Audry Martinez Dr. Meredith Sides English 1302-009 26 January 2023 Three ideas. Three contradictions. Or not: TED Talk Analysis The Ted Talk I reviewed was by speaker Hannah Gadsby called “Three ideas. Three contradictions. Or not.” Gadsby’s talk has been viewed 3,397,535 times as of this date and her presentation is a mix of emotion, comedy and motivation on how she overcame her trauma by speaking her truth. She talks about how she is a contradiction in the comedy world because she is an autistic woman who is bad at turning her thinking into speaking, but she is still somehow good in the stand-up world. The “Three contradictions” she refers to in the title of her talk are that she is bad at talking and she is good at talking; she quit comedy and did not quit comedy …show more content…
(“It’s what it is. I first tried my hand at stand-up comedi — comedie … See? See? See?” 01:18). When the audience begins to laugh at her, she relaxes, and another form of pathos is successfully used by showing her human side. Throughout the entire talk, Gadsby’s communication style was mainly pathos, targeting her listener’s emotions but she also needed to prove to them that she knew comedy. She demonstrates ethos when she talks about the rule of three or the “trick of the trade”, that most comedians use in their shows. She explains how she uses this trick in the beginning of her show when she tells the palindrome joke. Gadsby created a list when she told the audience her whole family have palindromic names such as mum, dad, nan, pop; and with this list she created a pattern, therefore demonstrating the first two ideas on the rule of three. She then throws out the third idea by applying the element of surprise with her brother “Kayak”, which is an actual palindromic name (Gadsby 03:50-04:18). When she breaks this down to the audience, she