A Discursive Analysis of the KONY 2012 Video

"Right now there are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 years ago. Humanity's greatest desire is to belong and connect. And now we see each other, we hear each other. We share what we love, and it reminds us what we all have in common. And this connection is changing the way the world works." These are the opening statements made by Jason Russell, the Co-Founder and narrator of "KONY 2012," the video made and released by the Invisible Children on March 6th, 2012. This was one of the most heartbreaking, emotionally riveting documentaries I have ever seen. From this short film, I can't deny that I was completely on board with the movement. The opening moments of the film begin by trying to interpellate everyone that watches the film, it attempts to relate the audience to the subjects of the film through one thing that all humans have in common: humanity. At this point, I would like to analyze, what aspects of the "KONY 2012" documentary made this movement so powerful and effective. I believe their ability to create a connection to their viewers through making their use of powerful imagery or and their emotional verbal accounts of crimes against humanity.
After their initial attempt to engage the audience through connecting all of us through imagery of representing humanity as an entire world, Jason Russell continues to document the one thing that all humans must have in common: child birth. He shows the birth of his own son, Gavin. It documents the initial moments of life coming out of the womb and the powerful tears in the mother's eyes as she hears her child for the first time. Jason states: "Every single person in the world started this way. He didn't choose where or when he was born. But because he's here, he matters." If his initial pitch about humanity's desire to connect and feel loved doesn't suck you in, this moment does. This moment operates under the assumption and myth that everyone was born into this loving, humanitarian moment and because you, the viewer was once born and put onto this earth, you too matter.

This image alone is completely powerful, childbirth, is a truth claim that no one can deny or not relate to. But when this imagery becomes even more powerful when you realize that Russell was willing to share this entirely private, and personal moment with over 100 million people, all over the world. Gillian Rose, in her article "Emotional geography of mums and family photos," notes on how family documentation, specifically photographs in the context of her article, "are taken by family members, of family members, for viewing mostly by family members, are indeed extraordinarily important, emotionally resonant objects (549)." Jason Russell was willing to go above and beyond when he shared not a still photograph, but an active, up-close and personal home video of his son being born. This moment becomes more believable when you stop to think that this movement means enough to him that he would share his family's life in an attempt to convince people to support the cause. Finally, when we look at the technique of this shared, emotional moment, we can see that the use of home video adds credibility to this truth claim, making it virtually undeniable. Agreeing with this influence of home videos, Hunter Vaughan, published French cinema doctorate student, agrees in his essay, " Tremble of Truth: Dogme 95, Ideology and the Genealogy of Cinematic Realism, "that "home videos, proposes the expressiveness of enunciation, the profound potential for meaning inherent in pure denotation."

The next few moments are taken to explain who Jason is and who his son is through a series of home videos and snapshots. This boy, can't be more than four years old, blonde hair blue eyed, is essentially representing the innocence of childhood. This attempt also connects the viewer to humanity through the myth that everyone had a childhood that resembles one similar to Gavin's; full of innocence and love.
This view of childhood and story of Gavin is greatly different in comparison to the childhood of another boy: Jacob. Jacob met Jason as a former boy soldier on the run from Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army in Central Uganda almost ten years prior to the making of this film. This is where the powerful imagery begins to come in and draw sympathy from the viewer. On a very scratchy, semi-home video like camera, the filmmakers capture Jacob telling them why he is on the run. This raw footage carries the same kind of honest intensity as Jason's home video, but in a harsher, unforgiving way. There is nothing to be celebrated from the sight of children running for their lives. The viewer can't doubt that this actually happened as Jacob looks down from the camera and says "We worry the rebels when they arrest us again then they will kill us. My brother tried to escape then they killed him using a panga. They cut his neck. I saw…we come here to save our life." Soon thereafter, the audience also witnesses Jacob claiming that he would rather die than stay on earth in these conditions. All imagery of Jacob and the pain that this young boy went through are done in such an emotional and realistic way that they do nothing but support the perspective of truth found throughout the film. At this point, the tone of the film has been set, and the audience has settled into watching the rest of the film, whole-heartedly still believing in their truth claim.

From the use of powerful imagery and emotional accounts of crimes against humanity, we can see how effective this campaign is. The realistic aspect assures the audience that the sad stories of Jacob and the other Invisible Children are real, and that that there is something that can be done about it. This film grabs people by their emotions as Jason Russell successfully enacts ethos, one of Aristotle's "Three Means of Persuasion" in order to incite a response from the audience (Rapp).

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