Have you ever wondered how tough it is for young people living in rough areas, to graduate High school? In The Boys of Baraka, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady want to reach their young African American audience, to encourage them to graduate High school, and to not fall into peer pressure. The Boys of Baraka focuses of four boys: Devon, Montrey, Richard, and Romesh. These four young boys live in a neighborhood full of violence and drugs. Their lives at home aren’t any better; they have parents in jail, drug abuse, and single mothers.
The documentary film The Boys of Baraka it begins with logos. To demonstrate the information in the film they present the information on a black screen, just as if it were a power point. In the first black screen in the beginning of the film it says; In Baltimore, Maryland 76% of African American boys do not graduate High school. Logos are important in this documentary film, to demonstrate how serious the problem in Baltimore is, and how much these boys actually need all the help they can get.
Read also CRASH MOVIE ANALYSIS ESSAY
The Boys of Baraka appeal to many emotions. Another Strategy used in this documentary film is pathos. Pathos is used several times in this film. The parents of these four boys were going to miss their children, when they left to Baraka, but they let them go because they thought about their boy’s future. The parents were sentimental when they left the kids at the airport. Pathos was also shown when they gave each individual kid camera time to express how much they miss Baltimore, and to say hi to their friends and family back at home.
Ethos is shown in the documentary, by giving background information, and their everyday life of these four boys. Some examples of the ethos is, Richard has a dad in jail, he is going to be in jail for 13 years. Devon wants to be a preacher, even though he has a tough life when he was in Kenya his mother was put in jail. Montrey has a hard time handling his anger so he gets into a lot of arguments while he is in Kenya. Romesh has a single mom, who struggles to educate her children.
All of these examples of ethos are important because it demonstrates, how the director wants the audience to understand where they come from, and why they were sent to Africa. The Documentary film The Boys of Baraka is meant to demonstrate young people in rough situations and to teach the audience to work hard and achieve what they want no matter how hard it may be. In the end of the documentary, Montrey one of the four boys from Baltimore said “ People think that a kid from Baltimore is suppose to grow up to be nothing, that we don’t have a future cause we from the ghetto, but I’m going to try to make a difference. ”
