Clueless isn’t so clueless: pop culture in reference to The Wealth of Reality by Margaret A. Syverson
Heather: “It’s just like Hamlet said: To thine own self be true.”
Cher: “Uhh, Hamlet didn’t say that.”
Heather: “I think I remember Hamlet accurately.”
Cher: “Ha, well I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn’t say that. That Polonius guy did.”
So where did Heather get the idea that Hamlet spoke the words “To thine own self be true”? Why was she so adament about it? Was it because she didn’t think her memory could fail her? Or was it because she felt that Cher wasn’t intelligent enough to know anything about Hamlet?
A similar question is addressed in The Wealth of Reality: An Ecology of Composition (a book that my graduate class Writing for Electronic Communities has been reading for the past two weeks), written by Margaret A. Syverson.
In chapter 4, “Desert Storm on the Network,” Syverson posts numerous online messages from an xlchc (what we know as a forum or message board) written during the time of Desert Storm in the early 90s which just so happened to be during the emergence of the xlchc.
Before even looking into the messages and how they evolve like natural oral conversation, she writes, “In the last two chapters, we saw how ecologies of writers, readers, and texts evolve through interdependent activities as agents work to coordinate their internal structures with external structures in their environment and with each other. “
If you want to explore the xlchc on Desert Storm that Syverson does in the book, by all means buy the book. If you want to explore Heather’s struggle in remembering Hamlet, adapted through Syverson’s approach, read on.
The reader: Heather
The writer: Shakespeare
The text: Hamlet
What moves this into an even deeper complex system of interaction and evolution: The viewer: Cher
Cher Horowitz might not read, but she is unconventionally smart, proven by her ability to associate Mel Gibson, the actor, with Polonius, the character. She probably never read Hamlet, which is what makes Heather think she is dumb, but not having exposure to something does not make a person dumb!
Heather is a reader. She read Hamlet, maybe even studied it in depth in college, but was unable to remember which character said what. According to Syverson, this would pose a potential problem as Josh absorbed what sounded like fact–perhaps Josh (the listener throughout this conversation) would have absorbed Heather’s comment and assumed she was right that Hamlet said “To thine own self be true.”
But, with Cher’s interjection, the conversation steered closer to fact, that Polonius said “To thine own self be true.” And while Heather
What Cher did for that scene is, by Syverson’s calculations, immeasurable, because Cher prevented both Josh and Heather from passing along incorrect information about a historical text.
And instead of Heather going back to her dorm satisfied, she went back annoyed and may have checked Cher, only to realize she was correct, and then never make the mistake again herself.
Clueless seriously has the answer to everything.
