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Jorge Nazario
Dr. McLaughlin
Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric
12 October, 2015
Learn About Your Own Stereotypes
Rhetoric is perhaps the most powerful technique of persuasion. Its main purpose is to
influence and persuade, but it is also used to clarify and sometimes even give a deeper
understanding of what is being analyzed or discussed. Rhetoric is not merely limited to
language; rather it is limited to any form of symbolic expression as long as it communicates
meaning. Such forms of symbolic expression include multi-media, music, objects,
cinematography, signs, words, and basically anything that has the capacity to convey meaning. In
the fictional movie Dear White People, the black filmmaker, Justin Simien uses multiple of the
previously mentioned rhetorical devices throughout the entire movie to help prove his central
argument. Dear White People is a social satire, influenced by the filmmakers life experiences,
that depicts the day to day life of Ivy League college students in the not-post-racial America, and
the main point of the filmmaker is to demonstrate that racism and preconceived prejudices are
two problems that still prevail in top educational programs of the United States. The main plot of
the movie involves the main character, Samantha Sam White, a rebel black student, who is
fighting against Winchesters predominating white students and the institutions policies for
letting the black culture in campus die; the film includes an insecure gay black student named
Lionel Higgins; the poster child black son of the Dean of the University, Troy Fairbanks; the
black student diva, Colandrea Coco Conners; and the rich white kid, son of the President of the

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University, Kurt. With the use of audio, music, dialogue, and cinematography techniques, the
filmmaker of Dear White People proves that people in the 21st Century still hold preconceived
prejudices and stereotypes.
The filmmaker employs the use of audio devices to prove that racial prejudices and
stereotypes are present in the news media, the viewing audience itself, and the university life.
From the start, the filmmaker is bombarding the viewer with carefully chosen audio: news
broadcasts, rap, reality TV, and other voice-overs. These different types of audio work as
rhetorical devices; they invite the audience to be aware that stereotypes and prejudices are still
existent in the 21st century and they prove that the audience has the same stereotypes as the news
media. The first lines of multiple news broadcasters and reality TV anchors are heard gossiping
about things such as, forty-year old Garvis, you are not the father, a nigger from New York,
and some secrets that are feeding Shauns crystal meth addiction, thus showing us that these
commentators are disrespectful and racist not only by how they refer to black people, but by how
they associate it them with drugs or family problems. Followed by this, music is used to illustrate
a rap song that has a deep bass, a hipster vibe, and a rapper that has an accent that most people
would associate with a black person. The interesting thing of the music and the voice-overs in
this scene is that the filmmaker does not explicitly let us know that he is stereotyping black
people, and yet we, the audience, know that he is referring to black people. But how is this
possible? Through the use of rhetorical audio, the filmmaker makes the audience itself bring
forward their own preconceived stereotypes of black people to infer that he is referring to them.
In the first eight seconds of the movie, the filmmaker proves the viewing audience has the same
stereotypes as the news media. In addition, this alerts us that society still has stereotypes of
groups of people in the 21st Century, and challenges the belief that there are no prejudices or

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stereotypes in America. Some may challenge my view that the song and voice overs are not
necessarily stereotyping black people because in reality many people, white and black, do listen
to rap songs such as the one presented and white people are just as involved with drugs as black
people. However, in the context of the movie, I was led to believe that the audio pieces were, in
fact, referring to black people in a very racial and stereotypical way. My subjective experience
when watching the movie made me believe the song was trying to frame me with the idea that
the type of music black people listen to is like that one, and that the news media was trying to
frame me with the drama and gossip of black families. I believe it was not a coincidence that
these audio lines brought forward my stereotype on black people; the filmmaker had all the
intention on doing it and did it with a brilliantly planned and executed use of rhetorical audio.
Another scene in which the filmmaker uses audio techniques to incite awareness about
racism and prejudices among the students in the university is the scene in which we are
introduced to Lionel Higgins. In this scene, the filmmaker employs the use of a voicemail tone to
show us the prejudiced harassment of white students toward gay black students. In the scene,
Lionel Higgins is walking up the stairs to the Garner House, where he lives, when he realizes he
is locked out, and decides to call Kurt, the house President, only to be directed to the new
voicemail tone Kurt has had the time to set up: Hey boyssss, youve reached Lionel Higginsss,
the only bitch on campussss wholl give you a dickssscount. Thats right hunty, the bigger the
dick the less youll have to pay me to ssssuck it. This scene depicts a very realistic event that
could happen in a university, and adds weight to the filmmakers argument that there are
prejudices against gay black people among the students in real life universities as well as the
fictional Winchester University. The voicemail tone convinces the viewing audience that
prejudices are a real problem in the university life. It is also important to consider that the

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filmmaker had a reason for including the voicemail tone in the scene. The audio in this scene has
an incredible power of persuasion, it clearly proves to the extent prejudice and discrimination
still prevail in the 21st Century among college students. He alerts us that prejudices and
discriminatory comments are now communicated through technology sources and that even
though this happened to the fictional character of Lionel Higgins in specific, it happens in real
life to homosexual people as well.
Cinematography techniques such as mobile framing, refraining, and editing are other
rhetorical techniques the filmmaker employs in the movie to prove that stereotypes are
commonly held by many people. In the campus arrival scene, in which we are presented the
different university schools, the filmmaker uses editing techniques to create the label of the
students, while the mobile framing and refraining techniques are used to alter the frame and
composition of the scene to engage the reader in "a critical, reflective analysis of the work.
(Lancioni 106). A very explicit example of all three cinematic techniques combined is the scene
in which the audience is presented the stereotype of the students that study in the Bing School of
Business. We are presented a view on a hand full of students who are all wearing formal clothes
and are portrayed to look as if they dont care about anything. Half of them are texting, and this
just adds to the idea that they think they are cool and are the best and most intelligent people
on campus. The filmmaker uses the mobile framing technique to give the illusion of a slowmotion movement that invites the viewers to reflect on the stereotype being presented of business
students. Similarly, the refraining technique is used to provide a close-up on the students
arrogant and nonchalant faces to invite the viewers to question why this is so. (Lancioni 106)
Simultaneously, editing is used to label the students and show us how easy it can be to label a
group of people and stereotype them. Through the use of mobile framing, refraining, and editing

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the filmmaker exaggerates and even ridicules the different school groups, just as people do in
real life. The reframing technique is perhaps the most important technique in this scene because
the close-up view makes question, reflect, and analyze what the filmmaker is trying to tell us.
Lancioni affirms that these questions highlight the rhetorical construction of the film. Now the
audience knows that the main purpose of this scene is to make us reflect on our own stereotypes
and alert us that we are constantly making stereotypes of groups of people based on what they
study or look like. In this scene, the filmmaker successfully proves his main argument with the
help of rhetorical devices to do so.
Dialogue is another technique used by the filmmaker to show us that adults have
prejudices and stereotypes just as college students do. While the cinematography techniques of
reframing and mobile framing are used in carefully chosen scenes to highlight the rhetorical
construction of the movie, the dialogue is used throughout the entire movie to prove the main
argument. In the scene where we are first introduced to Coco, described by the filmmaker, the
diva, having an interview with a black reality TV producer in his mid-30s named Helmut, the
filmmaker combines dialogue and cinematography techniques to show us Helmuts and Cocos
prejudices. The reframing technique in this scene is used to zoom in on the characters faces to
make the audience reflect, analyze, and observe their reactions, while the dialogue explicitly
shows us Helmuts and Cocos prejudiced views towards their own culture. We are placed
watching the close-up reaction of Coco when Helmut asks her if she lives in one of the two black
community campus houses and she replies traditionally its where the hopelessly Afrocentric
gather to process their guilt over not going to an HBCU... Where the negros be at, and goes on
to say that the Bechet House, the rich white kids house, is more her style. The scene continues
with Helmut asking Coco where she is from, and showing us Helmuts prejudiced reaction

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towards Cocos home. Coco says she is from the 78th street in Chicago and Helmut replies,
Seventy Eighth is Southside sweetheart. And you know what they say. You can take the girl out
the hood but, when he is suddenly interrupted by Coco, Theres nothing hood about me. This
scene is very important in proving the filmmakers central argument that prejudiced views still
existent in the United States, and not only among white people; in this part of the scene we see
how Coco is rejecting her culture by living with rich white kids and we also see that she has a
stereotype of black people that live together as pathetic negroes, as Coco says, that only talk
about their guilt for not going to a negro school. The dialogue here explicitly shows us Cocos
rejection of her own culture and her own prejudice over black students that live together, while
the refraining of Cocos face depicts her insecurity and makes us question why the filmmaker is
depicting her the way he does. When Coco replies, the filmmaker puts us close-up to watch her
offended emotions and even the disgust in her face. This scene explicitly shows us the
preconceived prejudice Helmut has against Cocos home culture, and also shows us Cocos
rejection of her own culture. The filmmaker wants us to reflect on the fact that black people and
adults have prejudices just as white people and college students do.
The filmmaker of Dear White People successfully employs the use of dialogue, audio,
music, and cinematography techniques to show the viewing audience that stereotypes and
prejudices exist in the 21st Century. These devices are all used to create a planned, adapted,
situational, and persuasive-seeking rhetorical discourse, such as the ones Herrick and Bitzer
analyze, that wants to convince its viewing audience how common it is for us to have stereotypes
and prejudices and calls for us to change. Herrick and Bitzer, both American rhetoricians with
doctorates on the matter, mention how crucial these small techniques can have a big impact they
can have on the viewer. The movie calls for the audience to reflect on their own stereotypes and

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prejudices so that they can change their current habits. I analyzed how audio and music were
used at the beginning of the movie to prove that racial prejudices and stereotypes are present in
the news media, colleges, and the viewing audience itself. The filmmaker goes the extra mile to
prove that stereotypes and prejudices are existent in the 21st Century by having the viewing
audience itself bring forward their own stereotypes and prejudices. We also see the importance of
the use of cinematography techniques such as mobile framing and refraining in the scene we are
introduced to the business students. Both techniques are used to make us reflect on our own
stereotypes and alert us that we are constantly making stereotypes of groups of people based on
what they study or look like. We finally see in the scene where we are first introduced to Coco
how important dialogue is to show us that adults are as prejudiced as college students, and how
black people have as much prejudices and stereotypes as white people do. Without the proper use
of these techniques the movie would have never succeeded half as much as it did in proving that
discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes are still existent in America in all groups of people. It
just goes to say that the rhetorical devices the filmmaker employed have had the power to clarify
the purpose of the movie, convince us of the central argument, and persuade us to change our
current habits of having prejudices and stereotypes.
After an analysis on a few of the many rhetorical techniques the filmmaker employs
throughout the entire movie, I have to say that the movie does an incredible job employing its
rhetorical techniques to prove its central argument. In the light of an academic environment, this
movie does a great job combining multiple rhetorical techniques to cause the viewer to reflect on
the movie as a whole. The movie was able to bring forward my own stereotypes of groups of
people and all the prejudices that can and still occur in the United Sates because of skin color or

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sexual orientation. This movie is a microcosm of the larger society, and invites us to reflect and
stop having prejudices and stereotypes.

Works Cited
Lancioni, Judith A. "Rhetoric of the Frame." Rhetorical Analysis and Historical Documentary: A
Case Study of The Civil War. Philadelphia, Pa.: [publisher Not Identified], 1994. Print.

Herrick, James A. "An Overview of Rhetoric." The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An
Introduction. Boston: Allyn and Beacon, 2005. 1-25. Print.

Bitzer, Lloyd F. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 1, 1 (1968): 1-14. Print.