. She does this by addressing all of the different groups of people who influence Hollywood in some way; people who watch movies, filmmakers, business people, and entreprenuers. She encourages these groups to continue to do what they are doing, but to do it in a way

that supports the female film industry until there is gender parity.
Naomi was very canny when determining how to demonstrate ethos, pathos, and logos within her speech. By doing so, she is able to raise awareness about the gender inequality that takes place in the film industry. This speech helps to entice various groups of people to pursue actions that will support women in Hollywood who are discriminated against simply for being women. Naomi has taken action herself by continuing to create films, and she has also launched “The 51 Fund” which finances films that are written, directed, and produced by women (15). Despite Naomi’s success, it is still not an easy process for her, and there are many women in the film industry who have not gotten to experience the same type of success that she has. It is critical that Naomi's speech continues to be heard throughout the world. If everyone just sits back and lets it happen, then women will never know what it’s like to experience gender parity within Hollywood.