VLVL2 (1): Commentary and Questions (pp. 3 - 6) -- part 1

[Tim Strzechowski]

One of the most notable -- and perhaps controversial -- features of Vineland is its abundant use of pop culture references from the late-'60s thru the early-'80s.  Various readers and critics have argued whether such ephemera can be used to the same effect as the wartime allusions, as well the sundry interdisciplinary references, that permeate Gravity's Rainbow.

In an earlier post I noted the following:

[...] "We (meaning those of us born in the early-mid sixties or thereabouts) are part of the "Rerun Generation," among the first to come of age at a time when the TV rerun was a staple of American culture.  Although sitcoms were prevalent in the '50s, I think the wealth of TV sitcoms in syndication, especially by the late '60s and early '70s, might have even offered a certain
desensitizing sense of security to a TV viewing public that was emerging perhaps a bit shell-shocked from the daily turbulence of Vietnam war coverage/assassinations/riots/and other such turmoil in which the late-'60s was embroiled (and broadcast on a regular basis).  TV sitcoms in syndication came at the right time.  People needed the silliness of _Gilligan's Island_ or _The Monkees_, and the security of predicability, at that point."
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0306&msg=81958&sort=date
 
On a more scholarly note, in his essay "Attenuated Postmodernism: Pynchon's Vineland" David Cowart states that the intent for these cultural references is partly satiric and parodic.  He notes:
 
"The density of reference to the ephemera of popular culture is almost numbing.  Pynchon refers often to movies, as in Gravity's Rainbow, but here he neglects historic films and art cinema in favor of Gidget, Dumbo, 20,000 Years in Sing Sing, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Friday the 13th, Return of the Jedi, and Ghostbusters.  Psycho and 2001: A Space Odyssey are the most substantial films mentioned.  The author helpfully supplies dates for these films, parodying scholarly practice, and he invents a number of droll film biographies, including The Frank Gorshin Story, with Pat Sajak, and Young Kissinger, with Woody Allen.  Even more insistently jejune are the allusions to the titles, characters, stars, and music of such television programs as Star Trek, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan's Island, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, I Love Lucy, Green Acres, Smurfs, CHiPs, Superman, and The Bionic Woman.  This depressing litany -- the intellectual horizon of the American mass mind -- subsumes less obvious manifestations of popular culture taste as well: mall culture, "roasts," video and computer games, new wave hairstyles, breakfast cereals, even " 'sensitivity' greeting cards" [Pynchon, 38].  Pynchon's intent here is not entirely satiric, for no doubt he is genuinely fond of much popular culture.  In the introduction to Slow Learner, he declares that "rock 'n' roll will never die" [23], and the sentiment is shared by the founders of the People's Republic of Rock and Roll, who name their new state "after the one constant they knew they could count on never to die" [209].  Perhaps, too, Pynchon wishes to eshew cultural elitism and demonstrate solidity with the masses.  But the virtual absence of historical depth in this body of allusion makes a devastating statement about the shortness of the American cultural memory.  This ultimately, is the point of his constant allusions to the signs and texts of popular culture.  Pynchon denies himself much of the cultural and historical dimension of the previous novels and commits himself to imagining the relentlessly ahistorical consciousness of contemporary American society.  The implicit judgment of his shallowness, finally, reveals a moral dimension -- always in fact an element in Pynchon's work -- that distances this author from the moral neutrality of nihilism sometimes alleged to be the postmodern norm" (The Vineland Papers, 7 - 8).

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