Master of Science

thesisDomestic violence as a social problem has been ‘discovered' only recently. Over the past three decades, growing social awareness of domestic violence has been widespread throughout popular U.S. culture, including in mainstream films. A rhetorical analysis of three popular films (The Color Purple, Sleeping with the Enemy, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) reveals the repeated use of several techniques that subtly legitimize domestic violence. These techniques include pathologizing the abuser, the victim empowerment frame, the troubled childhood and addiction narratives, mythologizing domestic violence, and exclusion by definition. A combination of visual and traditional rhetorical analysis reveals the issues with discussing as complex a topic as domestic violence within the genre of popular film. More widespread, institutionalized problems are phenomena such as ‘exclusion by definition,' where some victims experiences are held up as "domestic violence" and others are marginalized as "not domestic violence." If we are ever to move past this as a society, we must resist essentializing THE domestic violence experience, expand upon the definition of domestic violence, and recognize the severity of every instance of domestic violence as a crime, taking the appropriate steps to both react and prevent future incidents. The key place to start is with our discourse. Adopting an inquiring, not judgmental, discourse is the first step down the path towards asking the right questions, acknowledging the immense complexity and irreducibility of domestic violence to a single model, and understanding and helping both victims and abusers move forward in productive ways