Logical Fallacies in Popular
Documentaries
“There’s a mighty big
difference between good,
sound reasons and
reasons that sound good.”
Burton Hills, cited in Laurence J. Peter’s Peter,
Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977), p. 425
What is a
logical
fallacy?
• A "fallacy" is
a mistake,
• and a
"logical"
fallacy is a
mistake in
reasoning.
Remember!
• Recognizing the director’s
– Choices
– Claims
– Evidence
– Logical fallacies
= Understanding Bias in Documentaries
Appeals to Pathos
• Attempt to make the audience to
experience ideas on an emotional,
instinctive, and “gut” level.
• Commonly used in essay films in which
directors assert a particular position on
the issue.
FALLACIES OF
RELEVANCE:
• Appeal to Emotion ("argument from pity"): An
emotional appeal concerning what should be
a logical issue. While pathos generally works
to reinforce a sense of duty or outrage at
some abuse, trying to use emotion merely for
the sake of getting the person to accept what
should be a logical conclusion is a fallacy.
Appeals to Pathos in
Documentaries
• Use visual and sound elements to pull
on emotions.
• Combines visual and written rhetoric to
put through the director’s thesis or point
of view.
Bowling for Columbine
What A Wonderful World
Remember!
• Pathos is a powerful rhetorical appeal,
but it can backfire and undermine
credibility for the rest of the arguments
presented.
Argument to the People:
"Using an appeal to popular assent.
Bandwagon Approach: “Everybody is doing it.”
Snob Approach: doesn’t assert “everybody is
doing it,” but rather that “all the best people
are doing it.”
Argument to the People:
"Using an appeal to popular assent.
Patriotic Approach: "Draping oneself in
the flag." Asserts that a certain stance
is true or correct because it is
somehow patriotic, and that those who
disagree are unpatriotic.
Wal-Mart: The High Price of Low
Cost
• Sequence represents director’s “call to
action” segment of a traditional essay.
• Director asserts Wal-Mart has negative
impacts on individuals, businesses,
communities and the global economy.
Wal-Mart: The High Price of Low
Cost – 01:32:36 – 01:34:48
• How do the visuals images, text, voiceovers, and music combine to create
different emotions and moods, and how
do these emotions reinforce the “call to
action”?
• Sequence begins with community
protest.
• Let’s see what happens!
Questions to Consider
• What is the effect of repeating Lee Scott’s
comment “don’t want you in the
community”? Are the sliding photographs
effective?
• How does this segment make use of the
bandwagon fallacy? What are some of the
ways the director asserts both the
popularity and possibility of standing up to
giant corporations like Wal-Mart?
Appeal to Tradition:
• asserts that a premise must be
true because people have
always believed it or done it.
Alternatively, it may conclude
that the premise has always
worked in the past and will thus
always work in the future.
Appeal to Tradition:
• uses the logic that the way
things used to be is better
than they are now, ignoring
any problems of the past
Bowling For Columbine
Chapter 5, ‘Michigan Militia”
00:08:06 – 00:08:58
• What seems to be Moore’s attitude
toward the Michigan Militia? How do
you know?
Bowling For Columbine
Chapter 5, ‘Michigan Militia”
00:08:06 – 00:08:58
• When the 1st Militia member refers to the
Second Amendment of the US
Constitution in his statement, “This is an
American tradition…it’s an American
responsibility to be armed. If you’re not
armed, you’re not responsible. Who’s
going to defend your kids? The cops? The
federal government?” do you accept his
reasoning? Does Michael Moore seem to
agree with him? Explain.
False Analogy
• In an analogy, two objects (or events), A
and B are shown to be similar. Then it is
argued that since A has property P, so
also B must have property P. An
analogy fails when the two objects, A
and B, are different in a way which
affects whether they both have property
P.
False Cause
• Definition: Assuming that because B comes after A, A
caused B. Of course, sometimes one event really
does cause another one that comes later—for
example, if I register for a class, and my name later
appears on the roll, it's true that the first event caused
the one that came later. But sometimes two events
that seem related in time aren't really related as
cause and event. That is, correlation isn't the same
thing as causation.
How to Identify Faulty
Analogy
• Question whether the comparison is
reasonable.
• Do the two ideas or events have a
cause and effect relationsip?
Bowling For Columbine
Marilyn Manson
• Moore looks at the who and what
people blamed for Columbine. Is there
really a correlation?
Scare Tactics
• Common emotional appeal that
convinces audience to fear the
opposition.
• Not necessarily logically unsound –
scare tactics rely on presenting the
actual facts, but in a way that heightens
or exaggerates fear.
Bowling for Columbine
Supersize Me
Appeals to Ethos
• Appeal to authority uses experts and
expert testimony to advance the
argument.
• Watch out for Appeal to False Authority
or Appeal to Improper Authority, which
uses a famous person or a source that
may not be reliable.
Pathos, Ethos & Logos –
Oh,My!
• Combining statistics, facts and logical
reasoning with expert interviews or
statements and a scare tactics can be
very effective, and often very believable.
Super Size Me
Morgan Spurlock, 2004
Chapter 11, “The Impact” 00:29:09 – 00:30:15
• Why might Spurlock have used cartoon
illustrations of each of the diseases or
health conditions? Are these
illustrations effective? What does
Spurlock achieve by having these
illustrations tile over the McDonald’s
exterior?
Super Size Me
Morgan Spurlock, 2004
Chapter 11, “The Impact” 00:29:09 – 00:30:15
• Based on this segment, who might
Spurlock’s intended audience be?
• Spurlock uses ethos, pathos, and logos
in this segment. Which of these
appeals is most convincing? Explain.
Slippery Slope
• Works well in conjunction with scare
tactics.
• Both are alarmist; both refer to actual
facts
Slippery slope
• Definition: The arguer asserts that if we take
even one step onto the "slippery slope," we
will end up sliding all the way to the bottom;
he or she assumes we can't stop halfway
down the hill.
Wal-Mart: The High Price of Low Cost
– Robert Greenwald
Chapter 2: “Out of Business” 00:10:15 – 00:12:46
• Why might Greenwald open with one
family’s story? Even though this is one
small business’ story, what might this
scene suggest about similar small
businesses?
• What effect does Greenwald create by
fading to black and shooting the final
scene of the store at twilight? What is this
a visual metaphor for?
Wal-Mart: The High Price of Low Cost
– Robert Greenwald, Chapter 2: “Out of Business”
Wal-Mart: The High Price of Low Cost –
Robert Greenwald
Chapter 3: “Razing Main Street America”
00:12:47 – 00:13:55
• Why might Greenwald have chosen sepia
tone for the empty Main Street shots?
What effect does he create by jumping
back to full color, and then again to sepia
tone?
• What emotions are raised by the song
“This Land is Your Land”? What other
techniques convey the inevitability that this
will happen to all small businesses and
communities?
Hasty generalization
• Definition: Stereotypes about people ("frat
boys are drunkards," "grad students are
nerdy," etc.) are a common example of the
principle underlying hasty generalization.
Hasty generalization
•
Another common example is the misleading
statistic. Suppose an individual argues that
women must be incompetent drivers, and he
points out that last Tuesday at the
Department of Motor Vehicles, 50% of the
women who took the driving test failed. That
would seem to be compelling evidence from
the way the statistic is set forth. However, if
only two women took the test that day, the
results would be far less clear-cut.
Statistical Fallacies
• Benjamin Disraeli is credited as saying,
“There are three kinds of lies – lies,
damn lies, and statistics.”
• Do not accept statistics blindly –
question validity of sources, relevancy,
and accuracy!
Hasty Generalizations
• Occur when people jump to conclusions
based on data from a sample size that
is not large enough.
• This generally happens after the person
notices something that holds true from
personal experience and extracts that
from a more general trend.
Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock, 2004
Chapter 18, “Fast Food Advertising”
Super Size Me
Morgan Spurlock, 2004
Chapter 18, “Fast Food Advertising”
• Margo G. Wootan claims “most kids can
say McDonald’s” by the time they can
speak. What techniques does Spurlock
use in this segment to make it seem that
children overwhelmingly recognize
McDonald’s? What effect does he create
by including the image of Jesus? What
other famous people, whom Spurlock did
not include, might have been more easily
recognized by these children?
Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock, 2004
Chapter 18, “Fast Food Advertising”
Super Size Me
Morgan Spurlock, 2004
Chapter 18, “Fast Food Advertising”
• What effects do the cartoon
illustrations and piles of money
achieve?
• How do they emphasize the
statistics Spurlock presents?
Super Size Me
Morgan Spurlock, 2004
Chapter 18, “Fast Food Advertising” 00:44:48 –
00:46:52
• Why might those suit colors have been chosen for
each of the four characters, and what might the
colors and the relative sizes of the figures
(especially the green suited Five-A-Day figure)
represent, both literally and symbolically?
• Why Might Spurlock have chosen this method for
relaying these statistics, as opposed to, for
example, a black screen with white text, or a bar
graph showing the relative amounts?
Logical Fallacies
• Remember that these types of
persuasion are used in media because
they appear to be legitimate arguments.
• Be aware of these and you will not be
fooled!