Visual Arguments and King Corn

            In Chapter 14 of Everything’s an Argument it discusses the power of visual arguments. In King Corn they use visual imagery to make their argument about corn.  Everything’s and Argument writes, “Images make arguments of their own. A photograph, for example, isn’t a faithful representation of reality; it’s reality shaped by the photographer’s point of view.” I thought that this was very interesting, because you could take the images from King Corn and add a different narration to it and it could be a video about how the corn industry is thriving and the best it has ever been. Just by changing the point of view of the narrator, the meaning of the image changes instantly.

            One image that especially stands out to me is the image of the man with his hand inside of the cow’s stomach. I never knew about grass fed or corn fed cows, and that image really showed what was going on with corn fed cows. It was a very uncomfortable part of the movie, but I think that that is what it was meant to be. They must have accomplished what they wanted to because I did remember that part of the movie, and what it was meant to convey.

            Another image of the movie that I remember was the image of them tasting their corn and then spitting it out. They had just picked the corn from the stalk, which should mean that it is ready to be eaten, but instead they tasted it and spit it out because it was so bad. This image really stuck with me because I didn’t know that corn is being made now that has to be processed before it can be eaten.

            Powerful images were a huge part of King Corn, by showing their audience the images behind the facts.