Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Logical Fallacies in Emperor's New Groove

So I'm not entirely sure if this is a fallacy but I think it works.  It's the scene in Emperor's New Groove when the peasant man goes in to see Yzma to ask for help in getting food.

Yzma: "It is no concern of mine whether your family has...what was it again?"
Peasant: "Umm, food."
Yzma: "Ha! You really should have thought of that before you became peasants!"

I think this is an example of Ad Hominem because Yzma is disregarding the issue at hand and just attacking the man and the fact that he is a peasant which can relate to the issue somewhat but not really.

Another example of Ad Hominem is in the last part of the movie when Yzma asks Kronk to kill Kuzco.

Yzma: "Kronk.  Why did I think you could do this? This one simple thing.  It's like I'm talking to a monkey...a big, stupid, monkey named Kronk! And do you want to know something else?  I've never liked your spinach puffs.  Never!"

Yzma is attacking Kronk, calling him a monkey and insulting his cooking.  This really has nothing to do with the issue of killing Kuzco.

7 comments:

  1. Bah-ha! That was brilliant! I love that movie ever so much! The spinach puffs things fits perfectly for Ad Hominem. Another good fallacy in Emperor's New Groove is when the shoulder angel stands on one hand as a reason for Kronk to listen to him. I'm thinking maybe non sequitur on that one.

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  2. First of all: I LOVE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE. I am so glad that you used this example. I agree with hDAWG up there. I think that the spinach puffs is a good example of Ad Hominem. I also agree that the shoulder angel/devil part could be non sequitur. When they're arguing, the devil says, "Plus. Look what I can do." Then Kronk says, "What does that have to do with anything?" and the angel says, "No, no, he's go a point." This really doesn't make any sense and doesn't follow the discussion they were having earlier about robes/dresses and harps. Not that those parts of the conversation really make sense either...but anyways, well done. :)

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  3. Nice example of fallacies! Fallacies show up everywhere in our society, and now that we've learned about fallacies, hopefully the class will begin to pick up fallacies in the different places they exist.

    Natalie

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  4. I think these are the greatest examples of fallacies i've seen so far. I'm sure you're getting plenty of comments about that already, but it's true. That darn Yzma needs to learn not to fall for fallacies. No wonder she was fired. Not to mention the spinach stuck between her teeth.

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  5. Christian, I was about to 'like' your comment about the spinach in Yzma's teeth when I realized I wasn't on Facebook...but I wanted to let you know that I laughed. ;)

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  6. AWESOME example of fallacy! I love that movie! Yeah, I'd say you hit the nail right on the head. Yzma loves to just attack people whenever she's frustrated, even though it may have NOTHING to do with the issue at hand.

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  7. I have to be honest, your blog post convinced me to watch Emperor's New Groove again...twice. Haha LOVE that movie. Great examples of fallacies! I think you see that in alot of people who abuse their power, they attack people for unrelated reasons. Funny to see even in Disney movies, they're using rhetorical strategies.

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