J.+Bowlds

. Poisoning the Well is when you say something about someone whether you know if it’s true or not. When you are poising the well, you are saying something about someone or an argument before it is even mentioned. The audience gets a bad first impression before the person even gets to speak.

In this clip of Mean Girls, Regina tells Eric that Katie is obsessed with her and acts like a little girl. Katie wasn’t even around to defend herself. It is giving the audience a bad first impression before they even get to meet Katie. In the video Regina told Eric that Katie has a shirt saying “I love Eric”, this isn’t even true but it is still making Katie look bad because we don’t know if it is true or not. This shows the fallacy poising the well.

In this other clip of Mean Girls, Damian and Janis are telling the new girl Cady about the Plastics. They are telling her stuck up they are. They called Karen the dumbest girl in the school. This is showing the fallacy Poisoning the Well because we haven’t even met the Plastics yet and we are already getting negative information about them. media type="youtube" key="X1gRiHS46OI" width="560" height="315"media type="youtube" key="tP2XtYbIgD0" width="560" height="315"