13TH Documentary Essay

The Netflix original documentary, 13TH directed by Ava DuVernay explores the racial inequality in the United States throughout history. The documentary focuses mainly on the fact that most of the nation's prisons are unfairly filled with African Americans and colored people. The documentary educates the audience of the horrors the African Americans and colored people went through history and today beginning with slavery, to convict leasing, to Jim Crow Laws, and lastly to present mass incarceration. Ava deeply examines the economic history of slavery and Civil War racist legislation and practices that replaced it as "systems of racial control" and the present forced labor from the years after slavery was abolished. The powerful film 13TH represents

Compelling graphics are seen throughout the film that immediately catches the audience attention. The photograph of many colored people in chains, families in slavery, African Americans being harassed and killed induce the feelings of anger and dismay. The various graphics shown are a major contribution to the persuasion instilled in the documentary by sparking powerful emotions in the audience. Music is another major contribution to the emotional persuasion by the various of rap song inputted into the film, these rap song speak about the horrors African Americans experienced such as inhumanization, being locked in jails, history, and their treatment, in general, relating to the labor they had to accomplish in jail. The music played shocks the audience by the people true stories told through lyrics. Stories also contribute to a major part of the emotional persuasion by instilling anger at how many innocent African Americans were killed because they seemed suspicious. On February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, 17 year old, Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman for “looking suspicious” as he walked Zimmerman followed him after being told by dispatchers not to do so. Anger erupted among the people when Zimmerman was not guilty of the incident, this event causes emotional persuasion by creating anger and sadness for the injustice and death of this innocent boy. Emotional appeal is used greatly throughout the documentary, overall emotion capture and is greatly instilled to the audience by the graphics, music, and