The Secret Rhetorical Analysis

In their movie The Secret, the filmmakers attempt to inform their viewers of a powerful concept in which they refer to as The Secret, or the Law of Attraction, and how to use it. They aim to convince everyone who watches the movie that the secret is real. They show many examples of people who have effectively used it. Throughout the movie, the rhetorical strategies ethos, pathos, and logos are used. First, they use the appeal to authority, which is ethos, to make their audience trust them. In the movie, Bob Proctor and Rev. Michael Beckwith have captions under them while they are talking that say what their profession is. As do all of the other people who speak in the movie, whether they are a philosopher or financial strategist. All of the
To begin, they use people who are not really an expert in the things they say. Some of the speakers are only authors and some have bad reputations. For example, the audience doesn’t know because to them the person’s appearance is appealing. This is what we would call a false appeal to authority. Second, they commit the slippery slope fallacy. There is a sequence of events they show and explain; ask, believe, and receive. Their claim is that if you follow these steps you will get whatever you want. The slippery slope fallacy is when small actions lead to something extreme. Although these actions might have worked for one person, it doesn’t mean that they will for everyone. The people in the movie don’t take into consideration all of the steps that have to come in between the asking and believing in order to receive the final thing you were working for. A last logical fallacy that they have is the no true Scotsman. The narrator says that if it doesn’t work, then obviously whoever it is didn’t want it that bad. This is a fallacy because someone might want whatever it is really bad but there are steps that they have to take to get there. If it doesn’t work, it’s not because they didn’t believe hard enough, it could be because something happened along the way that prevented them from receiving what they wanted. The teachers of the secret are excluding