The Mark Twain Prize for humor is awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for performing Arts every year since 1998. This award is given to leading actor/comedian in the American industry. In 2011 Will Ferrell received the Mark Twain Comedy award. This is an analysis of the speech acceptance speech that he gave. Will Ferrell upon accepting the award then dropped it and broke it on the stage. As you may know Ferrell is a highly known comedian and actor throughout the United States and across the world. The award for humor that he received could not have been given to a better candidate. Ferrell’s speech reflected the very reason that he received the award. At the beginning of the speech he started off with a few jokes about breaking the award. …show more content…
In this case however under the circumstances that it was an award for humor there is leeway on how the speech could appropriately be delivered. He did a very good job at keeping the audiences attention throughout the whole speech even using aids such as his wife and other members in the crowd. There were however something’s that he could improve on. While it may have been acceptable for Ferrell to take a less serious more comedic approach there still should have been some type of sense of seriousness. I felt through watching it that there was some places especially when he called out his wife that there may have been an awkward feeling in the room. You never want to give your speech where you make people in the crowd uncomfortable. Overall, The speech was very well presented and had a decent balance of humor within it. There was a nice touch towards the end where he sincerely thanked people who had gotten him to where he is today. Whenever you receive an award it is always good to give credit where it is due as this can help you gain more respect from your audience. Speaking in to a group this large while on television is not something that everyone can do and I feel that Will Ferrell did a good job in demonstrating the message in which he wanted to get
In October 2012 President Obama was reelected as President of the United States of America. Famous for his exceptional speeches in his first term as president there was some pressure on Obama to deliver a notable acceptance speech after such a nail biting election. By using rhetorical strategies in his speech Obama had to reach every audience member whether they were democratic or republican. President Barack Obama grasps every member of his audience by using ethos pathos and even some logos in his 2012 acceptance speech, his very first speech in his second term as president.
In addition to this, during a certain part of my monologue, the audience laughed and I did not expect that. As an actor I need to be aware that there will be moments like these and still be able to stay in character and continue on with the same dedication. After my performance, I was surprised by the feedback that I got from the class. The comments lifted my spirits about my performance and prompted me to trust the choices that I make in future performances. Yes, there is definitely room for improvement, but overall, I am pleased with
Her slow yet concise way of speaking, coupled with easy to follow transitions allowed for a speech that was enjoyable to listen to. Her use of examples from her personal life allowed her audience to get a picture of who she was if they did not know, and allowed her to better relate to them by provided examples of how she is related to the college they are graduating from. Her reference to many modern political problems allowed her to bring up her important role as an activist and facilitated further understanding from the audience. While some areas of her speech were weak, such as the longer than needed pauses and her lack of consistent eye contact, to a few points where she didn’t speak clearly enough, the overall picture that was her speech was fairly strong. Looking at this speech, I hope to incorporate some aspects that I failed to include in my previous speeches. Some of these include her use of hand gestures to emphasize and exaggerate certain phrases and topics, and her combined use of appeals. While my initial thoughts going in were “This is boring” and “This is too slow”, it evolved into me wanting to hear more, and overall my defeat in the beginning turned into a victory at the
Throughout his whole career, Williams was always performing standup comedy. While many stand up comedians were using the same routine for almost every show they performed, Williams was performing a different show every night. He would improvise most of his material based on his audiences reaction instead of going into the show with all of his jokes thought out. This material helped change what stand up comedy was (Lombardi). Late comedian Joan Rivers says: “My favorite is Robin Williams. There's nobody like him. His mind is just wonderful. I respect him because he does what I do. I've seen him get up at The Comedy Store, work out a whole Carson shot and then come on Carson and make it look like it's easy. He takes nothing for granted. He knows exactly what he's doing. Robin Williams is one of those people
The language used in the speech mostly was flawless and applicable to the audience, who was the public, since he was using every day vocabulary. Therefore, the speech has had strong structure that can be easily understood by the majority of people. The audience typic...
Beginning a "Commencement speech" is tough, but once Powell gets confidence the words flowed normally. He said that making a Commencement Speech is a real Challenge. commencement speaker always
Obama gave the speech, according to his opening in a shorter, meaning in a few words as possible. Although he did so his speech was clear and easy to comprehend. The conclusion was also memorable. He spoke of Dr. King and showed pictures of important people who influenced us in one way or another. Obama talked about how he sees our future unfolding in workers on the assembly line, students, soldiers, and elderly women making him hopeful about our future. We need to face the future with confidence is basically what Obama was saying and that our future depends on us, the citizens and we need to take advantage of the many opportunities.
Eidenmuller, Michael E. Great Speeches for Better Speaking: Listen and Learn From America’s Most Memorable Speeches. New York: Mcgraw Hill, 2008. Google Books. Web. 4 September 2010.
seemed to enjoy the speech. Homer Hickam mostly talked about his book Rocket Boys from
My thoughts on Chance The Rapper’s acceptance speech from the grammy awards is that I really did not enjoy how he just made up the speech in the pressure of the moment. This was his first award so he did not expect to win and one can see that he did not plan a speech or even thought about practice one. Chance The Rapper kept on saying um, and yeah since he did not know what to say. However, he kept on repeating the same phrases because he wanted everyone to know the reason as to why he believes he received the Grammy award. I feel as though he did not know his speech since he was all over the place. Chance The Rapper just kept referring to independence since he knows that is something that everyone likes to consider themselves as. During Chance
The speech was 28 minutes long and 4628 words. Reagan’s speech was somewhat easygoing. He addressed the observers as equivalent to him and inserts some humor to corroborate his focus. He was more concerned with relating to and gaining the audience’s trust instead of sounding intelligent in order to impress the audience. “But again we do some arithmetic, and we find that we're going to spend each year just on room and board for each young person we help 4,700 dollars a year. We can send them to Harvard for 2,700! Course, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting Harvard is the answer to juvenile delinquency.” This was Reagan’s strategy to imbed humor to relate with the group of onlookers and get some interest. He was not dry or so monotone that the general population was compelled to listen to him. He knew how to read his audience and promote his views and opinions.
Overall, O’ Brien did a phenomenal job connecting with his audience. His speech had universal significance because his message was, failure and change will prevail, but you should embrace it and learn from it. This message is important cause failure and change universally affects everyone. O’Brien is giving the audience valuable advice by telling them to embrace their shortcomings and losses. Many people do not know what do when they fail. O’ Brien leads the viewers into comfort by telling them he has once failed before he was successful. O’Brien speech was very effective because of his use of humor and anecdotes, which helped convey his message with his audience.
What made Amy Cuddy speech so effective was her delivery to the audience during her TED Talk. Amy was very articulate with her verbal projection because she never stumble on words or took long pauses in between her connections of ideas on the topics. Also, the viewer or an audience member could tell that Cuddy took time to
Jobs starts his speech with humor. He said, “I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation,” this statement instantly added an element of humor to his speech and this was well observed by the audience. The opening statements of the speech automatically lightened the mood. Steve jobs’ introduction appeals to the emotions of the audience, giving Jobs a valuable opening into the rest of his speech. In the whole speech, Jobs recites three stories from his personal life, which gave him inspiration.
Renowned British actress and activist for the feminist movement, Emma Watson, in her speech to the United Nations, “HeForShe,” argues that gender discrimination is a plague to human civilization. Watson’s purpose is to sway the audience that gender inequality has to come to an end, with the support of men and women as advocates for egalitarianism. Additionally, she enlightens the audience that the problem originated from political affairs, the economy, and social disparity. Watson creates a compassionate tone in order to convey men, specifically those who negatively perceived feminism or did not think that feminist issues affected them. Nevertheless, Watson’s speech is ineffectively persuasive due to the poor description she formulated