While post-cinematic video essays have emerged as a great medium for analysis, their underlying use of nostalgia and emotional manipulation encourages critical questions on their ethical resonance. These essays weave evocative imagery, music, and narration into a sensory narrative that shapes audience perception, a power which can easily get used to biased interpretation.

Nostalgia is especially powerful in video essays, which more often than not tend to emotionally draw the audience closer to the subject matter. Essays related to franchises from Harry Potter to Star Wars are common to make use of archival footage and sentimental music that reconstitutes familiarly warm feelings. While this indeed strengthens viewer engagement with the subject matter, it may downplay critical discussion of, among other things, problematic representations or unethical production ethics.

What’s more, the emotional manipulation of video essays threatens to orient affect over intellectual rigor. Through their use of slow-motion shots, dramatic soundtracks, and poignant voiceovers, creators very often aim to steer viewers to one interpretation over others. That, in and of itself, risks oversimplifying extremely complex subjects, privileging the creator’s argument while discouraging independent analysis.

The question also arises, more than ever, if makers of video essays should aim for emotional resonance or balance in critical engagement. An inherently post-cinematic form, the video essay could be in the position to mend academia with creativity but at a certain price of transparency and intellectual integrity. That is an essential balance necessary for video essays to remain both a strong and responsible means of navigating an ever-shifting audiovisual mediascape.

Sichen Liu 33775722