I just found Margene’s Blog, a component of HBO’s Big Love online “community.” For those who haven’t seen the show, or have been living in a box and so have failed to see any reviews of the show, it’s about polygamists in Utah, and Margene (Ginnifer Godwin) is the youngest of three wives of Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton). She’s 23, an ex-punk rocker (or so we are led to believe in the scene where she puts away her old clothes, most of which are black t-shirts) and cigarette smoker, insecure, and unsure about this whole polygamy business.
The blog is weird. It’s written by a writer (I’m assuming it’s one of the writers on the show; who else would they entrust to take on the character’s persona?) posing as the character. This is interesting, because it’s like the writer all of a sudden becomes an actor, taking on the role through the way s/he writes - and I mean in terms of the written style, too, including punctuation, capitalization, emoticons, all that good stuff. The author is having to think about first of all, what bloggers sound like, and second of all, what Margene would sound like qua blogger, how she would convey herself to an online audience. It’s not unlike Harriet Miers’ Blog, only it’s way serious. For instance:
?? Ok, seriously, why is some meat light and some meat dark? And how come all of a cow is dark meat and a pig is all white meat… “the other white meat”, supposedly. But chicken has white AND dark meat so pork should really be the only white meat, technically.
:-) Frank got all lippy with me over the way I carved the turkey and Lois stood up for me, guys!!! It was awesome. Of course, I didn’t bring up the fact that Frank’s heifer-wives messed up the pre-sets on my car radio. Her huge pear-butt bucketed out my seat, too! Whether it’s a “shot in the arm” or not, if I was her, I might not eat as much ham, if you know what I mean.
?? MORE DREAMS: I had the craziest one two nights ago that our pool was over-flowing with black, bubbling oil. It just kept pouring over the sides and through the backyard all the way over to the fence. Bill and Ben were both waist deep in it, trying to figure out what was going on, but it just kept spilling over. I was sitting on one of the swings for some reason, just watching. Teenie was there, I think, but no one else was. She wanted to swim in it, for some reason, but Bill wouldn’t let her. It was weird.
The emoticons, the ellipses, the all-caps EMPHASIS, the punctuation-as-word (elsewhere, she uses rows of standalone exclamation marks. !!!!! ), the stream-of-consciousness speech style.
For another thing, the audience interaction thing is totally weird. The blog allows comments (I suppose there wouldn’t be much point, if it didn’t), and from what I’ve looked at, about half the people commenting are playing into the play, posing their comments directly in response to Margene’s post or talking directly to Margene, the character. And about half of them are being metablog/metashow, asking who writes the blog or commenting on how real or unreal the blog seems, or being nasty toward the idea of the blog or the skill of the writer. For those who play into it, it’s a way to continue the experience of the show, like a fan forum only more intense, or it feels more direct perhaps. For those who don’t play into it, there’s the satisfaction of being somehow intellectually above the fantasy-world of fiction.
Also, in terms of believability, never on the show (not that I’ve noticed, anyway) have they shown Margene even remotely interested in the internet, or have they even shown a computer around any of the three houses (other than when the teenage daughter is doing homework on her laptop). I have missed a few episodes, so maybe this was in there somewhere. But still, if she’s that prolific of a blogger, you’d think she’d mention her blogging habit once or twice (it’s not a secret - she uses her real name). Then again, they’re not supposed to tell anyone they’re polygamists - it’s illegal after all - so the fact that the blog IS under her real name is kind of dumb, because if it were a real blog (as it’s presented as; there’s no sense that the blog is addressed to VIEWERS of a SHOW, simply as PEOPLE reading a blog of someone’s life - she explains everything that happened in an episode, then adds little daily tedium tidbits) it’d be pretty easy to figure out who she was, where, and that she was in an illegal situation. And, as we learn from the show, people in Utah are quick to turn in their polygamous neighbors.
As for style, I’m not sure Margene would capitalize, but that’s a personal opinion.
[Admin note: please do not use the words "betting" or "wagering" if you ever comment on this blog. I've blacklisted them. Spammers suck.]
