Rhetorical Analysis on High School

High school, the best times of our lives. But in every situation others don’t experience it as the time of their lives. In specific, the so called, “Loser, Nerds, Outcasts." Sometimes the perception that most high school movies convey for this certain group are the reality. In this article "High school confidential: Notes on teen movies" by David Denby, He describes the functions of an everyday American high school. David Denby uses very effective language and rhetoric to provide the minds of the opposing side. A sample of the rhetoric skills he uses is stereotypes, ethos, and pathos.

The most disliked teenager that runs the halls is a popular blonde-.... She's tall and slender, with a waist as supple as a willow... slatternly tongue that devastates other kids with such insults.... She has two or three friends exactly like her, and together they dominate their realm. This is the typical popular girl as we in-vision partly because of the movies, but the movies must have gotten the foundation for such a character from a real life all American girl. And although not all stereotypes are true, this one seems to have quite a lot of truth to it. As he goes on into his theories he describes several “everyday American teenagers” from the bitchy popular girl to the gothic kids. But he ends up revealing this character in such a way as the,” male counterpart”. As in movies the typical football player is represented as muscular but dumb, with a face like a of a male model/ pretty boy and only two ways of speaking- in a conspiratorial whisper, to a friend; or in a drill sergeants sudden bellow. Not only does he get into the descriptions of the girls, but the typical jock. If one was too compare and contrast the people in their high school to the ones that Denby is speaking of, they will be able to pin point them perfectly. Denby uses many examples of stereotypes, but also presents ethos. He takes many movies and compares the characters from both views, so in a way he is