the Tube in VL

[Doug Millison]

Two close readings of Vineland over the past couple of years convince 
me that Pynchon's critique of the Tube has little to do with content, 
and everything to do with the way the Tube replaces human 
relationships and serves as a tool for corporations and the 
governments they control. Setting the novel in 1984 prompts its 
reading in the context of Orwell's novel, where media serve the same 
political ends that TV serves in Vineland; Vineland's critique of 
corporate control is less apparent if not absent from 1984. Since 
neither of these factors has changed (in fact, the Tube is more 
entrenched than ever, and thus accomplishes all the better those two 
negative results), I wouldn't say that 90s TV content vs 80s TV 
content is an issue at all, but I would be interested in how that 
might be relevant to reading Vineland's critique of the Tube.

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