Lots of young people live out their romantic dramas these days in the form of exchanged text messages. I know this because I've seen attempts to represent such dramatic exchanges in tv programmes, especially the Malay dramas that Noi watches. To be honest, I don't watch much else in the way of drama on the telly because I'm not much of a viewer, but I'm assuming that what goes on in the world of Malay tv drama reflects the kinds of programme watched in other parts of the world.
It's fascinating to watch dramatists and directors trying to solve the inherent problem of representing on screen a fundamentally un-dramatic activity - sitting down exchanging text messages - and somehow making it dramatic. The default solution is to cut between the characters in their different locations, showing the actual message floating mysteriously on screen as the messages arrive. (Which wonderfully, surrealistically breaks the standard verisimilitude of the 'realist' representation of life in process in the tv frame.) Music plays continuously, in the absence of the usual dialogue, and the characters emote like crazy in a kind of restrained dumb-show, sort of staying within the convention of reasonably naturalistic acting. In the moments of highest tension/emotion/revelation a character might expostulate to themselves in a kind of soliloquy, wholly inappropriate to the usual stylistic conventions of the on-going drama. I often think it would be handy to give them a cat or goldfish or something to address. The ladies might find a stuffed toy a viable audience.
I suppose the more folk become addicted to their ridiculous devices and live their lives through them, the more we're likely to be treated to attempts to improve on the standard model above. I must say, I'm looking forward to the possible developments. Who would have thought that handphones would end up provoking an entirely new dramatic sub-genre all of their very own?
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