Any actor can roll his or her eyes at us. When Jessica Walter did it, we stayed eye-rolled at. “I won’t hear it, and I won’t respond to it.” If you know the line, you can hear it in your head. It’s Lucille Bluth, the terrifying wealthy matriarch played by Jessica Walter in Arrested Development, reacting to what she perceives to be a possible veiled criticism. It is also a reaction GIF — a snippet of soundless, captioned video — that has been shared countless times on social media to express contempt, dismissal, and denial, borrowing the crisp assertiveness of the actress and the character. These bits were like little memories shared at a wake. Remembering her life’s work through these brief quotes and gestures — sometimes not even entire lines, sometimes not lines at all — is so sensational as minimizing of a screen icon into a meme icon.
In fact, it is a tribute to exactly what made Jessica Walter so exceptional. For an image to work as a GIF — to instantly convey tone, context, and intent — we must be able to hear it the instant we see it, even without sound.
To tell a story in a GIF is the work of performance. Every cutting, withering, gut-busting Lucille image that Walter left us with came from an actor who knew her character and her craft so well that she could speak an entire reality in two seconds. Great Lady!
We heard it. And we responded to it. And we live with it.
In fact, it is a tribute to exactly what made Jessica Walter so exceptional. For an image to work as a GIF — to instantly convey tone, context, and intent — we must be able to hear it the instant we see it, even without sound.
To tell a story in a GIF is the work of performance. Every cutting, withering, gut-busting Lucille image that Walter left us with came from an actor who knew her character and her craft so well that she could speak an entire reality in two seconds. Great Lady!
We heard it. And we responded to it. And we live with it.
