Reconstructing Larry

Scene 47 in Reconstructing Larry. Larry is defending the role of pictures in his academic treatise on new media to his editor, Marilyn who is old school academic.

Marilyn: You just cannot fill the book up with pictures. 180 pages of pictures?

Larry: 175. There’re no pictures inside the front or end cover or on the title page.

Marilyn. 175. Whatever. You have to include words too.

Larry: There are words in it. Or rather on it. There’s the cover. Oh and inside too. I had to include the name of the author and my debt to you as editor.

Marilyn: Larry, I know we live in an age where the only thing young people read is graphic novels or manga. But they are fiction. This is a work of academic analysis.

Larry. Well, it’s about context. Rather than fill the book up with description about who was talking I thought I’d just put in a photo of who was talking.

Marilyn: There are also the ideas. What they are talking about.

Larry: So I show their ideas through pictures. One picture is worth a thousand words.

Marilyn: And a picture can be interpreted a thousand different ways.

Larry: And are words always interpreted in only one way?

Marilyn: Look, my bottom line is this. Take out the pictures, replace them with academic argument, or there is no book.

Larry: Marilyn, I’m a graphics person. This will kill me.

Marilyn: You want to live? Start writing.