I stumbled upon this article on DVICE, thinking it would be some tepid piece on some bland fashion statement associated with emo. But I hardly expected this:
“First there was smell-o-vision. Now we have the Emo Jacket with feel-o-vision. The folks at Philips Electronics are bringing out a jacket that lets you really feel what’s going on in a movie. Using similar coding technology to D-box Motion Code chairs, the jacket will react to signals encoded on a DVD or Blu-ray.”
Well, perhaps I should have expected something of this nature considering DVICE is a technology site. In any case, the disconcerting thing here isn’t the (mis)use of the word emo, but rather the need for this device. Film, like music and any other form of art, should be able to elicit ones’ emotions with its own tools. The need for an absurd tool to manufacture some sentiment of what the characters on screen are feeling as to allow one to empathize with the characters, then, simply put, the movie isn’t doing any justice to the story. If you need this jacket to find the emotional gravitas of a certain film, chances are that movie isn’t very good.
Â
That infernal jacket...
