The best way that I can interpret the purpose of the video essay is in contrast to the cinematic film, which we are more used to. According to Marilyn Freeman, ” Conventional films are made to appear seamless and to move audiences forward along a dramatic line. By contrast, the video essay aims to move audiences deeper. It disrupts the smooth impenetrable surface of standard cinema with unexpected couplings of sound and image” (1). So when we settle in to watch an audio essay, it is important to not expect to be entertained the same way that we are when we watch a youtoube video. Instead, the mind is rushing to create meaning of the things in which we see. In this way, the video essay is similar to the textual essay. It is making the audience seek meaning.

In Mangoes I was constantly asking myself, where is he going with this?  The author of the film, John Bresland begins his essay with admitting around the 1:34 mark, that he doesn’t wear a baby carrier. However, as the story progresses, using images of his lovely son, we get the idea that he is a parent with many doubts and anxieties about doing the right thing by this beautiful boy. Also, we get the feeling that this man thinks that perhaps his unwillingness to use this baby carrier is an indication that he has short comings as a father. Somewhere, he has already messed up.

A particularly powerful moment where his musings really come in to light is when he wonders if the best thing he could do for his son is disappear (4:57). In a textual essay, this line would be read and then the rest of the essay would be internalized with that thought always in the back of the reader’s head. However, the next image that the viewer sees is a clip of Bresland saying “Banana Republic,” and making his son laugh (5:13). These opposing moments lend a much more in depth analysis of the situation for the viewer. We see that his anxiety about his failings as a father are stemmed from his earnestness to do right by his son.