Friday, March 18, 2011

The Seminar.

Another great show I'm going to analyze the rhetoric of is The Office. A few weeks ago, the show aired an episode called, "The Seminar," in which salesman Andy held a small business seminar in an attempt to bring in some extra income. However, most of his scheduled "keynote speakers," refused to speak, and Andy had to scrape together whoever else was willing to make a few short presentations to salvage his seminar. I thought it was a great example of the approaches most people take to public speaking and how some can or cannot be successful. This episode was a little dramatic of each style addressed for the sake of humor, and it worked because it was hilarious. Click here to watch the speech section of the episode on Hulu. The actual speeches start at about 7 minutes and 50 seconds into it. I loved how wittily each public speaking style was dramatized by some of my favorite characters on television:


  • Kevin goes with the hardcore, inspirational, intense style by playing music more commonly heard at a basketball game and running around the small conference room giving high fives to pump up his audience. Unfortunately, Kevin is not the most athletic of individuals and his speech is cut short, as was his breath, by some vomiting because the physical exhaustion made him a little nauseous.
  • Kelly starts out strong with a confident demeanor and smooth tone, but she fails a little on the ethos by calling an apparently successful businessman who only remembers her from a romantic rendezvous. I love how she says, "It is important to brand yourself, so I have a couple things in the works: the business bitch, the diet bitch, the shopping bitch, the etiquette bitch..." These personas have actually worked for several women in the past, at least as far as achieving fame and fortune, but Kelly isn't well-versed enough in business or relationship skills to make any of these work.
  • Creed is probably the weirdest guy in the office and maybe even character on TV, and he stays true to this reputation by starting out with an odd anecdote that makes absolutely no sense. All in all it's just creepy.
These three examples of approaches to pubic speaking might be great entertainment when we watch The Office, but they're also great lessons about what to avoid and be aware of when we approach our own rhetorical situations and how we want to present ourself.

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