Video Blues

Despite the witty tone the speaker portrays in “Video Blues,” emotional isolation permeates the poem’s underlying foundation. From the beginning of the poem, the speaker describes the numerous connections her husband has with attractive actresses and the way his outward interest creates distance in their marriage. As the husband “treats” himself to a movie starring his “crush” (Line 2), Myrna Loy, this makes it “harder to enjoy” (Line 3) evenings spent together. The line “It makes some evenings harder to enjoy” (Line 3) haunts the poem through repetition. The passive quality of the sentence conveys that the speaker herself is passively observing her husband’s interests and activities without an active response. Grammatically, the subject of the sentence is the “crush” (Line 1) and not the speaker, and the speaker as a subject remains unstated. The structure of this sentence underscores from the very first stanza that the speaker is emotionally isolated in her marriage.

As the poem progresses, the speaker illuminates additional aspects of her isolation. After listing her husband’s numerous crushes, she poses the question “can’t a woman have her own dreamboats?” (Line 13). The speaker’s answer to this question is the potential evening she “could certainly enjoy” with handsome movie star Cary Grant.