Fw: Re: tube and tubal litigation then and now

[kelber at mindspring.com]

-----Forwarded Message-----
From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>

All excellent points and I do see the legitimate value of TV, though  
I am personally happy to live without it ( it needs sattelite where I  
live  so makes it easy to just say no) I guess I see it like booze  
etc, the lines are different for different people but the dangers and  
the induction of passivity is inevitable. You have to sit down and  
watch it.  Books  can be isolating and addictive too but it is hard  
to see a huge historic passivity associated with literacy.  Well I  
take that back, Look at the Bible, the most conservative and  
rrevolutionary book in Western history.  TV is unique especially in  
the 3 network era because of the sheer numbers watching the same  
thing at the same time.  The fact that this incredible power was used  
to sell soap and cigarettes does not diminish the drenching and  
mesmeric power of cathode rays.


>
>On Jan 14, 2009, at 1:27 PM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
>> If VL is a novel about social control and encroaching fascism, it's  
>> kind of interesting to look at distinctions he might make between  
>> film and TV.
>> He sees Hollywood as an active manipulator of social views, with  
>> the ability to make people think bad guys are good guys and vice  
>> versa.  At the same time,
>> film-making doesn't imply a huge power-structure behind it:  look  
>> at Frenesi's film collective.  TV requires both a monolithic power  
>> structure for transmission and marketing, while actively  
>> manipulating peoples' views, and rendering them lethargic and  
>> unable to act.
>>
>> That's a simplistic rendering, but it's only one aspect of  
>> Pynchon's views.  He's clearly a movie buff, and whether he loves  
>> it or hates it, he's clearly watched a lot of TV (and lent his  
>> voice to The Simpsons).  As things stand today, Hollywood seems to  
>> have little power to influence ideas, opting instead to pander to  
>> its marketer's perception of what the public thinks.  It's  
>> apparently no longer permitted to have a pro-abortion stance in a  
>> Hollywood movie (Knocked Up, Juno, etc.), not because Hollywood  
>> wants the public to be anti-abortion, but because the Hollywood  
>> powers-that-be are terrified of the Christian right.  TV (or at  
>> least, cable TV) doesn't seem to be as constricted, at least for  
>> the time being.  It was TV, also, that brought events ranging from  
>> the Viet Nam war to Hurricane Katrina to peoples' consciousness,  
>> and ultimately energized a lot of people to get off their couches  
>> and protest.
>>
>> Laura
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>>
>>> Back to the Pynchon use  of TV and tubal.  I think P is with many
>>> elaborations pointing out the eerie accuracy of Orwells vision but
>>> incorporating Mcluhan's  idea that the medium is the message and
>>> allowing for the entertainment value  and comical weirdness of the
>>> whole enterprise of substituting TV for civic life, social norms,
>>> youthful rebellion, judicial process, family, outdoor adventures and
>>> even sex, which is the ultimate in weird because your TV can pleasure
>>> you  but you can't  pleasure your TV.
>>>
>