wallace-l: Will's Students -- Johnson

[Paul Mackin]

TV is such an easy target, one wonders how Wallace can come up
with a new take on it. 

Haven't read either of the stories but, having IJ under my belt,
I can only suspect it must be partly the addictive aspect that
interests Wallace.

TV is an addiction. A certain number of hours a day seems
necessary to feed the average case. In our household the TV
goes on during the cocktail hour and continues through dinner.
That's usually enough. We can get back to work, or whatever. 

I share the repugnance for game shows. Emily has turned herself
into a database. This could be useful to her in some
aspects of real life (outside of playing Jeopardy) but no viewer
will confuse it with intellectual activity. Well, some will, of 
course, but they are beyond the pale.

Could TV make us kill our parents, to cite the extreme case presented
by the other author? Probably not. Unless of course they said we would
have to stop watching. Addiction can lead to excessive behavior.

Seriously, the point is probably the degree to which society
has built up this big superstructure of social cause and effect.
Of course it gets promolgated over the tiny flickering screen.
(Some minimal content is necessary.) Viewers start drawing their
own conclusions. Tragedy may result. Viewer discretion is advised. 

Enjoyed the essay.

					P.



On Wed, 15 May 1996 WillL at fieldschool.com wrote:

> Date	5/15/96
> Subject	Will's Students -- Johnson
> From	WillL
> To	Pynchon List, Wallace List
> 
> Will's Students -- Johnson
> Dear Listers,
> 
> Here's another from my high school seniors.  Emily's post is about TV and how it
> is presented in a David Foster Wallace story "Little Expressionless Animals" and
> in a story by Mark Leyner, "Oh, Brother," which is a parody/exaggeration of the
> Menendez "imperfect self-defense strategy (the brothers believe -- from TV --
> that any normal parent is abusive, so their perfect parents must be insane and
> about to kill them).  Even if you haven't read these stories, please feel free
> to respond to her, and feel free use other works in your response, particularly
> "The Crying of Lot 49," which the students also read. I'd note that Emily hasn't
> read TRP's "Vineland," though you might also find some connections there she
> would find interesting.  Again, I plan to collate the various responses and
> discuss them with the students in a seminar.  Thanks for your help!
> 
> -- Will Layman
> 
> ********************
> 
> In his short story, "Little Expressionless Animals", David Foster Wallace
> humorously jabs at our television saturated society.  Alex Trebek, the sort of
> dweeb of the game show industry, takes considerable abuse from Wallace, and with
> this the story addresses the idea that there's something ridiculous and phony
> about t.v., that it's the junk food of entertainment.  Of all the inane things
> on television he chooses Jeopardy as his focus, and as a protagonist, a girl who
> has memorized the encyclopedia.  Both of these things represent pointless
> flaunting of facts and memorization abilities that the normal ones of us
> couldn't even conceive of.  But because they're that way, just that far beyond
> us, the knowledge of these facts is also admirable.  Memorizing the encyclopedia
> is an impressive feat, but Julie and her brain and her enigma are all cheapened
> by the fact that we know about it because of Jeopardy, because of t.v., because
> of Alex Trebek.  There is something so immense and important about knowledge
> that I wince at the idea of constraining it to questions and answers.  So is
> that the analogy?  Jeopardy does to knowledge what t.v. does to our lives. 
> Sitcoms with their thirty minute conflicts and resolutions serve what purpose
> for us?  Entertainment?  So when Arthur from across the street sits down with
> his wife after dinner to get his fill of "must see t.v.," he knows he's
> devaluing life, he simply finds the entertainment worthy of such an
> accomplishment.  I don't think so.  He just doesn't realize what is being
> accomplished, aside from his being entertained.  So where does the problem lie? 
> Is it just stupid people, uninformed people who watch their t.v.'s like a
> teenaged girl might watch a mirror while contemplating not eating dinner?  Or is
> it t.v. that makes them that way?  Certainly in Mark Leyner's "Oh, Brother" we
> hear of a story is which t.v. takes kids beyond stupid to deranged.  So the
> excessive violence that results, the elaborate patricide, is due to, according
> to their lawyer (ironically, law being a profession specializes in
> oversimplifying) the television they mistook for a mirror.  If it's really that
> evil then how can we just plunk down multiple t.v. sets in every American
> household?  Oh, right Ñ for entertainment's sake.
> 
> -- Emily Johnson
> 
> 
> 
> 
>