the Tube in VL

[stuck outside of mobile with the memphis blues again]

Doug Millison writes:
>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.

My idea was this:

a) With higher-quality content, the power structure is less lopsided,
somehow.

b) More time, and more importantly, other forms of media during
the latter half of the decade (i.e. the net - I've seen surveys
quoting more online time than TV time for online households),
have allowed TV viewers to become more able to resist being used
by corporations and governments, as well as maintaining better
human relationships. E.g. I watch some TV, a lot less than many
people, but still some; I see a lot of commercials but I'm not really
enticed into buying anything, even by commercials I find very
amusing and/or good. Besides that, I find myself very critical of
a lot of the information I'm presented with, either explicitly
by news media, etc., or implicitly in other programs. I am most
definitely an exception in many respects, but it seems many
people similarly less prone to being controlled by their Tubes.
Furthermore, I might suggest that those who are more prone to
being controlled, are probably not that way because of TV - TV
just happens to be the particular medium of our time that effects
that control.

This is only an idea - it would need more thought to stand up
to any interesting criticisms.

Dislaimer: I haven't read VL yet.


Josh

-- 
josh blog: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/blog/
      tdr: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~kortbein/tdr/