3.) Discuss the documentary watched in the context of TWO essential questions below. Include specific details – content and rhetoric – to support your claims.
a. How have modes of communication been a reflection of history and society?
The “mode of communication” utilized the most in this specific documentary was the use of camera recorders to capture the on-and-off-stage contexts as well as the general music from the bands. The other more personal use of communication was the use of interviews – either direct interviews of the bands or indirect interviews where they gave bands the microphone – to capture the bands’ personalities. The utilization of these two modes represents how the rhetoric of it “reflects history and society” because they both were a way to document a certain era of music.
CONTENT: Although this documentary did not cover all of the bands in the punk/grunge era, they contextually utilized their communication to capture the bands that played the largest part in developing this musical time period. This is a great reflection of history and society because, in a way, by following these bands on tour, they showed to the world what this musical time period was all about. They showed to the audience– on a content level – what life was like backstage and on stage and how sometimes a view from the crowd is not the full view at all.
RHETORICAL: Rhetorically, since they were able to get the “behind the scenes” and “on stage” action all together simultaneously, the audience could perfectly understand that this musical era was not all one thing – but a combination of the bands’ offbeat personalities and how they reflect them in their music. The juxtaposition of these two lives showed their on-stage lives where massive crowds gather for them and their off-stage “goof-ball” lives where they do whatever they want and act perfectly abnormal and carefree. This use of contrast was a perfect rhetorical addition because it reflects how different this era of music was…and how this “difference” made it thrive. Although it reflects some the similarities from the 60’s (due to the connection of the confusing anecdotes of the band members) this emphasized juxtaposition shows such disconnect between their fame and their not-so-“fame” personalities. It may leave some people, who may not understand that being “different” gets you places, asking “how?”.
The only way this content could become meaningful, contrasting rhetoric was by utilizing the modern modes of communication at the time to edit the “behind the scenes” and “off-stage” footage of the bands. The capturing and editing of this tour perfectly represented musical history and society at the time of the grunge and punk era.
b. How do the modern modes of communication affect the rhetorical devices individuals have at their disposal?
Again, the modes of communication used in this documentary were camcorders and microphones to capture video and here-and-there audio from interviews. I will first explain how these modes affected the rhetorical devices the band members had at their disposal. Since the director provided the band members a microphone, they utilized a much wider range of devices because they could express themselves much more freely. Since they could pick up the microphone at their disposal, we could hear much more of their personalities come through because they told us about any and everything they thought of or saw. For example, when the lead singer of Sonic Youth had the microphone, he made up raps about random things he saw while the rest of the band members danced in a circle. Also, one time, he even used it as he screamed out of a window as loud as he would if he was screaming to a crowd – and then we saw the camera pan down to an empty street where only a lady and her child were walking. This simple mode of communication – being a microphone and a camcorder – allowed the band members to show off their personalities to the fullest extent. It also brought out that juxtaposition again. This widened rhetoric changed the context of the doc from watching “a band on tour” objectively to actually understanding the band on tour subjectively.
These modes of communication affected the devices the director had because the use of the most modern technology at the time got him a back-stage pass to the festivities of the tour. His ethos was absolutely heightened due to these modes because he could be less formal about his direction and more focused on what the band wanted to say or do. The camera acted like another addition to one of the bands, kind of like another friend to talk to, unlike an interview which pushes the band away. Due to his increased ethos, the band trusted him more so he got much more footage than he would have if he told them what to do. He even showed the contrast of the amount of footage he got with the amount of footage actual interviewers got within the documentary. For example, the director showed an MTV interview and then a foreign-music channel’s interview where the band ignored the interviewers completely and even made up things just to get them away. Then, after showing that, he showed his footage of the band after those interviews and how much they told him - compared to what they just said…or didn’t say…at the other interviews. It gave the audience a sense of confidence and made them feel like they only had to say “hey…it’s OK I’m with this guy” (being the director) in order to get back stage.
All in all, these modern modes of communication established the director’s ethos to such an extent that the “rhetorical devices” he could capture, use, and create from his large amounts of footage were endless.
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