Blog Post #7

“Show Some Skin” serves a clear rhetorical function. It’s purpose is to create conversation about diversity. However it is not a debate. The performance is written with the purpose of sharing the stories from the diverse students at Notre Dame, but they are collected and presented to educate the cookie-cutter white student here. Bridging the gap between the ignorance from one end and coming to a place of further understanding is the rhetorical purpose of “Show Some Skin”. Campbell’s “The Rhetoric of Theatre” states, “Booth holds that, as a matter of fundamental definition, imaginative works are rhetorical in that they work their effects upon audiences by using certain techniques and devices.” The fact that “Show Some Skin” offers the imaginative writing of rhetorically purposed stories guarantees that there will be some argument deduced from their presentation. For example, the last production “Break the Silence” took different stories from the with the purpose of reflecting on “every time we held our tongues because of the stigmas we feared to bring up.” The selection and arrangement of stories was, presumably, done in a manner that would have the greatest effect to their target audience. For instance, if the preduction had received a submission of a time someone did break the silence, they would frame it as a positive or choose not to perform it. Because it does not serve to aid the argument being presented by the play. “When the examples are meaningful and important to individual audience members, that rhetoric becomes even more powerful…” (Campbell). This describes why the effects of “Show Some Skin” are so profound. The relatabilty between the example and our own lives as students here at Notre Dame creates a strong association with the narrative being presented and real life. This causes us as students to be more concerned with the argument and it’s purpose.