When watching these essays, I suppose the “essayic” qualities come out in the same way as a written essay. If we are leaving the form of the script aside, then the heart of the essay is to ask questions and challenge , if not only your own, thought process. In Mangoes, the narrator is struggling with the concept of wearing the papoose, among other new father related things. This literally (cause the land-lord asked) asks question about manliness, fatherly roles, and we can both see and the resolution in tandem with the script so as to get a perfect understanding.
In mangoes, the author of the essay uses the video medium as a tool to help illustrate point. When his land -lord is talking, you could get a good sense for who he is through his language and his voice, but with the video, you not only see the way he looks, but all the carefully placed objects around him, helping the viewer get a better sense of who this guy really is. Further in the essay, but, different from the rest of the essay, there is some home clip of him saying “Banana Republic” and having his kid laugh every time. Just having that clip in there is something no other form could accomplish. Seeing the kids face light up is something words or audio couldn’t do and leaves you with a different feel having seen t.
Something similar comes up in Grandpa, where such as in writing you would have to make clear the lines of the past and the present. In audio, some key changes can be made to the music or pace of diction. In video, the process is streamlined, and we can see clearly these little changes. This can allow the narrator to flow more evenly in his words.
Freeman talks about the video essay as the “the brainy, bratty, mixed breed love child of poetry, creative nonfiction, art house indies, documentary, and experimental media art.” This is pretty true. In mangoes, the narrator uses traditional audio essay styles, careful word choice, poetic diction, rhetorical voice, and then will switch to a conversational tone. Its not lost in the traditional sense, but there’s definitely the points of tension between the elements that video can explore.