Viewing Questions for YOU'VE GOT MAIL

Viewing Questions for YOU’VE GOT MAIL (Nora Ephron, 1998).

1.     To what extent are the economic choices presented MAIL gendered?  Do women and men operate differently as producers of value, as owners of the means of production, or as consumers? Does the film use devices other than dialogue to communicate these differences?

2.     How do these films suggest that our identities are tied up in our economic choices, both in our choice of work and in our consumer choices?  What happens when those choices, about work or consumption, are challenged or blocked in these films?  Do identities shift or change in response?

3.     In what places are people spoken about in terms of value, either economic or something less tangible?  Who assesses the value? Is that person correct?

4.     Discuss the production design of the corporate offices of Fox and Sons and Kathleen’s bookstore in MAIL.  What does the design of these offices suggest about the relations of these people to their employees and customers and to their relation to the products they sell? What do these design choices suggest about the owners themselves?

5.     Discuss the ancillary relationships presented in each film, that is, the romantic relations that surround or sometimes include the primary couple (other couples, the primary couple’s original partners, etc.).  How do these other pairings comment on or directly influence the main couple?

6.     Apply one of the approaches from New Economic Criticism to the film.