The Interview Rhetorical Analysis

The recent political climate in Canada has been one characterized by its need for change. With the ever-increasing frustration revolving around the Conservative regime, many Canadians were ready to see an upheaval of the previous administration. To acknowledge, and hopefully reverse this change in climate, the Conservatives developed several attack ads aimed at demeaning public opinion of their opponents. One ad in particular, The Interview, was an effective means for undercutting the validity of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau. The ad utilizes framing as a technique to create negative associations about Trudeau through constant repetition of his inadequacies and loaded language. More specifically, the politically biased technique attempts to

The middle excerpt of the commercial attempts to depreciate and minimize several of Trudeau’s platform ideas. Careful consideration was taken into which policies would be critiqued in this section, and ideas that would be especially disparaging to loyal Conservative supporters were included. The actors first attack Trudeau’s fiscal policies, exclaiming their disbelief at the lack of substance it possesses. In addressing one of his former quotes, “budgets balance themselves”, the conservatives build a case that, when taken out of context (which was done in the circumstance of this commercial), would be of concern to many voters. The conservatives attempt to frame a picture of Trudeau as a prime minister who would hope to achieve change by doing absolutely nothing. Upon further research, it is revealed that the quote comes from a larger context where Trudeau explains how as your economy grows, your revenue also increases which balances the income against the expenses. Taken in context, Trudeau wasn’t explicitly stating that budgets balance themselves, but rather implying that with increased revenue, a given budget would shift into a balanced position. Because the central focus of an attack ad is to paint the opponent as an incompetent competitor, words are often twisted and manipulated to vilify the individual in the eyes of the population. This concept is furthered when one actor exclaims how Trudeau’s only policy to keep Canada safe is to “send winter jackets to Syria”. The purposeful exclusion of any of Trudeau’s other policies severely limits the scope on his broader ideas. A similar technique is used when the commercial only gives acknowledgement to Trudeau’s policy of “legalizing marijuana”. The selective omission of many of his other policies paints an oversimplified version of Trudeau. While these are not his