Howard Community College



Bobby StudentDr. MooreENGL-121Dec. 3, 2017Visual Analysis: The Boy in Striped PajamasMovie producers find ways to hook the audience into paying to watch or buy the movie. These techniques to persuade the audience were categorized 2300 years ago by a man named Aristotle (Dlugan). The categories are ethos, pathos and logos: ethos is influencing the audience with credibility, pathos is connecting with emotion, and logos is persuading the audience through logic and reasoning. The movie The Boy in Striped Pajamas uses these methods in their movie cover to raise ticket and movie sales by bringing in more viewers. Movie covers are the first thing the viewer sees before they make their first judgment on the movie, so the artist has to be very precise on what he/she puts in the movie poster because the audience can decide they do or don’t want to see the movie in a second of looking at the movie cover. The Boy in Striped Pajamas’ cover uses Aristotle’s appeals of pathos and ethos through the use of colors, a tagline, and the accurate use of clothing to demonstrate the emotion and credibility of the movie.One way The Boy in Striped Pajamas’ cover portrays the method of pathos is the use of color throughout the whole cover. Looking at the poster from a glance it looks like The Boy in Striped Pajamas is a movie with a happy ending. This interpretation is decided by the cool colors of bright green grass and blue skies. This will persuade the audience through the emotion of hope into watching the movie. People will feel hopeful that the boy in the concentration camp will survive. But, at a more detailed look the sky changes from blue to a yellow-orange sky in the distance. This change in color of the sky from blue to yellow-orange sky represents that the movie will start off hopeful that the boy will survive, but in the end a misfortune event will happen in the movie, which also uses pathos to hook the viewer into watching to movie. This depiction of the sky would be accurate to the time period because of how many Jewish people died in the concentration camps. The possibility of the boy inside the camp surviving is very slim, so the prediction that a misfortunate event will happen by the end of movie is very probable. With the use of pathos, the movie poster expresses emotion to the audience.When a movie is based in a period of time that multitudes of people were killed, it is easiest to use the method of pathos to attract individuals to watch the movie. So, The Boy in Striped Pajamas uses this to their advantage. Another way this movie cover represents the use of pathos is through the tagline used in the poster. Taglines are used to help advertise a movie by persuading viewers through the use of Aristotle’s methods. Movie producers know not all of society is going to want to watch their movie, so by targeting an audience with a tagline they can maximize their sales. At the top of the cover the tagline states, “Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us”(The Boy in...). This tagline brings the impression that the boys will join together one day. This hope appeals to viewers that want a happy ending in a movie. Also, this builds a sense of wonder to the audience because of their knowledge about the Holocaust. Jewish people in the Holocaust were not able to escape from a concentration camp, which will make the audience want to see the movie to find out what happens. Even though the sky depicts that there will be a misfortunate event in the end of the movie, it doesn’t mean that one-day the boys could be united. The tagline in The Boy in Striped Pajamas movie cover portrays the emotion of hope through the use of pathos.A movie cannot be labeled as historical fiction without some sort of factual information. Using the method of ethos on the movie poster will show that this movie is credible. Using ethos the movie producers can interest viewers who like to watch nonfictional movies. The Holocaust was a time that accurate information was necessary to know to retell the stories of ones who went through the hardships. This made it possible for the movie artist to use that information into making the poster credible. On the movie cover the artist’s draws the boy in the concentration camp to be in white and blue striped shirt and pants, this is the boy in striped pajamas. These clothes are accurate to the time period of the Holocaust because the Nazi army forced all Jewish people in concentration camps to wear this clothing. Knowing this factual information helped the movie producers attract more people to watch their movie. By being accurate in small details the audience will be able to trust the producers in writing a movie that is historically correct. This use of ethos will ultimately persuade the audience into believing that the movie is credible.Aristotle’s methods all depend on how the viewer interprets what they see, hear, or read. This forces the movie poster artist to be as detailed as possible to make sure the cover is represents the right information. People may interpret that the barbwire fence between the two boys is a use of ethos because of its accurate design of the fence to the World War II time period, which is proof that the interpretation of anything depends on the audience. The fence is actually a use of pathos because it creates a barrier between the two boys, which represents the emotion of disbelief because the two boys will never unite. This will target audiences that like movies that sad to come watch the movie. But the emotion that the audience feel could also be adventurous, so that the two boys could never unite together, but can figure out a plan to join one day. This pathos will persuade the audience that likes an adventurous movie that the main characters have to overcome an obstacle. Every audience member interprets things different, which is proven above. This makes the job of the movie cover artist very difficult. The artist of the movie cover uses objects to portray the method of pathos by reaching to the audience emotionally in many ways.The methods Aristotle wrote about 2300 years ago still play into effect today (Dlugan). All information that is spoken, written, or seen can be categorized under his three persuasive techniques: ethos, pathos, and logos. In this particular piece of work the movie producers use the methods of pathos and ethos to demonstrate the emotion and credibility of The Boy in Striped Pajamas. By the use of color the artist was able to represent that the movie will seem hopeful, but have a misfortunate event happen in the end, which is the use of pathos. Pathos was also used in the tagline at the top of the movie cover, “Lines may divide us, but hope will unite us” (The Boy in...). This described to the audience that it was possible for the two boys to join together one-day. Ethos was used in the clothing of the boy that was inside the concentration camp because it was historically accurate, which put trust in the movie producers from the audience to make a movie that was correct to the time period. The Boy in Striped Pajamas implements Aristotle’s methods of pathos and ethos by establishing emotion and credibility throughout the movie cover. ................
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