The initial people Trevor tries to help are a heroin addict (James Cavaziel) whom he brings home, lets him sleep in his garage, and gives him a little money to get his life together. The second is Mr. Simonet (Kevin Spacey) a badly scarred teacher who cannot accept a change of routine in his life. He then tries to help his poorly recovering alcoholic mother Arlene McKinney (Helen Hunt). Lastly, he tries to stand up for his schoolmate who gets beat up after school on a daily basis. Both Mr. Simonet and Trevor share the same problem abusive father’s who beat their spouses, so they have common outlooks on life. Trevor fears for his mom, particularly because of his brutal alcoholic father (Jon Bon Jovi) who tries to move back in their home. Arlene also has mental anguish from her childhood with a homeless, alcoholic mother (Angie Dickinson), who helped the reporter trace the good deeds back to Trevor.
In one of the beginning scenes, Gene Simonet (Kevin Spacey) is a seventh grade social studies teacher. He asks the class, “What does the world want from you?” Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) answers, “Nothing.” Mr. Simonet replies, “You are absolutely right, you are in seventh grade you can’t drive, can’t vote, heck you can’t even go to the bathroom without a pass from me, but not forever, one day you will be free.” He continues, “But what if on that day your free, you haven’t prepared you are not ready and then you look around and you don’t like what the world is. What if the world is just a big disappointment?” One of the kids in the class replies, “We’re screwed!” Mr. Simonet says, “Unless, you take the things you don’t like about this world and you flip them upside down on their ass. You can start that today. This is your assignment extra credit it goes on all year long.” On the board written in chalk it says: Think of an idea to change our world and put it into Action! Everyone in the class complains about how weird, strange, and hard it is. Mr. Simonet then very slowly replies, “How about possible, it’s possible. The realm of possibility exists in each of you. So you can do it or you can just sit back and let it atrophy.”
This is where Trevor gets his motivation. The first persuasive purpose was to get people to think how such a simple idea can make a big difference. Trevor’s idea of “paying it forward” to change the world is an example of logos. It says if we pay it forward to three people, those three pay it forward, and so on, then theoretically it could change the world. Trevor establish ethos not by being some great thinker of his time, or by winning an award, but by getting derived credibility. He does it by being a truly caring and honest person who wants to change the world. Audiences trust a young innocent kid more than anyone else because he appeals to their ideas of “good”. This shows how pathos is being used to affect the emotions of people. Lastly, the other persuasive appeal being used is the narrative sequence of the film. The movie starts off with the reporter receiving an extraordinary gift in time of crisis, and he wants to find out why? He then tracks it down to a social studies assignment done by a seventh grader. This helps show that one small idea and act of kindness can spread so widely if people were just more aware and helped those in need.
Later in an interview with the reporter Trevor says, “The world is not exactly shit.” “Things can be changed, but only if people are not afraid.” The other persuasive goal was to get people to not be afraid to help others, and tell those people to help other like they were helped. This was shown with Trevor’s first beneficiary of kindness. When he invites a strange young man whom his homeless back to his house to eat a normal meal and have a place to sleep. This build ethos; anyone who invites a homeless drug addict in their house must really not be afraid. This shows he is not a hypocrite and helps build derived credibility. He also helps his mom get her life back together, even when Arlene did not want Trevor’s help he was persistent till she finally accepted it. His mom “pays it forward” by helping her mom get back on her feet, and the good deeds spread. This is an example of logos because it shows the audience the plan can work if you are not afraid.
The movie uses several devices to add to the persuasive appeal. The number one device used would be a play on the emotions of the audience or pathos. For example, when the mom slaps Trevor she realizes what years of abuse and alcohol has done to her. Now she understands that she really does need Trevor’s help even if it is from her own son. Also, when they show the heroin addict walking across a bridge there is a woman about to jump off, and he approaches her to try to talk her out of it. She tells him that her life is not worth saving, but he responds, “How about saving my life and just have one cup of coffee with me.” This is a play on words, when he tells her not jumping will not only save her life but will also save his life.
Another scene was when Mr. Simonet who has been dating Arlene gets dumped for Trevor’s real father, who is still an abusive alcoholic. Mr. Simonet tells about how bad it affects Trevor, and how she cannot understand because it happened to him. He tells about how he ran away, but came back to protect his own mother. When he tried to break up a fight between his parents, and his father hits with a shovel, which knocks him unconscious and tries to burn him to death. This is where he gets his horrible scars all over his body. This scene is definitely a tearjerker. This is a way of building pathos on the subplot of the movie that spousal abuse not only affects the one getting hurt, but the children suffer silent repercussions as well.
Near the end of the movie the reporter finds Trevor and does an interview with him about the ideas behind “pay it forward”. The next scene he gets killed trying to protect his schoolmate from being beat up. Then for the last four minutes of the movie it is quite except for the song by Steve Earle “Open your Window”, a news reporter announcing that Trevor has died, and they play a little bit of his interview. This is used to make you not take your mind off Trevor, and to think about how even though he has passed don’t forget what he said about how to change the world. The movie wants you not to think of Trevor’s death as a reason to give up, but instead as reason to help those around us by being attentive of those in need. This is an extremely good use of pathos because you will want to cry and go out help people at the same time.
The target audience for this movie is everyone, but it does use a lot of stereotypes. For example, one of the people benefited by “Pay it forward” is this young black male, who turns out to be a drug using, gang member, that lies and steals. Another stereotype used is that all homeless people are drug-addicts or alcoholics; the first person Trevor helps and Trevor’s grandmother show examples of this. These two uses of stereotypes might hurt the movies logos towards these two groups. Yet, at the end of the movie people of all ages, race, and gender gather at Trevor’s home to put flowers and candles to mourn his death. This is done so that audiences will not think the filmmakers used a demographic audience analysis. They want to show that every type of person can use help because they know people are egocentric, and only want what will benefit them. At the same time they show that everyone needs to help each other not just their peers. The last closing seconds the camera slowly raises from ground level to high up in the sky showing all the cars coming from all around to pay their respect. This is to show how many peoples lives “pay it forward” has affected. This type of camera angle builds logos by using imagery to show that it is reasonable and evident enough to affect that many lives.
The movie makes you dislike only one group of people, but they are commonly disliked by society already. This husbands who are alcoholic, abusive towards their spouse and children, and come in and out of their family’s life to cause trouble. This is shown with Mr. Simonet the teacher who was beaten and burned by his father for defending his mother. It also takes place with Arlene McKinney who was abused as a child by different men that her mother brought home, and with Trevor watches as his mom keeps taking back his abusive alcoholic father. So overall, I do not think it will affect the persuasive appeal by damaging its logos.
In general the movie has a lot of persuasive tools used to build ethos, logos, and pathos. The movie clearly states its persuasive goals, that is to get people to think how such a simple idea can make a big difference, to get people to not be afraid to help others, and tell those people to help other like they were helped. These goals were accomplished easily with the great acting, and through the use of establishing credibility, providing evidence, convincing with reason, and using emotional appeal to capture the audience. The movie’s only flaw was in using stereotypical characters like all young black males are criminals, and all homeless people live on the streets cause the are either alcoholics or drug-addicts. Overall, the movie shows an accurate persuasive argument for helping change the world.
