Ali Wong Make The First Move Rhetorical Analysis

Brandon Kim In my essay “Make the First Move,” I talk about my current worsening relationship with my dad. By talking about my dad’s current habits, I explain my opinion and reasoning for “I hate my dad.” Through the confession of this controversial statement as well as the use of models, I am able to justify my reasonings and reveal a bigger picture of my contrasting feelings about my dad. Not only am able to convey my message of compromise and the need to make the first move to the audience, but I am also able to gain their empathy for my thoughts. In the first paragraph of my essay, I give background information about my family. I talk about who it consists of and someone of the struggles that I faced growing up. I end up the paragraph

The way I did this was by revealing a controversial statement to my audience, “I hate my dad.” Ali Wong also utilizes this strategy when she reveals to the audience that she thinks “feminism is the worst thing that ever happened to women”(Wong 22:05:22:13). We are both able to shock the audience, however through justifications of our statements, we are able to gain the empathy of the audience, as well as get them to think the same way as us. The main rhetorical device that I imitated from Wong was the use utilization of familiar scenarios. In Wong’s confession, she talks about her experience using the public restroom in her workplace. She states that “Housewives are free to just blow ass into the toilet and let it echo and reverberate to the ends of their hallways while watching as much Netflix on their iPad as they want. They don’t gotta take these boring, repressed shits”(Wong 26:59:27:20). By creating a familiar scenario of using the restroom the audience starts to empathize with her thoughts, and eventually starts to agree with her statement. With my confession, I talk about a scenario in which my dad has to pay the bills in a week's time. Rather than working harder to make the needed money, he decides to go out with his friends. Most of the audience knows the importance of paying monthly bills, and by giving them a familiar scenario

Murakami is able to set up his fantasy world, by talking about a scenario about a boy who finds a girl who thinks his 100% perfect for them. But rather than going up to talk to her, he ends up walking past never seeing her again. The set up of the fantasy story is a reality where everything goes wrong. In my confession, I set up the story by talking about my reality of being a lazy and irresponsible dad. Not only does he make the wrong decisions and chooses to play instead of working, but he is not someone to who the sons are able to look up to. Both confessions start their fantasy world with the world “ONCE UPON A TIME,” and create a world where everything that is wrong in the real world, goes right in the fantasy one. In Murakami’s confessions, rather than the boy walking past the girl, the boy walks up to her, and he ends up finding out that the girl also feels the same way about him. The fantasy ends with them doubting their thoughts and they end up forgetting about each other. However, rather than ending my fantasy in a downhearted way, I talk about a perfect family, with a hardworking dad who is able to pay his bills and be a figure that the sons look up to. The story ends in a happy way, and the fantasy allows the audience to imagine what my life would have looked like if my dad just worked hard. Although the fantasy is not realistic, the