Through building an intimate relationship, one’s significant other often becomes a part of one’s everyday routine and overtime, the center of one’s world. When love relationships reach this level of intimacy, the partners become physically and emotionally essential to one another. However, as a result of such deep love and attachment, this makes the mere thought of losing one’s partner unfathomable; the reality, on the other hand, encompasses the most unbearable grief, more than one could have ever previously imagined. Vanessa Bryant’s connection to her beloved husband and one of the NBA’s most idolized basketball players in history, Kobe Bryant, and her dear daughter, Gigi Bryant, had a pull like gravity on her; her relationships with them kept her grounded. Vanessa’s life fell into the orbit of Kobe and Gigi’s life making her world go round. On Sunday, January 26th, 2020, Vanessa’s universe came to a crashing halt as she faced the news that the lives of Kobe and Gigi were taken in a fatal helicopter crash. In response to this devastating news, Vanessa categorizes her reaction as the uttermost feeling of shock and grief that she has ever experienced.
The path of healing after loss can be one of the most challenging recoveries among humanity. Within this healing process, calls for comfort and closure among all affected by the loss at hand become essential to achieve feelings of peace. On February, 24th, 2020, about a month after the crash, Vanessa was invited with open arms to speak at the memorial service in dedication to Kobe and Gigi at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. The location of the memorial holds great significance in the sense that Kobe played the majority of his seasons as a Los Angeles Laker there, further being named “the House that built Kobe.” In the arena filled to max capacity with 20,000 mourners, Vanessa managed to deliver powerful and emotional words in aims to achieve closure for herself and for those struggling to find peace after experiencing the tragic loss.
In this context, Lloyd F. Bitzer’s analytical piece, “The Rhetorical Situation”, can be directly applied to explain Bryant’s pursuit of providing the mourning community with her heartfelt speech. According to Bitzer, “rhetoric is a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action” as a result of a circumstance that prompts a rhetorical action or response (4). In other words, a rhetorical situation arises from a certain context or situation that prompts necessary corresponding action. As noted by Bitzer, the rhetorical situation is composed of three essential parts: exigence, audience, and constraints. Exigence is an urgent calling of action as a result to a given situation that can be altered by discourse. In order to be considered rhetorical, Bitzer emphasizes that exigence must be able to be changed by discourse (6). The second constituent of rhetoric, audience, refers to the individuals who are being manipulated by the rhetorical situation with the potential of being altered by discourse (7). To cap off the components of exigence and audience, the third component, constraints, refers to the limitations of achieving success through the rhetorical technique which can root from the rhetor and/or the audience (Bitzer 8). When analyzing Bryant’s speech as rhetoric, this situation mirrors Bitzer’s theory and includes components that align with exigence, audience, and constraints.
Bryant holds a very complex position as the speaker of her emotionally heavy text; from one angle, Vanessa is facing and managing her own grief of losing her beloved husband and daughter. At the same time, Vanessa is providing positive words of comfort to those experiencing the same loss. In aims to achieve closure for herself and for others, Vanessa sets forth to deliver her speech. With that being said, the exigence of this situation stands as the calling for closure among the people affected by Kobe and Gigi’s death as a result of the tragic helicopter crash that cost their lives. The purpose of Vanessa’s speech is to achieve a sense of peace within herself and to console others. According to a clinical psychologist who specializes in traumatic loss and worked with the Bryant family to overcome this tragedy in their lives, the “memorial service to honor Kobe Bryant and Gianna Bryant could help Vanessa Bryant deal with her grief” (Scribner). In addition, LaDonna McMurray Gaddes shines light on Vanessa Bryant’s decision to speak at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in front of thousands of people mourning the same loss as her. Through illustrating change reactions in terms of loss, Gaddes provides insight as to how Bryant’s delivery of speech was emotionally necessary as it stood as “a need to complete the grief process [for herself and for the mourning audience] so that closure takes place” among all parties (Gaddes). Regardless of how emotionally challenging it was to speak about this raw wound, Vanessa knew giving her speech would be a monumental stepping stone in the healing process for herself and for the mourning community. Jane Greener, Ph. D., contributes to this point as she describes how, “relying on others and having the chance to talk and process what has happened helps the bereaved begin to face the finality of death and deal with the loss.” Coming to terms with the reality of such a big loss was one of Vanessa’s hardest challenges in the process, so being able to speak about her lost loved ones while being surrounded by immense love and support greatly aided her during the healing process.
Kobe Bryant was not the average NBA player. In history, Kobe is deemed as one of the best basketball players of all time which made the emotions rooting from his death very widespread among not only the close people in his personal life, but the entire basketball community as a whole. In correspondence with this circumstance, this only made Vanessa’s speech even more essential to those seeking consolation which are deemed as the audience of this situation. Not only did the audience consist of the people filling the stands of the Staples Center, but it also includes the many viewers watching and listening to the memorial service on television. As the rhetorical audience, the people viewing and listening to Vanessa’s speech are the intended recipients of Vanessa’s message as they are seeking closure for the deaths of Kobe and Gigi. In response to Vanessa’s heartfelt words, the audience is able to respond to the exigence of her speech and find settlement within their emotions after experiencing the given losses.
In this particular situation, the constraints encompass a very complex nature as these restrictions of effective rhetoric stem from the speaker as well as the audience. The constraints include Vanessa’s ability to effectively deliver the speech in face of her emotions and to achieve a sense of warm welcome from the audience in order to do so. Certainly, the audience welcomed Vanessa with an overload of applause and did not fail to make Vanessa feel supported as she stepped up to the podium. It is important to note that the memorial took place only a month after the helicopter crash that cost Kobe and Gigi’s lives meaning this was still a very sensitive topic for Vanessa to speak about; a wound so fresh makes one’s emotions very vulnerable. Furthermore, the constraints of Vanessa’s speech lie in the words of the speech itself; the content and approach of the speech determines whether closure was achieved by the audience or not. When it comes to loss, each individual person requires different elements to achieve closure. Depending on if the audience harmonized with Vanessa’s speech determines whether closure was achieved or not.
Vanessa approached her speech in a very personal manner in the sense that she mainly shared the details about her close knit relationships and fond memories with both Kobe and Gigi. Beyond her personal life with her husband and daughter, Vanessa could not disregard the fact that Kobe was one of the most famous basketball icons of all time, so she certainly acknowledged his superior status of his basketball career within her speech as well. To detour the audience’s sadness, Vanessa emphasized how important it is, “to know and remember the amazing person, husband and father [Kobe] was. [He was] the kind of man that wanted to teach future generations to be better and keep them from making his own mistakes”, and in saying this, Vanessa cast a positive light of comfort over her audience (Scottie). Vanessa’s main goals of delivering the speech were to achieve closure for herself and the mourning community, so by illustrating the honorable figures that Kobe and Gigi were, comfort was sensed among all.
Through other forms of rhetorical modes, especially linguistic and gestural modes, Vanessa’s speech can be considered as successful. The linguistic mode “refers to written or spoken words [which] includes word choice, the delivery of written or spoken text, the organization of words into sentences, and paragraphs, and the development and coherence of words and ideas” (Ball). In this scenario, the rhetoric can be understood through the linguistic mode as Vanessa presents her speech in a sincere and conversational tone to make her audience feel in tune with her words. In terms of the gestural mode, this mode of rhetoric refers to the “facial expressions, hand gestures, body language, and interaction between people” which is effectively exploited by Vanessa (Ball). By maintaining a collected composure for the duration of the speech, Vanessa utilizes the gestural mode. Ultimately, these supplemental techniques greatly contribute to the success of Vanessa’s use of rhetoric.
When looking at this situation as a whole, one of the most important aspects to consider are the shoes Vanessa has no other choice but to walk in. While navigating through her own grief, Vanessa has to simultaneously keep up with her role as a mother to her daughters, Natalia, Capri, and Bianka. Additionally, given Vanessa was the closest to Kobe as his wife, she was placed in the position of providing the surrounding community with comfort due to her significant role in Kobe’s life.
From analyzing Vanessa’s speech through Bitzer’s rhetorical lens, Vanessa’s speech can be deemed as effective usage of rhetoric as it directly mirrors all elements of this literary device. While satisfying all components of rhetoric, Vanessa positively advances her own grief process and the grief process for the people mourning the same loss as her. Concluding Vanessa’s speech, this moment marked a huge stepping stone for herself and for all people facing Kobe and Gigi’s death. Thanks to Bitzer, the viewers of Vanessa’s speech have a deeper understanding of how effective rhetoric can be especially in the face of serious matters.
Works Cited
Andrew, Scottie. “Read Vanessa Bryant’s Speech at the Memorial for Kobe and Gigi Bryant.” CNN, 24 Feb. 2020, www.cnn.com/2020/02/24/us/kobe-bryant-memorial-vanessa-bryant-statement-trnd/index.html.
Ball, Cheryl E., et al. Writer/designer : a Guide to Making Multimodal Projects. Second edition., Bedford/St. Martins, 2018.
Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.”Philosophy& Rhetoric, vol. 25, 1992, pp. 1–14.JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40237697. Accessed 26 Feb. 2021.
Business Insider. “NBA Legends And Celebrities Came Out In Droves To Pay Their Respects At Kobe And Gianna Bryant’s Memorial. Here’s Who Attended.” Business Insider, Times Internet, 15 Oct. 2021, www.businessinsider.in/nba-legends-and-celebrities-came-out-in-droves-to-pay-their-respects-at-kobe-and-gianna-bryants-memorial-heres-who-attended-/Vanessa-Bryant-gave-a-heartbreaking-speech-about-Kobe-and-Giannas-lives-away-from-basketball-/slideshow/74292345.cms.
Deb, Sopan. “Kobe Bryant Memorial: Full Coverage of the Tributes at Staples Center.” New York Times, 24 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/live/2020/kobe-bryant-memorial-02-24.
Geddes, LaDonna McMurray. “Change, Loss, Grief and Communication.” EBSCOhost, Oct. 1992,search-ebscohost-com.nuncio.cofc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED355602&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Greer, Jane. “Life After Loss: The Case of Vanessa Bryant.” Psychology Today, Sussex Today, 24 Mar. 2020, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shrink-wrap/202003/life-after-loss-the-case-vanessa-bryant.
Nash, Rocky. “UPDATE: Los Angeles Honors Kobe, Gianna Bryant with Public Memorial.” 8 News Now, Nexstar, 25 Feb. 2020, www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/live-updates-los-angeles-honors-kobe-gianna-brynt-with-public-memorial/.
Scribner, Herb. “How the Celebration of Life Could Help Vanessa Bryant.” Deseret News, 24 Feb. 2020, www.deseret.com/entertainment/2020/2/24/21150562/vanessa-bryant-celebration-of-life-kobe-bryant-memorial.