Emma Watson Analysis

Best-known as playing Hermione Granger in the film Harry Potter, Emma

Watson has now transformed her image from a clever wizard to Women Goodwill

Ambassador of the UN advocating gender equality. Out of everyone’s imagination that a young and popular actress would stand out for public issues, Watson decided to make good use of her popularity and take up responsibility as an advocate to awaken the public’s awareness toward gender equality. Taking place at a special event for the

HeForShe campaign at United Nations Headquarters in New York, Watson’s speech went virus immediately after launched online. Broadly acclaimed, the persuasive speech "Gender equality is your issue too" by Emma Watson turned out to be a gutsy, inviting, and moving take

What Zulver questioned was that such “candor added real emotional appeal to her message”; nevertheless, it did not seem so important comparing to pertinent issues such as child marriage and femicide

(Zulver). Here we may see that Watson was being frank and emotional, but such tactic may not be able to lay strong enough emphasis on her speech as it appeared trivial and personal. Later on Watson again used pathos by making self-reflection. She began,

“Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive. Why is the word such an uncomfortable one? (Watson)” In this way Watson pointed out more misunderstandings that people in the society thought, which is, those women who stand up for their rights were often seen extremists who go against men in all ways.

Through questioning why “feminism is an uncomfortable word”, it allowed

Gender equality is your issue too (Watson).” Here it was the first time Watson mentioned her speech title “Gender equality is your issue too”, which she should have been done many more times since the beginning. Yet the invitation was made perfectly as it could be seen as a coherency to her mentioning

Clinton’s speech. Plus, the persuasion was thus made stronger.

Then Watson appeared to be aware that the audiences (mainly they were very well-educated and prestigious) might have started to wonder the candor of her giving the speech, so she made fun of herself while at the same time highlighted her ardent involvement: “You might be thinking who is this Harry Potter girl? And what is she doing up on stage at the UN. It’s a good question and trust me, I have been asking myself the same thing. I don’t know if I am qualified to be here. All I know is that I care about this problem. And I want to make it better. And having seen what I’ve seen—and given the chance—I feel it is my duty to say something (Watson).” Here

Watson’s joke may not be seen inappropriate as it was composed of truthfulness which strengthened her presence in UN