This Is Us Rhetorical Analysis

Throughout this film there have been many concepts relating to all of the lessons we have learned in Student Leadership class. The first concept that relates to my show is labeling, and how we label different groups of people with stereotypes. Randall was always labeled as the adopted kid or the outcast because he never seemed to fit in no matter where he was at. First he was known as a nerd because he was too smart, then he moved to a smart school where he was the only black kid there. These labels lead to a lot of conflict in Randall’s life, the first one being that the principle taking advantage of him at school. Every time a family comes to tour his school they pull him out of class and put him on the playground to show the families that they have “diversity” in the school. This makes Randall feel conflicted because he is being pulled out of class more often than he is actually in class and he isn’t exactly sure why. Another way that people group Randall in this show is when she is making a college decision. …show more content…
This Is Us shows many examples of prejudice and the different ways people rationalize and deny their prejudices. Taking is back to the grandmother when she explain away how she does not have any racism toward black people by saying that she hired a black maid. This is an example rationalization where they offer evidence of personal relationship with members of a group while maintaining a biased view of the group in general (Newton and Ender, 2010). Another example is when the judge doesn’t think that the Pearson’s should be able to adopt Randall because they are a white family. The judge offers statistics of children who have grown up in families of different race. This shows a method of rationalization where they point out evidence that confirms their bias while disregarding conflicting evidence (Newton and Ender,