98 ChApTEr 4 | an atlantiC eMpire | period three 175 4 –18 0 0
To understand this review, you begin to analyze it and consider the factors listed above.
This review appears to have been written for an audience of people who are thinking of
letting children see The Dead Who Walk Around. When you consider the purpose of this
review, it also appears that the author is trying to convince you not to see the film. However,
the author’s purpose is tied to her or his audience, who are parents of children between ages
thirteen and seventeen.
When you consider the point of view of this review, you start to suspect that the opinion of
this author was formed before seeing the movie because he or she writes for a website called
“Evil Movies for Evil People.” The website and the author of this review want you to believe
that scary movies (“evil movies”) are seen by bad people (“evil people”).
The format is that of a traditional movie review, which requires a reviewer who usually
knows movies better than most people and therefore can offer an informed opinion of a film.
This makes the review appear to be more reliable than a flame war between two people on
a comments section of a blog.
However, the argument in this review does not balance the good and bad elements of
the film. Instead, the author is biased against the whole genre of scary movies (consider
the website on which the review was published), and this makes the argument weaker. If a
reviewer automatically does not like scary movies, why would his or her reaction to this one
be any different? This fact points to the limitations of this piece of writing as a movie review.
You wanted to learn about the movie and perhaps read about some of its good and bad
points to help you decide whether to see it. Because the author published this review in
a context that disapproves of this kind of movie, however, his or her arguments cannot be
taken seriously.
From this review, you are able to infer that this author has a bias against scary movies.
You therefore draw the appropriate conclusion (based on all prior inferences about audience,
purpose, point of view, format, argument, context, and limitations) that this reviewer did not
give the movie a fair viewing and that you cannot really trust the author about whether the
film is any good.
So should you see the film? It is almost impossible for you to decide based on this one
review. You should read a few more before you make any judgments about The Dead Who
Walk Around.steP 1 Consider the following three documents:
Document 4.6, Testimony in the Trial of the British Soldiers of the Nineteenth Regiment of
Foot, 1770
Document 4.7, “Account of the Boston Tea Party,” Massachusetts Gazette, 1773
Document 4.8, “Memory of a British Officer Stationed at Lexington and Concord,” Atlantic
Monthly, 1775All three documents relate stories of protests that were made against imperial power in British
North America. Complete the following chart regarding their audience, purpose, point of view
and attitude, format, argument, context, and limitations. Some of the items have been com-
pleted for you.TopIC I | Challenging an empire 9905_STA_2012_ch4_085-114.indd 99 26/03/15 10:11 AM