A slide show created for Marc Bousquet's English 212 class in the fall of 2014.

1. The Melodramatic Mode
As analyzed by Elizabeth Anker, Linda Williams, and myself.

2. Objectives
This presentation will:
--Analyze two media stories that seem to be in agreement
with the view of Melodrama that Elizabeth Anker puts forth in
her article “Villains, Victims, and Heroes: Melodrama, Media,
and September 11.”
--Analyze two media stories that can be related to Linda
Williams’s discussion of melodrama in her book “Playing the
Race Card.”
--Propose two issues that I believe could be justifiably
approached with a Melodramatic Rhetoric.

3. Anker’s Article
Anker’s article analyzes the
way that melodramatic rhetoric
was used by popular media
(specifically Fox News) in regards
to the events of September 11,
2001. She details the specific
combinations of words and
images that news coverage used
to successfully cast the American
people as a unified, virtuous
entity, victimized by evil and
cowardly forces, and thereby
justified, or even obligated, to
respond with heroic retribution.

4. Anker on Melodrama
“My concern is that in the ensuing national discussion,
designations of right and wrong became depoliticized
because they were codified as universal moral truths.
Hence, they became unaccountable to public debate.”
Fully aware of the persuasive power of melodrama, Anker
worries that it homogenizes public opinion, too quickly
defining the sides of good and evil, and keeping individuals
from analyzing the more subtle facets of an issue and
drawing their own conclusions. Thus, she believes that the
widespread influence of the melodramatic mode could have
“dangerous ramifications.”

5. The BP Oil Spill
On April 20, 2010, the
Deepwater Horizon drilling rig
exploded, injuring many crew
members and killing several.
The site where the rig had
been drilling began to leak oil
profusely. Before the leak
was finally stemmed many
weeks later, hundreds of
millions gallons of oil spilled
into the gulf of Mexico,
covering tens of thousands of
square miles of the ocean’s
surface, and washing up on
hundreds of miles of Gulf
coast beaches.

6. Media Response
Condemnation of BP for allowing the oil spill to occur was
emphatic:
--Protests were staged at BP gas stations, and sales at many stations went
down significantly.
--The media was flooded with images of pathetic, suffering animals covered in
oil.
--Books were published with titles like the following: Drowning in Oil: BP and
the Reckless Pursuit of Profit (Steffy), Run to Failure: BP and the Deepwater
Horizon Disaster (Lustgarten), and In Too Deep: BP and the Drilling Race That
Took it Down.
--Greenpeace said: “BP’s slick green logo doesn’t suit a company that engages
in dangerous offshore drilling,” and invited the public to suggest a new one.
Examples can be seen on the following slide.

8. President Obama’s Speech
On June 15, 2010, President Obama gave a speech
addressing the BP oil spill. Here are some highlights:
“[I am here] to speak with you about the battle we’re waging
against an oil spill that is assaulting our shore and our
citizens.”
“This oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has
ever faced.”
“We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long
as it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their
company has caused. And we will do whatever’s necessary
to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this
tragedy.”

9. Connection to Anker
It is not difficult to see how the BP oil spill was placed in a
melodramatic framework—BP was cast as the unscrupulous, profit-seeking
villain, who victimized wildlife and the American people.
However, in our eagerness to heap blame on BP, Americans
seemingly forgot that other petroleum powers—Shell, Exxon-Mobil,
Chevron, etc.—also take part in offshore drilling, and that there is
no way to be sure a similar accident could not have happened to
one of them. Boycotting BP, then, in favor of other gas stations,
probably makes little difference, and pushes aside the fact that
America’s high gas consumption is a large part of the reason
offshore drilling takes place at all. It also ignores the many other
environmental repercussions of burning fossils fuels, which, though
less immediate and dramatic than a spill, are probably just as
serious. As Anker warned, adopting a melodramatic rhetoric has
caused people to ignore the complexities of an issue in their
eagerness to demonize a villain.

10. James Wagner and the 3/5
Compromise
In February of 2013, Emory
University President James
Wagner wrote an article for
Emory Magazine entitled “As
American as… Compromise.”
The article discussed the
importance of compromise in
politics, and it put forth as a
example of successful
compromise the 3/5
Compromise, which
determined that 3/5 of the
slave population in the
southern states would count
towards total state populations
for the purposes of
representation in Congress.

11. Media Response
Wagner was emphatically condemned for speaking positively
about the 3/5 compromise.
--Articles were published with titles such as “Emory President
Praises 3/5 Compromise As Great ‘Pragmatic’ Solution,”
“Emory President Extols 3/5 Compromise,” and “Emory
University’s Leader Reopens its Racial Wounds.”
--Members of the Emory Faculty published a letter in the
Emory Wheel expressing their disapproval of his holding up
of the 3/5 compromise as a positive example.

12. Student Response
--Many students took to social
media to condemn Wagner for
his words, referring to him as
“3/5 of a president” and calling
for his resignation.
--About a week after the
article was published, Wagner
spoke at a reception for a
campus exhibition on civil
rights. Students attended in
silent protest, holding signs
saying “Shame on James”
and “This is 5/5 outrageous.”

13. Connection to Anker
Anker would likely say that President Wagner made the
mistake of saying something positive about a piece of
legislation associated with an institution which for many
years has been acknowledged as evil. She probably would
not argue that slavery is anything but evil, but she would be
interested to see how everything associated with it is
oversimplified to also be seen as inherently evil. Wagner
certainly never meant to endorse slavery, and even his
detractors never claimed that he did. However, the simple
fact that, in trying to illustrate the admirable concept of
“compromise,” he foolishly chose an example associated
with slavery was enough to cause public outrage.

14. Williams’s Chapter
The seventh chapter of Williams’s book
Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of
Black and White from Uncle Tom to O.J.
Simpson, she investigates the ways that
attorneys in the O.J. Simpson and
Rodney King cases employed or failed to
employ melodramatic rhetoric to show
their clients’ suffering and give them
moral authority. The chapter also
addresses the inherently melodramatic
elements of the adversarial court system,
the portrayal of the two trials in the media,
the dueling melodramatic emphases on
race and gender, and public response to
the two cases.

15. Williams on Melodrama
“We must equip ourselves as a culture with the tools to
understand the melodramatic stories of race, gender, and
class that do, inevitably, sway both audiences and juries.”
Williams acknowledges just as readily as Anker how
powerfully persuasive melodrama can be. However, while
Anker seems to believe that melodrama unifies opinion and
stifles debate, Williams seems to believe that in certain
cases, a sound understanding and control of melodramatic
vocabulary is essential to hold one’s own in a debate. She
realizes how both the defense and the prosecution can paint
their clients as victims, and she, by extension, would
probably agree that in any complex, hotly contested issue,
both sides can use a melodramatic rhetoric to their
advantage.

16. Creighton and Macklemore
Creighton University, a Catholic School in
Omaha, Nebraska, had a promotion in which
they distributed concert tickets to some of their
students. Macklemore was scheduled to give a
concert in Omaha in late October of 2013, and
the university planned to give out some tickets
to its students. However, two students wrote a
letter to the school’s newspaper, The
Creightonian, which asserted that it ran
contrary to Creighton’s Catholic identity to give
students tickets to the concert of such an active
supporter of gay marriage. Though the school
did eventually follow through and distribute the
tickets, they did so later than was originally
planned, after considering the massive debate
sparked by the letter, which at one point was so
heated that the Creightonian web site crashed.

17. The Letter
The letter was written by students Ben Thompson and
Christina Laubenthal. Here are some highlights:
“We are writing with concern for the moral standards and
Catholic traditions at Creighton.”
The following quote from the US Council of Catholic Bishops:
“Christians must give witness to the whole moral truth and
oppose as immoral both homosexual acts and unjust
discrimination against homosexual persons.”
“With concern for its integrity, we urge Creighton to resist
popular practice and instead hold itself to the highest moral
standards.”

18. Popular Response
Students spoke out both in support of and against Thompson
and Laubenthal’s letter. For simplicity’s sake, though, here are
some highlights from a letter the Creighton College Democrats sent
to the Creightonian in response to the original letter:
“We refuse to deny for even a second that denying gay people the
right to marriage is anything but hurtful homophobia cloaked behind
religious ideology.”
“Creighton has so many closeted students, afraid to speak about
their attraction to the same gender, or their gender dysphoria.
They’ve been told all their lives that they’re worthless, and they’ve
internalized that message.”
“[Thompson and Laubenthal’s letter] propogates hateful, harmful
ideas.”

19. Connection to Williams
Williams would not be surprised to see how both those in
favor of distributing the tickets and those against it employ
melodramatic rhetoric. Thompson and Laubenthal paint the
virtuous, moral Creighton as the victim of the overbearing
influence of “popular practice.” They also argue that people
can respect homosexual individuals even if they believe they
should not be allowed to have sex or be married. The
response letter, however, represents homosexuals as the
victims, forced to hide their true feelings because of
villainous homophobes who cloak their bigoted ideals under
the guise of religious principal. It emphatically shows the
suffering of people who are made to feel “worthless” simply
due to their sexual orientation.

20. Missouri’s Proposition B
The Missouri Dog Breeding
Regulation Act, or Proposition B,
was an initiated state statute on
Missouri’s November 2010 ballot.
It called for increased regulation
of dog breeding facilities,
including rules about feeding,
housing, and resting periods
between breeding. Also, perhaps
most famously, it called for
limiting the number of breeding
dogs in a facility to 50. The
proposition passed by a three
percent margin, but the Missouri
State Senate later passed a bill
that negated many of its
provisions.

21. Supporter: The HSUS
The Humane Society of the United States was one of the most
vocal supporters of Proposition B. Here are some excerpts from
articles published on their web site.
“[Missouri dog breeding facilities] churn out hundreds of thousands
of puppies a year as a cash crop for the pet trade.”
“At puppy mills in Missouri, dogs are crammed into small and filthy
cages, denied veterinary care, exposed to extremes of heat and
cold, and given no exercise or human affection. These puppy mills
are cruel and the way these dogs are treated is wrong. Prop B
would stop puppy mill abuses by establishing common-sense
standards for the care of dogs.”
“A number of veterinarians, veterinary clinics, religious leaders and
many Missouri businesses have endorsed Prop B.”

22. Images from the HSUS articles
on Proposition B

23. Opposed: Lucas Cattle
Company
The following are quotes from an article put forth by Lucas Cattle
company entitled “The Truth About Prop-B.”
“HSUS is seeking to take down Missouri’s dog breeding industry.”
“[HSUS] disclosed over $206 million in assets in its 2007 Annual
Report.”
“[HSUS wants] a United States with NO animal ownership; NO meat to
eat; NO pets; NO hunting; NO fishing; NO service animals.”
“HSUS has now become the self-appointed law enforcement of the
animal world. In some states, HSUS employees are obtaining
warrants with false information, running around with guns and police-like
badges breaking down doors…”
“Proposition B will cause more small businesses to go under and put
many Missourians out of their jobs.”

24. Connection to Williams
Missouri’s Proposition B is clearly another case of dueling
Melodramatic stories. Supporters of the proposition emphasized
the suffering of dogs in puppy mills, both through the written word
and through pathetic pictures, to earn their side moral capital. They
also characterize dog breeders as greedy and heartless capitalists
by saying how they raise puppies as a “cash crop.” The Lucas
Cattle Company, on the other hand, by tying the bill in so directly
with the HSUS and emphasizing the amount of money the HSUS
controls, implicitly characterizes Proposition B as a money-making
scheme. It casts as victims people who would lose their jobs due
to the proposition, people whose freedoms would be impinged
upon by the HSUS’s supposed vigilante justice, hunters, fishermen,
disabled people who require service animals, and, in fact, anybody
who owns animals or eats meat.

25. My 1st Issue: Silver Carp
The Silver Carp is an
invasive species of fish.
They were introduced into
the United States in the
1970s to control algae
growth in fish farms. They
escaped shortly after, and
have since become
widespread and numerous
in the Mississippi River
Basin.

26. Negative Effects
--The silver carp is a filter feeder, and strains tiny plankton from the
water for its food. These tiny plankton are normally a food source
for small fish native to the U. S., such as gizzard shad and
minnows, which in turn serve as food for popular game species like
bass, walleye, and catfish. Silver carp, however, are large fish,
usually growing to at least two feet long—far too large to serve as
forage for game fish. Thus, they effectively pull the rug out from
under the food chain.
--As filter feeders, they will not take a bait, and thus cannot be
pursued as a sport fish.
--They jump in the air when startled, and can be dangerous when
they collide with boaters. Images of jumping silver carp appear in
the following slide.

28. Applying Melodrama
One suggested strategy to reduce Silver carp populations in the
U.S. is through commercial fishing. As of now, the market for carp
meat in the U.S. is limited, but it could likely be expanded if the
people saw consuming silver carp as a way of fighting a
reprehensible villain. Silver carp fit easily into the role of a
melodramatic villain: they are greedy (in their eating), powerful,
brutal, and dangerous. They victimize native species whose food
sources they deplete, anglers who suffer from the reduction in
game fish populations, and boaters who they have the potential to
injure.
Furthermore, while in most cases it is dangerous and unethical
to use a melodramatic rhetoric to demonize a group of human
beings, one can maintain a much surer moral footing when
demonizing a fish.

29. My 2nd Issue: Noodling
Noodling is the practice of
catching catfish with bare
hands. Noodlers reach into
holes in river and lake
bottoms where catfish nest,
hoping that the catfish will
bite to defend their eggs
and fry, enabling the
noodlers to grab them by
the lower lip. Noodling is
legal in twelve states, and
is mainly practiced in the
Southeast.

30. Negative Effects
--Noodling targets catfish during the breeding season, when they
are vulnerable and easy to find.
--If a parent catfish is harvested, the eggs in the nest will die.
--Noodling targets the large, sexually mature fish that would
produce the most offspring.
--Noodling can be dangerous, and injuries can be inflicted not only
by large catfish, but by snapping turtles, snakes, muskrats and
beavers that inhabit the same sort of holes.
--Noodling has the potential to damage fish populations that are
already struggling due to problems like channelization, pollution,
and invasive species.

31. Applying Melodrama
Noodling as presented in the melodramatic mode would have
the same two victims as the silver carp: anglers and fish. In this
case, the fish victim would specifically be the virtuous parent catfish
(usually the males, but sometimes both parents) that are made
vulnerable by their noble attempts to protect their offspring. The
villain, then, would be the desire for an easy way to harvest large
fish for their meat, and the lack of concern both for sport and for
maintaining the population of fish for future generations.
In this case, since the villain is not merely a fish, but a human
practice that is probably rarely ill-intentioned, one would have to
exercise some restraint and subtlety in the use of melodramatic
rhetoric. It would be important not to directly vilify or stereotype
people who practice noodling, and instead place the emphasis on
letting the catfish defend their nests, and making sure there are still
fish for future generations.

32. Thanks For Viewing!