Girlboss: Representing the Internet in TV & Film

Ok, we've all heard about Girlboss, the latest Netflix Original for us all to binge. It follows the start-up of Nasty Gal, an online fashion retailer that had its roots in vintage designer fashion, founded by Sophia Amoruso in 2007. Though everyone is talking about the events of the show, it's doing something else particularly interesting - one episode visualises internet forums and instant messaging in a refreshing, unique way that really captures the weirdness of how we engage with one another online. 

Girlboss, Season 1 Episode 10: Vintage Fashion Forum

Girlboss is a loose retelling of events in the run up to establishing Nasty Gal as a brand, and follows the trials and tribulations of Sophia (Britt Robertson) through business, love, friendship and fashion. Though it misses the mark in spots, and really lacks in exciting makeover/runway sequences I've come to expect of media about women in the fashion industry, the tone is generally a nice balance of humour and drama. It doesn't shy away from Sophia's poverty, the realities of starting up a business from your hellhole apartment, or choosing between healthcare and food. 

As much as I hate Sherlock....damn, is that stylish...

The struggles of representing texting, the internet, and computers more broadly on screen is nothing new. Tony Zhou, at 'Every Frame a Painting', has done a pretty thorough run-down of the history of internet and digital realities in film here. Both Sherlock and House of Cards have generally been heralded as pioneers of a classier approach to on-screen texting, whilst Pretty Little Liars continues to show shot-reverse-shot images of people interacting with their phones - a struggle between verisimilitude and efficiency if there ever was one. Mr Robot has championed authentic representations of computer hacking - creating tension out of something that generally is pretty mundane whilst retaining an accuracy that makes it the envy of a computer-hacking-genre. Entire movies are set in literal interpretations online spaces, text messages and emails are blandly read out as though this is something people actually do, and Kelly Rowland texted Nelly on Microsoft Excel...

it's a tired joke but it is relevant

The truth is - there is not established way of representing screens on screens. Even when computers are only in the background of a shot, say in a control room, it costs a small fortune in post-production to add in the images that are supposed to be one the screens, never mind the money it costs to secure the rights to show that technology in the first place - there's a reason the BBC uses Windows phones on Casualty, and its not because those NHS doctors can't afford a better phone. Similarly, having audiences read off of a screen is irritating - given the size of the font, horrendous backlighting etc - and startlingly inefficient. But having information appear floating on the screen, like Sherlock above, can break the illusion of your overall image, drawing attention to the fact that this is not reality, it's a construction of images.

But I reckon Girlboss has cracked it. Bare in mind, this isn't suited to every show, since Girlboss creates digital environments with a comic element not best suited to a serious drama. These interpretations of the internet only appear in episode 10, 'Vintage Fashion Forum', in which Sophia's rivals, a group of eBay sellers specialising in an old-timey vintage (rather than Sophia's more modern approach), all gossip and spread misinformation about her across the titular forum. Sophia and her friend, Annie, both get involved and then later have a fight, which culminates in an IM conversation. 

Girlboss, Episode 10: Vintage Fashion Forum

Above shows the basic features of the forum and IM sequences in the episode. Both sequences are displaced from reality, occurring in a black or white void, completely lacking in feature and thus removing the conversation from the context of where the characters sit in their real worlds - at their computers. Instantly, this erases a whole host of problems: it's efficient, it isn't boring, it isn't obtrusive, necessarily, and it's a lot cheaper. By displacing these interactions, Girlboss is able to better handle two things: the multiple shifting threads of internet communication (through arrangement of chairs, and a disregard for standard film rules) and the weird disconnect between how we communicate on the internet and how we do it in real life. 

Girlboss, Episode 10: Vintage Fashion Forum

The two shots I've placed above best represents the first way that Girlboss handles internet communication. In the first, the vintage fashion forum sit at a round table with no distinct background characteristics and the other shows Annie and Sophia poised for an IM fight. This allows for multiple threads of communication as the camera can instantly disregard continuity rules. Continuity rules essentially mean the maintenance of spatial continuity - based on how the camera looks at things, the audience must always be situated within the space in a particular way. Eyelines have to match (so we recognise that characters are looking at each other), shot-reverse-shot is employed to maintain a basic understanding of the conversation (a prime example: person A speaks, person B responds, person A reacts) and the 180 degree rule is never broken, meaning that perspective is limited in order to maintain systems of order. 

If you can totally disregard these continuity rules, it makes for more flexible communication and drama as a camera can more accurately respond to shifts in informational flow - the camera can move from GoodTwillHunting (third shot) to TimesAndTreasures (fourth shot) to NastyGal to Rememberances without breaking spatial consistency. Similarly, the IM sequence shows Sophia and Annie facing each other in opposing chairs, poised for a conversation between the two of them and communicating tension all the while. Cue a random guy looking to chat up Sophia, whose chair appears facing the camera directly centre of the two women - a welcome bit of comic relief that surely resonates with any woman to have ever used a computer. These non-spaces thus offer a greater flexibility and creativity with which to demonstrate multiple threads of communication happening at once, freeing the camera from the restrictions of traditional conversation. 

Girlboss, Episode 10: Vintage Fashion F

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The latter two shots demonstrate the disconnect between how we communicate online and in person. The first shot here demonstrates the strangeness that occurs if we literalise the concept of the forum signature which, for those of us not familiar with forums (which are swiftly becoming vintage themselves), function in the same way as an email signature - though forums are more likely to possess business links, social media handles, weird gifs etc. The first shot reoccurs constantly as, every time TimesAndTreasures speaks, she recites "To shop Times and Treasures, click here", then lowers her physically rendered hyperlink onto the table. It functions as a surreal break in conversation that provides some comic relief whilst reminding the audience where this conversation is taking place - on the internet. 

The second shot takes on the concept of the gif as a literal, physical form of communication. GoodTwillHunting is here communicating how much fun the have on the vintage fashion forum through a gif image of a cat at a keyboard. A staple of internet communication, the gif hasn't ever really been immortalised in tv and film yet - since gifs are generally a moving picture file of a film of television itself (this is media inception). This is a remarkably fresh addition to the problem of digital media communication most shows are trying to solve. And, honestly, it's goddamn hilarious to see this cat appear at the keyboard repeatedly. This essentially trips up an audience, who inherently understand communication via gif but have never really seen it literalised in such a way - despite some people's desire to have gif communication in verbal speech.

Realistically, Girlboss isn't for everyone and its tackling of digital media isn't going to work for every piece of work. It's becoming increasingly clear that digital, electronic forms of communication will have to be integrated into any kind of realist work of our time - these means of communication are so essential to everyday experience that they cannot be avoided - and this is a problem waiting to be solved by upcoming film buffs. Even if you aren't interested in Girlboss, this episode is worth a quick watch to understand the treatment of the internet in contemporary film and tv media. Hell, maybe you'll even be the one to solve the conundrum...

Ok, a quick update on me: dissertation done, one essay to go and then my undergraduate degree is complete. I have plans to write more diverse posts across the summertime, diverging more from my set categories and doing some more in-depth analysis rather than simple gloss-over posts. I'm then moving to LDN in September to begin my masters degree in contemporary literature - and then....who knows? Maybe I'm the next Girlboss.