Running head: GENRE ANALYSIS 1

Genre Analysis

Marriage Equality

Wendy Perez

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1302

Ins. Daniel Copper

March 9, 2019
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Introduction

Society has put expectations on how a marriage should be, which should only be between

a man and a woman. Many people think same-sex marriage as offensive, but on the other hand

people are for same-sex marriage. This topic is very important because people have different

personal opinions on gay marriage, whether they are for it or against it poses a problem to

society. There are many genres that can be used to describe gay marriage. The two genres that

will be discussed in this essay will be; a billboard by Kenneth Cole (2011) and an article

Observer by John Wright (2016), called “Anti- LGBT groups still fighting Same-sex marriage in

court”. Genre one is a billboard which persuades people to accept gay marriage and easily

connects to the audience because it gets right to the point. Genre two is an article (newspaper),

which informs people about why anti-LGBT groups don’t want gay same-sex spouses to have

health benefits among others.

Structure and Delivery

Genre One is a billboard designed by Kenneth Cole (2011), which demonstrates his

support to gay marriage. This is a billboard that was placed off the freeway, so when people are

driving by it. There are two major limitations, which is the fact that is off the freeway and people

don’t have time to read it. People go driving fast that sometimes they do not notice the signs

around. So, the author decided to keep it short and straight to the point. The text must be big

enough and make sense at the same time, so that the audience could connect to the billboard. The

font was bolded in black and with a white background. The words on the billboard were

capitalized so that the audience could clearly see while driving past it. They are no other extra

visuals in the billboard but there is different and much bigger fonts so that the audience could

recognize which parts are much important than the others. Since there were different fonts and
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sizes, this will help the audience remember what they saw which is very important for a genre to

do. The language and vocabulary used in this billboard is very broad and expressive. Since the

author was expressing his opinion, it was an informal language. The color of the text was just

pure black. The billboard itself, has one major limitation that could in some cases defeat the

purpose of getting the audience to see it because the audience is in the process of driving.

Genre Two, is an article (Observer, 2016) written by John Wright, which demonstrates

information about the Texas citizens that are against the LGBT community. There will always be

limitations for an author when writing an article, because they must make it interesting enough

for the audience to want to read all the way through and have their complete attention. This

article is short and simple, and it gets right to the point. The title itself does capture the

audience’s attention because it contains the words “same-sex marriage” and “anti-LGBT

groups”. Gay marriage is an issue that is all around the world and the audience can be interested

in knowing how has this issue progress. Another catcher is that this article is based on Texas

citizens that want same-sex spouses not have any health benefits among others, Texas citizens

can be interested about what is going on in the state. The article has some words in red which

shows the important part of the story. It contains percentages and dates through the article.

Contains a picture of Jonathan Saenz, president of the right-wing lobby group Texas Values and

a cardboard wedding cake celebrating Texas’ ban on same-sex marriages at a Texas Faith and

Freedom Day rally in 2015.

Genre One is more persuasive because it makes a better job at connecting to the audience

because it can easily be understood by the audience, that gay marriage should be legal and

supported. The billboard is more effective because of what it says regarding gay marriage while

the article focuses on how the Texas citizens feel about gay marriage. Genre two on the other
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hand puts more emphases on what the president of right-wing lobby group Texas Values thinks

about gay marriage other than focusing on gay marriage itself. Both genres discuss gay marriage,

but the billboard is more based on getting people to be for it than against it, since it has a strong

language and vocabulary. The audience are continuously driving by the freeway, so they must

see the billboard because it pops put and the article not a lot of people read articles, so it is harder

to capture their attention. Both genres have totally different audiences which means gay

marriage is being looked at two different ways.

Audience and Purpose

The billboard about gay marriage by Kenneth Cole was aimed for the people who do not

support gay marriage but believe in equality (Villareal, 2011). The audience believes in equality

because the billboard indicates that gays obviously have equal rights such as voting and paying

taxes. The intended audiences are sure that they do not like gay marriage. The billboard aims

right at them knowing that it will capture their attention. The time that would be spent looking at

the billboard is about 2-5 seconds, which limits what the audience becomes aware of. However,

the billboard is easy to read and understand. The author of the billboard wants the audience to

think about gay marriage and begin to look at it as they would other rights, everyone deserves the

rights. It is very civil and addresses the audience with integrity and respects their opinion. They

are trying to get the anti-LGBT groups to accept gay marriage, they deserve the right of the

union in love. Just like they have other rights, they deserve marriage. This billboard is trying to

persuade the audience with accepting gay marriage.

The article about blocking benefits for same-sex spouses by John Wright was aimed for

the people who don’t support gay marriage and inform them about the process it has been

happening in the court. The audience does not want the LGBT community to have health
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benefits, they believe they should not have any access or opportunity to have the same benefits

as the other traditional marriages. They are still fighting to win the case. On the other hand, Ken

Upton, senior counsel for the LGBT civil rights group Lambda Lega, supports same-sex

marriage “Obergefell doesn’t say that a government employer has to offer any married couple

spousal benefits, but if it chooses to do so it must offer the same benefits to all married couples

not just the different-sex ones. The government does not get to privilege straight couples over

gay couple (Upton, 2016)”. They are trying to persuade and inform, inform about the case and

persuade the anti-LGBT groups that all marriages deserve benefits.

Both genres represented gay marriage in a different way and direct to different audiences.

The fact that genre one was a billboard directed towards people who don’t believe in gay

marriage, but they believe in equality it had a better impact on how many people view gay

marriage. The newspaper article has more of a varied target audience rather than just one and the

author is informing and persuading the readers about a situation dealing with gay marriage more

than basing it on gay marriage in general. The article was also based only on what one person

thinks of the benefits for same-sex spouses or gay marriage rather than concentrating in gay

marriage

Rhetorical Issues

The billboard genre isn’t effective because Kenneth Cole is a designer and what he thinks

about gay marriage could be irrelevant to the audience and may not care about his opinion

because they have their own opinion about gay marriage. The billboard contains pathos, it is very

emotional to the audience because it targets them directly by saying “GAY PEOPLE GETTING

MARRIED? Next they’ll be allowed to vote and pay taxes.” (Kenneth, 2012) Putting those

words on the billboard makes the audience very irritated and furious because it is questioning
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what they believe in and what they don’t want to happen. The billboard also contains some ethos,

the evidence that he uses is that gays have all the rights that heterosexual citizens have so why

shouldn’t they be able to get married. The billboard was able to get the public to connect

emotionally.

The article is very credible to most people in Texas because it is a reliable source of

information and that creates the effectiveness of the article. In the article there isn’t much of

pathos, it doesn’t really make the audience feel emotionally connected to the author. There is

pathos, the author includes percentages and dates, which brings credibility to the article. It

doesn’t bring much attention to the audience since it doesn’t contain any visual that represent

emotion. The intended audience is varied, it can go for anti-LGBT groups or for the audience

that supports gay marriage. The purpose of this article was to inform the audience about the case

of 2016, to see if they win the case of blocking benefits for same-sex spouses. This article

needed more pathos to get the audience into connecting to the article.

The billboard is more successful than the newspaper article as far as pathos. The

billboard is more emotional for the audience. The article does not create as many emotions as the

billboard because it is mostly informational. The billboard establishes pathos by using facts to

help his argument that gay marriage should be legal if gays are able to do everything else. For

example, the billboard said “GAY PEOPLE GETTING MARRIED? (next they will be allowed

to vote and pay taxes” (Kenneth, 2011). It is obvious that the intended audience knows that gay

people can vote and pay taxes, so this statement makes the audience think about the inequality.

The article is more effective in using ethos because it is in the “Observer” newspaper which is

very credible. The billboard on the other hand is by a designer which is not credible to the

audience because it’s their own opinion and the audience might not want to pay attention to it.
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Conclusion and Synthesis

Both genres explained and represent gay marriage in a unique different way. They each

achieved its purpose of trying to capture the audience’s attention. However, genre one was the

most effective in conveying their message, it was direct to the point. Genre two, was not

effective enough since it had different point of views, it could confuse the audience by not

knowing if the author it’s for or against same-sex marriage. The author of the billboard made

clear that he supported gay marriage and it made it easy for the audience to comprehend. But

each audience will understand what they want to understand to their benefit.
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References

Villareal, D. (2011, Aug 5) What Horrible Things Will Happen If Gays Are Allowed to Marry?

Kenneth Cole Explains. Retrieved from http://www.queerty.com/what-horrible-things-will-

happen-if-gays-are-allowed-to-marry-kenneth-cole-explains-20110805/References

Wright, J. (2016, October 05). Texas Anti-LGBT Groups Still Fighting Same-Sex Marriage In

Court. Retrieved from https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-values-same-sex-marriage-court-

again/