Toulmin Analysis Of "It's The Abc Oscars: Anything But Crash"

Toulmin Analysis of "It's the ABC Oscars: anything but Crash"

The article "It's the ABC Oscars: anything but Crash" can be found on the MSN News website. It is written by Erik Lundegaard, a movie critic whose opinion can be found regularly on MSNBC, in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and in the Seattle Times ("Erik"). The article includes the basic elements of the Toulmin Model and can be analyzed according to the model.

In the article, Lundegaard claims that the motion picture Crash should not be included on the ballot for best picture at the 2006 Academy Awards. The author's claim is a claim of value, because it asserts his evaluation of the picture.

Lundegaard supports his claim by stating his opinion that the movie gives an unrealistic view of a serious subject: the combination of race and class. He says the movie is not practical because the characters in the movie literally verbalize their racially-charged thoughts. He offers several examples of this from the movie. An Asian woman claims that Mexicans do not know how to drive. A Mexican makes fun of the way the Asian woman speaks. A white gun store owner calls a Persian man "Osama" and blames him for terrorist attacks. Lundegaard states that many people probably have thoughts similar to the statements in the movie, but rarely ever make the thoughts known to others. He also says the movie has another problem: "it assumes that by showing us the two extremes of a single character it's giving us a full character." He demonstrates this through a few examples from the movie including scenes when Matt Dillon's character humiliates an African-American woman and later risks his life to save hers. The author states that seeing two extreme sides of a character does not give a good view of the full character.

Lundegaard warrants his claim with the principle that a movie with these problems should not be nominated for an Academy Award. The warrant is based on ethos because the author of the article is a fairly well-known film critic, so he has credibility and authority on the subject (Gass). The warrant is backed by an unstated and accepted generalization: in order for a film about an important issue to be nominated for the award, the film is required to portray a truthful account of the issue.

The qualifier is in the beginning of the article, where Lundegaard