VLVL Ditzah

[jbor]

Ditzah, by the time of Reagan, is prosperous and comfortably assimilated
into the society, wears a tropical muu-muu, drinks sangria and owns a
classic car. (And note how this description of her ostentatious appearance
in the present time circumscribes DL's recollection of the way she and her
sister dressed up, their "image", back in the day). Isn't part of the point
here that whatever political commitment she (and DL, for that matter, let
alone Frenesi) might once have had has dissipated? And that their
"rebellion" was as much about self-image as social justice? NB also
Pynchon's wry detail that it was "just before prime time" which precedes the
showing of the old footage of 24fps to Prairie. (194-5)

I think there's a naivety to it all, however, a type of dramatic irony at
play. I don't think the images of "domination and control" are simply their
own fantasies. Prairie is deeply affected by the scenes of injustice and
brutality which the crew captured alongside all the flower power nonsense
and dick waving (198-9), and these images are deliberately counterpoised
against the more sanitised (and often gently mocking) versions of the Civil
Rights era represented in tv shows like 'Bewitched' and 'The Brady Bunch'.

best

> Isn't the very dependency of the collective on the larger system-
> which it selectively scopes, of course, for maximum cinematic
> capture of their own projected fantasies of domination and control-
> a hint that they have entered into the anter-rooms of annihilation?
> 
> The inverted message, here, it seems to me, is that the collective
> is all about projection rather than their professed ideology of
> detailing the truth that's out there.