This PSA for Keep American Beautiful Aired the first time on Earth Day in 1971, and is widely credited for inspiring environmental activists and begetting change. The commercial features the now iconic figure of chief Iron Eyes Cody who is now the primary source of recognition for this commercial. As he makes his way down an American river the original beauty that possessed is transformed into an industrial and mechanical world of black, oil, soot, coal, and garbage. He makes his way ashore with his canoe and has a bag of garbage thrown from a car on an interstate on his feet. We are then told that people start pollution, and people can stop it. Fallowed by the symbol for Keep America Beautiful. The comparison and contrast appeal to pathos, the cause and effect appeal to logos, and the comparison and contrast appeal to ethos are the strongest arguments that are made in this PSA.
The greatest arguments made by this PSA are its appeal to pathos through comparison and contrast, as well as logos through cause and effect. as the commercial starts we can see chief Iron Eyes Cody in what we could consider to be his native land, he sits proud and tall as he paddles downstream, we can see his eyes and his face, he looks as though he has bad news to bare. The shot pans out and we see his silhouette against a gold stained river, pristine as can be. Then the beauty of our reality comes to a crashing halt as a piece of a magazine floats by the canoe, the music takes a turn from a sort of native sounding melody into a mechanical booming sound. The silhouette of the chief and his canoe, the only reminder we have of what nature is intended to look like is then superseded as we reach the apex of filth; garbage ridden water, smoggy air, oil and a barge as scary as the Mobro 4000; a harbinger of refuse that dwarfs his canoe, the music begins to sound desperate as it reaches its peak. The chief is turned transparent, a ghost of what respect human kind had for the earth and is juxtaposed against what is now; smoke stacks and pollution. Defeated the chief pulls his canoe ashore still more waste permeates the surroundings. "Some people have a natural abiding respect for the beauty that was once this country, and some people don't." We now know who is responsible for this tragedy, it is ourselves and our sense of logos is triggered by the cause and effect we have just seen. The magazine articles, the smog, sludge, smoke, muck, oil, grease, fumes and most of all garbage. They are everywhere, and we now know that we are the cause, it is our fault, humanities fault, "people start pollution, and people can stop it." The comparison and contrast appeal to pathos then reaches its pinnacle as the chief sheds a tear for what we have done to this country. It is confirmed by our acquisition of the appeal to logos through cause and effect.
The most prominent feature of this PSA is the image of chief Iron Eyes Cody. He shows us how different the world is becoming due to pollution, and he is the one who demonstrates to us that we need to change our ways. Chief Iron Eyes Cody is an example that appeals to our sense of ethos. When one first thinks of the American natives they think of how they taught us to live off of the land that they had occupied for centuries before our arrival. One thinks about the huge abiding respect that the American natives had for the land and nature. It's mentioned in the PSA that "some people have a deep abiding respect for this country, and some people don't," this comparison and contrast highlights chief Iron Eyes Cody as the example for this respect. He is seen at first traversing a river in his canoe in what appears to be a pristine environment, a place that most likely does not look all that different from the land that the American natives lived on. As he continues his way downstream we begin to see more and more filth in the water and on the landscape. Finally as he goes ashore and approaches the highway we are shown that this is not some sort of accident as a young man tosses his trash out the window at the chiefs feet, he looks at the camera with an expression that asks "when will this end?" This is the chiefs way of demonstrating to us that this is our doing. He takes us on a journey that slowly opens our eyes to what we are responsible for, nature. One might even suggest that the chief may be analogous to the earth itself. As the pollution thickens the image of the chief fades, from a vibrantly dressed native chief, to a silhouette, until he becomes a ghost of the past. Just as the earth begins to fade from its hight of beauty the more we pollute it. The chief does nothing to change the pollution, nor does he attempt to change it, instead he observes it and feels it with remorse and despair. The only thing that the earth can do.
After we've been exposed to the appeals to ethos in the form of chief Iron Eyes Cody, as well as the appeals to pathos through comparison and contrast as well as cause and effect we are given the message that "people start pollution, people can stop it." We are then given a 5 second display of the Keep America Beautiful symbol as well as (in this version only) the website where we can access information on how we can keep America beautiful. These two arguments compliment each other as an appeal to logos. When it is illustrated to us that since we are the cause of pollution and we can stop it, we want to. Our next question is "how can we do it?" We are then shown the website for the Keep America Beautiful the masterminds behind this PSA.
And it's not over, pollution is just as prominent today as it used to be. As this PSA shows.
