In the movie, “You’ve Got Mail”, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan engage in a very dynamic relationship that takes on several forms. In “Real life”, (IRL, as Wood and Smith describe it) they are bitter rivals, with Tom Hank’s character, Joe Fox, opening a large bookstore that is part of a large chain, and Meg Ryan’s character Kathleen Kelly, who owns a small children’s bookstore which will inevitably be run out of business by Joe Fox’s bookstore. The two meet IRL and are very hostile toward each other, especially when Kathleen finds out that Joe was trying to hide his identity from her during their first meeting at her store. The movie has a strange twist because the two “meet” again online. While online they agree to not be specific with each other and begin and entertaining dialog through Internet Relay Chat.  The movie demonstrates the very peculiarities of online and IRL relationships. For starters, Joe and Kathleen are allies online, with Joe advising her to “Go to the mattresses” and “Be bold and brave” in the face of her dilemma, all the while not knowing he is encouraging her to do battle with him. This movie reminded me of how Wood and Smith described an encounter that Ellen Ullman had with a co-worker and how online they spoke freely and openly with each other, but the next day, when they found they felt awkward in trying to communicate at work (p.3).  Wood and Smith later go on to explain that Ullman was experiencing the “blurring of immediate and mediated communication” (p. 4). They found they communicated differently in the mediated fashion than they did during the immediate.  

In the movie, Joe and Kathleen were able to be anonymous to each other (until Joe found out who she was during the café scene), thus they were able to create a “Mediated Self” identity without the baggage of being business rivalries.  Joe and Kathleen purposefully keep each other on non specific terms so that they can share with each other their personal secrets and other personal issues in their lives.  After the Café meeting Joe makes an important decision to continue online dialog with Kathleen and even offers encouragement to her after she personally insulted him IRL. He discovers that online he has been able to cast aside the conflicts that he and Kathleen have IRL and he falls in love with her. He believes he can have the same kind of relationship with Kathleen IRL if he plays his cards right. In mediated society today, as Wood and Smith describe, it’s a challenge to “Sustain a coherent sense of personal identity” (p. 7).  In the movie, Joe, after he makes the decision that he wants to continue dialog with Kathleen, spins this by keeping his online identity secret and then talking about his mediated self to Kathleen IRL. The fact that Joe knows Kathleen’s true identity gives him an advantage in manipulating their relationship to make her fall in love with him, if she hadn’t already.                

The end of the movie shows the collision of two worlds, the mediated self and the self IRL and we see the immediate communication and the mediated communication come together. But unlike Ullman, the meeting is not so awkward because the two characters had been conversing with each other in both forms and Joe gave lots of “hints” to his online identity during their immediate dialog.                                            

 The movie is very attractive to audiences because with all the online communication that we do, this is something that people can imagine is possible. The circumstances under which Joe and Kathleen came together is very improbable, but similar meetings I would assume could and probably take place.

Advertisement