Tangerine Reflection

The lack of digital communication played a major role in the storyline of Tangerine. The main character, Sin-Dee, did not have a cell phone after leaving prison. As a result, she was dependent on word of mouth to find her boyfriend, Chester.

Her journey to find Chester took up most of her day as she traveled around town questioning people. Without access to digital communication services or the Internet as a whole, Sin-Dee spent much more time and effort to find Chester. Furthermore, her belief that Chester had cheated on her was based solely on gossip. If she had access to social media such as SnapChat, her friends could potentially snap a pic of Chester with another person and give Sin-Dee concrete evidence.

Without these gadgets, Sin-Dee wandered around but was lucky enough to find Dinah who ultimately led Sin-Dee to Chester. On the way to the donut shop, Sin-Dee realized that she promised to attend her best friend, Alexandra’s, performance. This is another issue that Sin-Dee ran into, as she had no phone to remind her of the performance. Once again, the lack of digital hindered Sin-Dee.

As for Alexandra, her use of fliers to promote her show was a major failure as no one showed up except Sin-Dee. While this may be due to the day (Christmas Eve) or her lack of talent, the film seems to be highlighting the ineffectiveness of paper promotion in a time of digital promotion through Facebook events, Instagram posts, etc.

Overall, the story would have been much different if the main characters had technology at their fingertips. Sin-Dee could have found Chester much faster and figured out more about his affairs and Alexandra could have gained a larger audience had she promoted her event online.