TOW 21

Seth Rogan is most noted for his roles in comedy movies such as Knocked Up and Pineapple Express, but recently he did something much more mature.  Rogan sat at a congressional hearing and testified on the topic of Alzheimer’s disease.  It seems an odd position for Rogan as he is normally portrayed as a marijuana smoking actor with little care for society, but he actually used this role to further his speech.  Rogan, knowing his commonly thought of persona, made jokes about it.  This and the other humor he showed during the speech helped to hold the audience’s attention and also gain more attention at later points.  For example, it has over 6 million views on youtube.  The problem with this humor is that it harms his ethos.  He seems a bit off base making jokes about how he, “realizes it is not a hearing for the legalization of marijuana.”  Some of his jokes flowed well with his speech, whereas others made it sound like he was joking too much when talking about something as serious as Alzheimer’s.   For that reason it is difficult to understand whether this technique was effective or not.  While it captivated the audience, and at some points strengthened his argument, his persona as a whole with the help of the humor may have done a lot more to weaken his testimony.  His use of a personal story really helped what he was saying though.  Rogan told the story of how his mother in law had very bad Alzheimer’s and that was what caused him to be there.  This heart-wrenching story appealed to pathos and made the crowd feel sad and understand the extent to which the disease can cause pain.  This aspect was a definite help in his speech and was one of the strongest carriers.  It also lessened the strain of the jokes as having a connection to the disease made it feel okay.  As a whole though his testimony was good.  It gripped the audience and helped in his purpose of bringing attention to the issue.