Thursday and Friday

Emi’s chapters on Thursday and Friday pick up on those themes of media and distance that we’ve been mapping out since reading Tropic of Orange. It’s starts out with the usual funny banter between her and Gabe–she’s at the hairdresser’s getting a weave. Gabe says, “Trim. Cellophane. Weave. It all sounds like editing.” There is this weird way in which Emi is constantly editing her life. She hyper aware of her surrounding and the different social contexts that shape and act on identities, to the point that she plays with them and tosses them around in a sort of dizzying charadeĀ of signifiers.

What interests me about these chapters is that Emi is slowly being dragged into the core of plot. She gets set by Gabe with Buzzworm. They’re initial exchange is pretty funny and definitely believable: they dislike each other immediately. Buzzworm can’t stand her vibes so he starts flipping through his walkman channels for a vibe that can counter act hers. But eventually the two kind of form some duo. Buzzworm highjacks the station and stars doing his own reporting; the rating shoot up 75 percent so Emi has to cooperate. So finally Buzzworm takes the walkman out of his ear and replaces it with Emi. He has in effect changed mediums–entered a new kind of buzz. But also Emi has changed at the same time, because she’s now in cooperation with a more honest, less glitzy kind of reporting.

 

One Response to Thursday and Friday

  1. Prof VZ March 13, 2016 at 10:06 am #

    I appreciate the post, but wasn’t sure what to do with the video. There has been a lot of discussion online about how meme’s like this might unintentionally call up stereotypes–it’s less about the authentic sense of fear after a crime, and more about laughing at Dodson’s over-the-top mannerisms. I understand why it’s here: he kind of takes over the airwaves in a way very similar to Buzz. He achieves a voice that’s broadly heard. But that’s a complex comparison to draw–one that would require a post on its own. It’s not enough to just drop the thing here: when you place a meme like that, you need to contextualize, engage how it has been circulated and used, and compare it to the argument you’re making about Emi and Buzz.

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