TOW #28: The Queen of Versailles Documentary Analysis

It's only kind of trashy.

Few outside real estate, time share, and business circles have probably heard about billionaire David Siegel, his wife Jacqueline, and their huge family in Orlando, Florida. Over several decades, David worked his way up from the middle class to become the owner of one of the biggest, most profitable vacation timeshare companies in the United States, and he and Jacqueline are the proud parents of eight beautiful children. In the early 2000s, they began building a huge home inspired by the famous French palace of Versailles, and it was going to be the the biggest single-family home in the country. However, when the 2008 recession hit, the family's company lost so much business that David had to take a severe pay-cut, put their unfinished home on the market, and lay off thousands of employees. The Siegels' trials and tribulations are filmed in the documentary "The Queen of Versailles", directed by Lauren Greenfield.
Throughout the documentary, multiple sides of David, Jacqueline, and the other featured people are shown, giving an honest view of the Siegels and their associates. They are not portrayed as greedy, leech-like wealthy people, but more like wealthy people that worked their way to the top and are now facing major troubles. This is probably the main purpose of the documentary, to show the Siegels as people who just happen to be wealthy instead of vilifying them like a lot of people did during the economic crisis. One of the most obvious ways the filmmakers do this is by including many interviews and voiceovers with David and Jacqueline describing their climb to the top; they talk about their small-town, middle-class backgrounds, David's first business venture, and Jacqueline's college years and work as an engineer at IBM. This repetition implies that they understand what it's like to not be wealthy and that they sympathize with ordinary people, including the ones who work for them. It is supplemented by archival videos and photos of the couple when they were younger: they are wearing more typical clothes, going to school, working in an office, or, in Jacqueline's case, competing in beauty pageants. The old footage, photos, and their interviews show how normal they were when they were younger. This idea is also supported by the interesting juxtaposition between their wealth and some aspects of their lifestyles: for example, the Siegels are enormously wealthy, but eat from McDonald's on a regular basis and shop at stores like Toys "R" Us and Target. It sends the message that even though they are wealthy, they are "just like us". Another important feature of the documentary is where it takes place: Orlando, Florida. The Versailles-inspired house is so close to Walt Disney World that one could see the Disney fireworks from the house. David and Jacqueline had a dream of being successful and wealthy, and their dream comes to fruition near Disney World, the place "where dreams come true". The setting is inherently hopeful and magical, and reinforces the idea that David held onto a seemingly-impossible dream and worked very, very hard to achieve it; he exemplifies the "rags-to-riches" ideal that so many Americans hold onto. 
Much of the documentary may show that David and Jacqueline worked hard to get to where they are today, but their wealth is definitely on display. The Las Vegas office building is one of the tallest buildings in the city and has the brightest sign on the Las Vegas Strip. The Siegels' homes are enormous and luxurious, at 26,000 and 90,000 square feet apiece. Paintings of everyone in their family adorn the walls of their home, which is filled by eight children (many more than the average), maids, nannies, cooks, gardeners, and drivers. Each room is filled with toys, decorations, nice furniture, sculptures, and too many other fine material things to count. The Siegels have pools, tennis courts, bowling alleys, and huge garages. Despite their humble beginnings, the Siegels are still wealthy people. Part of the filmmakers' purpose in making "The Queen of Versailles" is to show the Siegels as "typical" people who are also rich, so that aspect of them is very, very important.
Even before the 2008 economic recession, caused in part by people who run companies like David Siegel, ordinary people both resented and looked up to the wealthy. However, few consider that not all wealthy people are bad, that not all of them take advantage of people. David and Jacqueline Siegel and their family might have different problems than most, but that does not negate the difficulty they have faced for the past several years.

TOW #27: TOW Reflection

In the beginning of the year, we students of AP English Language and Composition were assigned weekly TOW posts, which were intended to give us much-needed practice in analyzing arguments. It was assumed that at the end of the year, we were going to be able to look back at all of our TOWs and see how much progress we had made. Before I did that I wasn't sure I would see much progress, since TOWs are only small-scale examples of the work we did in class and had a very similar format every time. I was surprised when I did, in fact, see that my TOWs has gotten better throughout the year.
The TOWs I wrote during the first semester were all similar regarding the types of rhetorical devices I pointed out in the texts I analyzed, both written and visual. At that point, I understood very few rhetorical devices and what their effects were, so I kept pointing out the same ones over and over again; this included ethos, pathos, logos, word repetition, and exemplification for written texts and colors and words for visual ones. However, as we talked more about analysis in class, I became more familiar with rhetorical devices and could write about their effects in a more in-depth way. I could write about the arrangement of a text, the tone of the speaker (which I could more easily describe with a single word than I could before), and whether or not the audience would be swayed by the speaker's argument.
TOWs come with requirements about what you have to include in them, and I've noticed that I've gotten better at meeting all of them without sounding methodical about it. Earlier in the year, my TOWs sounded like a list: the title and speaker of the text, the devices used, their effect, the speaker's tone, and a judgement as to how effective the argument was. My early TOWs were all longer than the requirement as well. However, as I got more practice, I was able to fit all of these things into a TOW and make them flow better and switched up the order of all the required things. This is probably the feature of my TOWs that I have most improved over the past several months, and it is very beneficial, since this skill can transfer to other kinds of writing. I was not, however, able to shorten the length of my TOWs; even at the end of the year, they were still longer than they were supposed to be. Length is something I always have trouble with, no matter what I'm writing. I would very much like to improve this aspect of my writing, as saying something in a concise way is much better than saying it in a flowery, roundabout way.
Everyone in APELC, including myself, has whined about the TOWs all year, but those criticisms of the assignment were at least partially undeserved. Of course, it is an extra bit of homework that can take a long time to complete if one wants to do them well. Few students get to them during the week because of their other obligations, or on Saturdays because they want to have fun, so when it comes to Sunday, no one feels like putting the work in. For busy students, it can be another burdensome form of stress. These complaints make sense, but do not outweigh the benefits that TOWs have. They are an excellent form of practice, as they are essentially mini-essays. TOWs provide a lot of opportunities to do things that students have trouble with, which they might not always be able to get to practice in class. I think I definitely benefited from writing what was essentially an introductory paragraph  and practice recognizing rhetorical devices every week, as I struggle with that. They served as a good benchmark for me by helping me recognize what I needed to improve on in my writing. While TOWs can be annoying assignments that seem to forever chase you, at the end of the year, their value and worth become apparent.

TOW #27: "Roughly 1 Person Every 10 Minutes Is Diagnosed with HIV in the U.S., so Why Aren't We Taking AIDS More Seriously?" by Karley Sciortino (my, what a long title)

Karley Sciortino is a writer for Vogue Magazine and also an independent blogger.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic came to the forefront of global consciousness in the 1980's, but over the years, people have stopped taking the diseases, and the risk of contracting them, seriously enough. Blogger Karley Sciortino comments on this dangerous phenomenon in her piece for Vogue, "Roughly 1 Person Every 10 Minutes Is Diagnosed with HIV in the U.S., so Why Aren't We Taking AIDS More Seriously?" Using personal anecdotes and statistics, Sciortino argues that HIV/AIDS is just as big a problem as it used to be and that Millennials often make unsafe health decisions.
Sciortino opens her article with a harrowing anecdote to show the irresponsibility of today's young adults. She talks about having unprotected sex with a stranger one drunken evening, and describes how she awoke the next morning, highly aware of the potentially devastating consequences: "I spent the next three months, which is the length of time it takes for HIV to show up in a test, on a double dose of my anxiety meds". She continues by writing "... I know I'm not the only one of my friends to have "messed up" and by mentioning a gay friend of hers who contracted AIDS and has gone almost completely blind. Her stories, though limited to herself and her social group, are emotional, and some readers may not only be able to understand the subjects' feelings, but to identify with them. They add a personal touch to the piece; it also features more concrete evidence, but things like that do not touch peoples' hearts. 
The anecdotes may get to the heart of readers, but to make a solid, effective argument about this topic, Sciortino must also get to their minds. One of the most prominent ways she does this is by citing numerous statistics. She even does this in the title of the article: "Roughly 1 Person Every 10 Minutes Is Diagnosed with HIV in the U.S.". In the third paragraph, she writes, "... there are about 1.1 million Americans living with HIV/AIDS... Gay and bisexual men continue to bear the greatest burden of HIV, accounting for an estimated 63 percent of new infections". These examples, as well as others not provided here, demonstrate how widespread HIV/AIDS is in the United States and how minorities are disproportionately affected with it. Faced with these statistics, it would be difficult for readers to claim that HIV/AIDS is not a major issue, and coupled with Sciortino's anecdotes, readers would think Millennials irresponsible for not addressing or considering it when it comes to the way they conduct their personal lives.

Article link: http://www.vogue.com/culture/article/breathless-aids-hiv-in-the-new-millennium-slutever-karley-sciortino/#1