The effects of manipulative rhetoric in Kevin Spacey’s “Let Me Be Frank” YouTube video
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Sandrine Sorlin
Sandrine Sorlin is Professor of English linguistics and stylistics at the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. Her latest monographs are
Language and Manipulation in House of Cards: A Pragma-Stylistic Perspective (2016, Palgrave) andThe Stylistics of ‘You’: The Second-Person Pronoun and its Pragmatic Effects (2022, Cambridge University Press). She is Assistant Editor ofLanguage and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics .
Abstract
This article focuses on Kevin Spacey’s manipulative rhetoric in the YouTube video he posted on Christmas Eve in 2018 when he was facing a felony sexual assault charge in Nantucket District Court in USA. Drawing upon the notion of “double deixis” used for the second-person pronoun, this article questions the extent to which Spacey’s use of the first-person pronoun could be called “doubly deictic”. The findings show that Spacey’s strategic use of deixis allows him to blur identities and conflate fictional and real worlds. Not only is he using deixis in a way that hampers easy interpretation and complicates cognitive projection but he assigns his audience an awkward double positioning (as fans and citizens). The article also tries to elucidate the complex effects of Spacey’s manipulation on viewers. It suggests an addition to the notion of “double consciousness” that malfunctions here, as a “third consciousness” seems to be imposed onto the audience. This may explain why certain viewers are likely to experience some “cognitive dissonance” while watching this video that the media has defined as “creepy”.
About the author
Sandrine Sorlin is Professor of English linguistics and stylistics at the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. Her latest monographs are Language and Manipulation in House of Cards: A Pragma-Stylistic Perspective (2016, Palgrave) and The Stylistics of ‘You’: The Second-Person Pronoun and its Pragmatic Effects (2022, Cambridge University Press). She is Assistant Editor of Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics.
Appendix A. The full transcript of the video
(water running, character washing his hands, sighing and then looking at the camera)
I know what you want. Oh sure they may have tried to separate us but what we have is too strong, too powerful. After all we shared everything you and I. I told you my deepest, darkest secrets, I showed you exactly what people are capable of, I shocked you with my honesty (.) but mostly I challenged you and made you think (pause: 1 s) and you trusted me (.) even though you knew you shouldn’t. (pause: 2 s character drinking from his cup) So we’re not done no matter what anyone says (.) and besides (.) I know what you want (.) you want me back.
Of course some believed everything. They’re just waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all. They’re just dying to hear me declare that everything said is true and that I got what I deserved.
Wouldn’t that be easy? If it was all so simple. Only you and I both know it’s never than simple, not in politics and not in life. But you wouldn’t believe the worst without evidence, would you? You wouldn’t rush to judgment without facts, would you? (pause: 2 s) Did you? (pause: 1 s) No, not you. You’re smarter than that. Anyway all this presumption made for such an unsatisfying ending (.) and to think it could have been such a memorable send off. I mean if you and I have learnt nothing else these past years, is that in life and art nothing should be off the table, we weren’t afraid, not of what we said, not of what we did and we’re still not afraid. (Pause: 2 s)
Because I can promise you this. If I didn’t pay the price for the things we both know I did do, I’m certainly not going to pay the price for the things I didn’t do. Of course they are gonna say I’m being disrespectful, not playing by the rules. Like I ever played by anyone’s rules before. I never did (.) and YOU LOVED it. (pause: 1 s)
Anyhow (.) despite all the poppycock, the animosity, the headlines, the impeachment without a trial. Despite everything (.) despite even my own death, I feel surprisingly good (.) and my confidence grows each day that soon enough, you will know the full tru … (pause: 2 s) Wait a minute (pause: 2 s), now that I think of it (pause: 2 s), you never actually SAW me die, did you? (pause: 5 s He puts the ring he wore in House of Cards back on) Conclusions can be so deceiving. (Pause: 3 s) Miss me?
Cliffhanger music
Appendix B. The transcription conventions used (from Bednarek 2012: 246)
(.) slight pause
(pause: n seconds) longer pause with duration noted in number of second
Capital letters strong salient emphasis
? marked rising intonation
, slightly rising intonation
. marked falling intonation
… indicates an interrupted utterance
() includes transcriber’s comment
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Indexicality and ideology in narratives about intimate partner violence
- With or without a purpose? Judges’ appraisal of offenders or their behaviour in six sentencing remarks
- Text as tautology: an exploration in inference, transitivity, and logical compression
- The effects of manipulative rhetoric in Kevin Spacey’s “Let Me Be Frank” YouTube video
- Conversation analysis and Wittgenstein
- Fighting terrorism, fighting the West: Them versus Us appraisal in Chinese media’s discursive war on terror
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Indexicality and ideology in narratives about intimate partner violence
- With or without a purpose? Judges’ appraisal of offenders or their behaviour in six sentencing remarks
- Text as tautology: an exploration in inference, transitivity, and logical compression
- The effects of manipulative rhetoric in Kevin Spacey’s “Let Me Be Frank” YouTube video
- Conversation analysis and Wittgenstein
- Fighting terrorism, fighting the West: Them versus Us appraisal in Chinese media’s discursive war on terror
