Emojis Reign Supreme in “Picture Character” Documentary

Genre: Documentary / Directors: Ian Cheney and Martha Shane A New Earned Respect for Emojis (???) Yes, that’s right we got a movie about emojis, and I’ll be honest I did not see this coming. This is probably one of the most insightful documentaries about the shaping of our modern language I’ve seen in some time. There is an array of stereotypical “nonsense” that people take for granted and not realize how it affects our perceptions and reality, and I’ll admit I thought emojis was part of that category. I use them because they are fun and adds extra layers of context to rather dull conversations. Picture Character is a documentary that outlines the path of emojis through its development in our media language, diversity, worldwide communication, and general abstraction. The documentary takes us through the timeline of various people who approach Unicode with emoji proposals. Each group pitches their ideas to showcase why this specific “Picture Character” should be represented within the world language. Connections and Challenges (?????)

I enjoyed this film’s ability to connect the audience in unconventional ways by actually using emojis to describe a scene. At first, I thought it would be confusing, but it honestly opened my eyes as to how much we use this in our daily language. Emojis challenge the ways we interpret symbols and how it translates across our communication. We turned eggplants to penises, peaches to butts, the room for abstraction brings attention to how symbols…