In the video for their song, “Not Ready To Make Nice," the Dixie Chicks create a viewing experience with many rhetorical appeals. While both ethos and logos are used in the video and are very important in their own right, it is the use of pathos that really sets this video apart.The video itself is an effort to evoke a feeling of compassion for the Dixie Chicks. After their London concert in which lead singer Natalie Maines said that she was “ashamed” to be from the same state as then President George W. Bush, there was a great backlash. Radio stations began boycotting their music, stores pulled their albums from the shelves, and many fans disassociated themselves. This video was created to appeal to their audiences’ emotions and elicit, or attempt to elicit, a feeling of sympathy. Their use of pathos and cry for empathy is very evident even in the song’s lyrics: “And how in the world can the words that I said/ Send somebody so over the edge/ That they’d write me a letter/ Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing/ Or my life will be over.” This is not only an attempt go obtain a sympathetic response where the listener might feel bad for the ridicule endured by the band, but to force the listener to think about what they would feel like if someone told you to “shut up and sing” or they would kill you.
The use of pathos to elicit an emotional response in this video is also evident in the use of common institutions we all must deal with every day and the often-detrimental effects they have on individuals and society. The used of the schoolroom setting is a prime example of this. In most people this would evoke a negative emotion about a childhood school experience in which they were made to feel a fool for stating their opinion or when they were unjustly punished.
There are many instances both in lyric and aesthetic in the Dixie Chicks song “Not Ready To Make Nice,” that are meant to elicit a strong emotional response from the audience. From the lyric of the song to the scenes depicted in the video, there is no doubt that pathos is hard at work here.
