For my COMM 333 Persuasion course, we were assigned to write an Artifact Analysis. This assignment includes selecting a film or documentary that has different types of persuasion taking place throughout the film. For this assignment, I have chosen to write on the film, Molly’s Game which is directed by Aaron Sorkin. In this post, I will be breaking down and analyzing the different persuasive techniques that are being used throughout this movie. If you are not familiar with the movie Molly’s Game, it is based on a true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world’s most high-stakes poker game for years before being arrested by the FBI. Her players included Hollywood stars, famous athletes, and the Russian mob. As you can imagine, anything with poker involved includes a lot persuasion happening throughout the movie and with Molly’s life. After decades of running the country’s most high-class poker games she was arrested by 17 FBI officers in the middle of the night. The movie bounces back and forth in time between Molly’s arrest by the FBI for running an illegal gambling operation and her efforts to persuade a New York lawyer to represent her in court with the charges that are against her. One example of interpersonal persuasion in this movie is with the New York lawyer, Charlie. Molly is persuading Charlie that what she did was not as bad as they are making it seem and although she does not have money and no other lawyer in the country will represent her case because the FBI is involved. She also has a book that she wrote, spilling everything that she did giving evidence of the crimes they are accusing her with. She shows up at his office for days unannounced begging him to represent her. Another example of persuasion is how Molly persuades her players to throw in more money on the games and when they owe the money to her they are forced to keep playing or coming back until they have what they owe her operation. Another example of persuasion in the movie is in the beginning, Molly was average, didn’t have expensive things, didn’t get very dressed up until the man she was working for at the time told her that men come to these games and want to see a pretty lady. So over time, she started to spend more time and money on herself which had a lot of the guys coming to these games just for her. Throughout the movie, Molly has a lot of interpersonal persuasion going on within herself. For example, the more involved she got in the games, and the bigger poker games she was putting on she made herself believe that she needed to do more and have more game which was making her loose track of herself and being slopy with her actions. She knew that she had to live a secret life and be very careful with her operations but, the money got her head and made her think she was invincible until she was not. Money is a huge symbol of persuasion throughout the movie and is involved with every single aspect of the movie. Money persuaded her to start her own operations just by seeing how much you can make in one night. Money also persuaded Molly to think that she had more power than she really did. The power and money that got mixed made Molly believe that she needed more powerful people at her tables to feel important and powerful.
Applying ELM & TRA to my thoughts on the movie, I was impressed by how Molly tricked and hustled these very powerful men but, I also had no knowledge on poker before this movie and it impressed me how much skill it really does take. It also showed me how much money can get people so motivated and can persuade people into some very low places in life if you are not careful.
Reflecting on what I learned from this assignment about persuasive communication, I learned how much persuasive communication is used throughout movies and how many different types of persuasive messages are coming across without you really thinking about it. Before this assignment I did not realize how much interpersonal persuasion can change your whole life and outlook. I also was surprised on how much persuasion was in this movie and I would have never paid much attention to that the first time I watched the movie. This analysis is going to shape my interactions with media artifacts because now I can highlight the different types of persuasion that will take place in movies and shows.
References:
Glass, R. H., & Seiter, J. S. (2016). Persuasion Social Influence and Compliance Gaining (5th ed.).
Taylor & Francis.