Tow #28: Documentary Rhetorical Analysis (Part 1)

Psychopath is generally a negative word. However, most people overuse the word, so it has strayed from its true meaning. They joke around and call any crazy person a psychopath. However, psychopaths are not as common as people make them out to be. "Psychopath" is a documentary that was published in the year 2000 that was used to explain to the average adult about common misconceptions about psychopaths. The main purpose of the documentary was to emphasize that psychopaths can be found everywhere and that not all psychopaths commit horrible crimes. However, they do show that much of the violent crime seen in the world today is committed by psychopaths, therefore something should be done to stop this behavior. "Psychopath" uses interviews of real-life psychopaths, expert psychologists' studies, and comparisons of normal people and psychopaths to educate the British and American population about the truth behind psychopaths. Two psychopaths were interviewed and used for this documentary, but one man in particular was effective in explaining what exactly a psychopath is. This man was a prisoner named Wayne (his last name was not given) who had already been in prison for ten years for molesting young boys and killing his brother. When this man spoke, it was chilling because his tone was so calm and convincing. He seemed really charismatic and was able to make the viewer believe that killing his brother was justified. The inclusion of this man's honest thoughts was crucial in helping the viewer understand how the psychopathic mind works. Experts can explain the psychopathic mind as best as they can, but showing an actual psychopath's thought process was much more effective in gaining an understanding about how these types of people think, and therefore helped educate the audience about all psychopaths. However, an expert's facts about psychopaths was also very helpful in explaining the misconceptions about psychopaths. They provided plenty of statistics and explained how psychopaths are diagnosed. For example, one statistic was that 20% of the prison population is made up of psychopaths, but about half of violent crime is committed by psychopaths. This shows that there is a problem with likelihood of crime being committed by psychopaths, therefore their behavior should be altered to better benefit the world. Lastly, comparisons of psychopathic people to non-psychopathic people was able to show why psychopaths commit horrible crimes. In the documentary, there were two images of brains held side by side; one was a normal brain, the other psychopathic. The normal brain's emotional part was much more activated than the psychopathic brain. This illustrated the fact that psychopaths do not experience emotions the same way non-psychopaths do, and so they lack empathy and compassion. This helped the audience gain a better understanding of the psychopathic brain and therefore helped educate them more. After watching this documentary, I will never use the word psychopath to describe a crazy person. Psychopaths are not crazy and it is insensitive to associate the two words with each other. Hopefully, in the future, as a result of this documentary and other's like it, people will refrain from over-using of the word.