Humor and other rhetorical devices

Humor

Your exam question specifically asks you to comment on the use of humor in the speech “Enough with the fear of fat”. Humor is Drinkwater’s main rhetorical device, and she uses humor throughout the speech to capture her audience’s attention and emphasize her arguments. Drinkwater’s use of humor is successful as in the video the audience can be seen and heard laughing in response.

The speaker starts with various humorous descriptions referring to herself, showing that she is not afraid to embrace the fact that she is a fat person: “I’m not sure if any of you have noticed, but I’m fat.” (l. 4); “Let’s not sugarcoat it. I am the capital F-A-T kind of fat. I am the elephant in the room.” (l. 7).

Note that 'elephant in the room' is an expression which means 'something that people do not wish to talk about' - but Drinkwater humorously uses it with a double meaning here, because she is also referring to the fact that people tend to notice her size.

Drinkwater continues with humor targeting the live audience: “When I walked out on stage, some of you may have been thinking, “Aww, this is gonna be hilarious, because everybody knows that fat people are funny.” (Laughter) (ll. 7-9); “Whereas some of you might have thought, “Hmm, black would have been so much more slimming.” (Laughter) (ll. 12-13). This time, Drinkwater uses humor to convey criticism and show the audience that many people are is unconsciously biased about fat people.

Later in the speech, Drinkwater uses humor to encourage the audience to relate to her childho...