Over the past few series, Short Stop has focused on stories that fall under the fiction umbrella. While some have been autobiographical, they present something more creative within the framework that is deserving of exploration. The chance to dive into what interests an author becomes a rewarding experience as I broke down themes and found interesting tidbits. While this will be the same for the upcoming series, the approach will be a little different. I’ve been a fan of David Foster Wallace ever since reading “Infinite Jest” years ago and have been curious to delve into his essays. In an effort to better understand his potential as a writer, I am going to be spending this column exploring the seven entries for “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” Will the mix of analysis and autobiography provide something rewarding, or will I never do a nonfiction column again? Join me and find out. The only caveat is that due to some of these being lengthier, there’s an off chance the entries will take longer to release. Keep that in mind and let’s delve into one of the most unique voices of the late 20th century.
When starting this column, I wasn’t entirely sure what I would be doing when it came to the longer entries. After delving into the early pages of Wallace’s “E. Unibus Pluram,” I discovered it would be 62 pages: a lofty amount to summarize in a matter of a few thousand words. The further along I went, the more I realized that his subheadings provided convenient breaking points for a larger discussion. That is why my goal is to break this entry up into a multi-part essay that highlights a small fraction of the larger work. To provide clarity, the focus of this first part will emphasize the sections titled: Act Natural, The Finger, and Metawatching.
One of the greatest gifts and curses of delving into Wallace’s work is realizing how much of a maximalist he is. I’m only a third of the way through and this already feels like a galaxy brain exploration of America’s obsession with TV. For him, there is curiosity on what it means to consume entertainment. Are we voyeurs? Does it make us creatively less interesting? What is gained by the TV becoming self-aware of its own existence? Finally, how does this impact the fiction writers who turn to it for comfort?
Obviously I can’t get into everything here, but what he has created is one of the most thought-provoking essays about media consumption that I’ve read. Even if he struck me as someone who has an animosity towards the medium, there is a certain affection he carries through the early sections of this essay. He’s less concerned about criticizing it so much as trying to understand the criticism. He wonders why people who complain about watching the tube for six hours will inevitably find themselves joining in. The contrast he shares with people who become self-motivated shut-ins helps to reflect how addictive the format is. As he claims midway through: you go to the movies for escapism and realism is on TV. While this is more evident in Vietnam War footage, he poses the question as to whether that’s actually true or just one big hallucination.
The opening section (Act Natural) is a provocative way to introduce the larger idea. At the time of publication, TV was more writer-driven, so the idea of fiction writers being codependent on TV felt more prominent. Given that writers are naturally driven to look for stories by gawking at reality, Wallace questions whether they’re using TV as a shortcut. Do the ideas become inherently derivative because they’re borrowed from somewhere else?
From there, it becomes clear that he wants to zoom into the screen until suddenly he’s staring at one pixel blur. Does that pixel have any greater meaning, or is this all some hallucination? The idea of needing fiction to entertain in a medium that many believe benefits from realism only helps to reflect the contradiction. He contemplates this as people are being sold products and listening to morality tales on sitcoms.
One of the most impressive examples of snake eating its own tail comes in the next section which finds Wallace discussing the nature of syndication and TV’s self-awareness. He believes that entertainment has always been self-aware going back to Abbott & Costello on radio programs. The only difference is that, with picture, there is a need to find greater stimulation. As he looks at people criticizing TV in newspapers, he turns his focus to the medium itself on a Sunday afternoon where he finds reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show leading into St. Elsewhere. While this doesn’t sound like much of anything, Wallace places the tinfoil hat on his head and reveals how connected everything is. It’s the moment he realizes that TV’s self-awareness removes the audience as voyeurs and instead makes them realize that their codependence is necessary to even understand what’s going on. In an age where most shows are just striving for syndication numbers, who needs creativity? As he claims, people’s low brow tastes are common while the high brow ones are more fractured.
The plots of The Mary Tyler Moore Show aren’t important. What Wallace fixates on is St. Elsewhere, which finds a patient who believes he is a character on the former. I won’t go into specifics, but it’s a feverish journey into how he believes that his co-star is Rhoda and that Betty White – who guest stars as an original character – is a wink to the former. The episode then ends with a reference to the famous hat throw that results in a playful wink at the audience. What’s clear is the patient is lacking of personal identity and is escaping through TV. What’s less direct to everyone not overthinking things is that both shows were produced by Moore, meaning that there’s some self-flagellation going on.
Wallace also emphasizes the envy he has for actors if just because they have a gift for managing to “act natural” while others watch. The hypothesis starts by suggesting that it’s difficult for anyone to act this way because of their natural self-consciousness. An actor’s unself-consciousness is admirable given that millions will be judging them. Their ability to portray realism against the backdrop of writers who may be derivative or lacking any connection to a greater world only emphasizes the paradox on display. After all, TV is where you go to feel validated. As he cites in his Vietnam War example, many protestors went where the cameras were because that’s where they learned about the atrocities.
At another point in the essay, Wallace parallels the act of watching TV to addiction. While he emphasizes alcoholism for clarity, the act of addiction is more important in expressing his larger point. In theory, watching a screen isn’t a harmful activity. Taking some time to unwind is important to one’s mental health. However, the act itself is strange when laid out in literal terms. When you realize that this involves sprawling out on a couch and staring forward for, on average, six hours, you realize that it becomes more tragic. Given that society is assumptively social, the antisocial nature of tapping into reality in this way only adds to the larger contradiction.
However, it’s easy to “overdose” on TV at a point. Much like alcoholism, Wallace posits that there is a way to consume appropriately. However, there is a portion of the curve where suddenly it leads to concern. It ties into ideas expressed in Act Natural where efforts to be creative are demolished by taking this shortcut. Fiction writers (all of whom he claim are under 40) turn to it for inspiration. Meanwhile, there’s the other group of people who have become codependent and live comparatively tragic lives. There’s some sense of mental illness. What is the difference between the two?
Over the three sections, it becomes clear what the larger throughline is. While he emphasizes small collectives of people, TV’s addictive qualities are in some ways no different from a social media website using the endless scroll function. It’s there to keep the audience invested. Being able to recognize the references on St. Elsewhere makes you feel better for watching The Mary Tyler Moor Show. It creates the feeling of an inside joke among friends. Even for those who aren’t industry insiders, there is that sense of inclusivity that is achieved, in contradiction, from the privacy of one’s home. It creates the sense of friendship without having to go out and find one.
In that way, TV is an addiction. There is a need to cope by finding the parts that make one happy. There is a search for that high. I can only imagine it’s gotten worse since Wallace’s passing given the presence of 24/7 programming and endless platforms offering entertainment. There is a need to be in the know of so much more, especially with continuity becoming more ingrained, in order to feel connected to anything. In doing so, you sacrifice something of yourself that is fundamentally human. You may be able to have a small social group, but odds are that you’re searching for a high from someone who is not treating the conversation transactionally.
So a question that I wonder if Wallace will explore is how this all dovetails with the idea of criticism as an art form. Everyone has an opinion on the medium, but are they all just reflections of some deeper insecurity? I could only imagine TV at the time of “E. Unibus Pluram” was less prestigious and more repetitive. I’d argue it might’ve even been as derivative as people were complaining. However, are writers complaining less because they have something to say and more because it’s the only way they can funnel discussion in a way that includes them? I think that only adds to the greater idea that everyone is lonely and TV isn’t helping. It doesn’t portray reality in any way except how alone we are.
Those are just my predictions for what’s to come. For now, this essay was a real barn burner of analysis. Some of these ideas still feel relevant 35 years later. The greater question as to whether we’re using our time wisely is important, and I think Wallace is doing an excellent job of understanding our interiority. However, this is from an anthology called “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” There has to be some arc that concludes with him feeling regret over those six hours of daily stagnation. I’m excited to see where things go in the next section.
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