Rhetorical Analysis: Rhetorical Analysis Of Sharkwater

Sharkwater Rhetorical Analysis Sharkwater is a 2006 documentary created by Rob Stewart, a young biologist and underwater photographer. Being passionate about the ocean and those who inhabit it, Stewart created his documentary with the intention of destroying the bad reputation that society and the media has put on sharks. Stewart also highlights in his documentary how humans have cruelly made sharks the prey and the enemy for decades. Ethos, pathos, and logos played a very important role in Sharkwater, and was strategically used throughout the documentary in order to persuade the audience that sharks aren’t the enemy, and shouldn’t be treated as such. Pathos, the appeal to one’s emotions, was heavily relied on throughout the documentary in …show more content…
Making himself credible, Stewart made sure to inform the audience that he has a degree in Biology and is also a professional underwater diver and photographer. In crediting himself, this lets the audience believe that he is correct about the biological facts about sharks and the ocean that he presents throughout the documentary. To provide further credibility for himself and the documentary, Stewart has numerous biologists and shark experts to speak on behalf of shark behavior and cruelty. For example, to credit his claim that sharks do not harm humans often or on purpose, Stewart has a shark behaviorist speak about how rare shark attacks really are, and that they only bite people out of curiosity, not to do any real harm or to “eat” the person. With having a biologist that specializes in sharks support Stewart’s facts and main points, this makes the documentary much more believable and credible. Rather than just speaking of past studies though, Stewart also takes the documentary to the Galapagos Island, where he produces a live study on hammerhead sharks just for his documentary. While filming for his movie underwater, he shows the audience how hammerhead sharks are actually afraid of humans. Whenever he would approach with his camera, they would shy away until they began to trust him enough to let him film. Doing a live study just for his documentary makes him even more credible, because it actually visually proves his facts, rather than just him speaking facts to the camera. Another way he credited himself and his claim that sharks have a terrible reputation was the use of old military videos from the ‘70s, which not only talked about sharks like they were evil predators ready to attack human flesh, but also gave rather extreme measures for what to do if a shark is near. This