Ethical Appeals in " The Millionaire"

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ith “ The Millionaire” cartoon being anti- capitalist, the ethos appeals resonate loud and clear. The cartoon was almost directly appealing to younger children, as well as adults who had children, with the goal of strengthening their contempt of American capitalism. The gist of the cartoon comprises a bulldog, who inherits millions from his dead owner. With an animal protagonist, the cartoon very easily gains credibility for children. People ask, what can a dog possible do with all this dough? Just with that, the bulldog begins to live an extremely luxurious life, so grandiose that it comes out to the audience as over indulging and excessive. 

Other than the bulldog’s daily lifestyle that appeals to a rather negative sense of ethos, it is what comes up a little after that gives the children and parents who were watching an emphasized sense of greed and corruption. At a fancy party where the bulldog, who was now rich and powerful, got drunk and began dancing on all fours, even influenced the other humans at the party to also drop to all fours and dance with him. This creates almost an immoral feeling as humans would completely abandon their identities to suck up to someone with money.  The implied criticism of American capitalist society furthers when the bulldog is shown to have “ won” a seat in the U.S Senate, using nothing other than his inherited wealth. The narration ultimately based the ethos ethical appeal off of the idea that “ what can money not do in capitalist America?” This idea is even further supported with the abrupt ending, where the bulldog loses all its money. It turns out that without its cash, the dog was just a plain old dog, with no skill and talent whatsoever. Such an ending leaves the audience with a very disgusted notion of American capitalism, for that all it takes to have anything is money. 

Written by Zhifeng (Jeffrey) Wan