Chapter 58: Reality might actually be more Sublime than glamourized, glossy media images

Ickapoo finds grounding when he relates to a real human rather than a glamorized fantasy.

In Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, television destroys authentic relationships.The Thanatoids spend their time watching television incessantly and imitate television models in Celebrity Roast. They model their behavior after television shows as Hector Zuniga never stops talking about the family he wanted to create in I Love Lucy with his former wife Debbi and Debbi named the television set as a correspondent in the divorce. Television mediates and alienates the characters in Vineland. A friend of Frenesi’s son Justin says that dealing with television is easy:” Pretend there’s a frame around ‘em like the Tube, pretend they’re a show you are watching. You can go into it if you want, or you can watch and not go into it.” (Vineland 351) This mediation extends into even family when Sasha trying to reunite Prairie with Frenesi insists their grandchild sings the theme song from Gilligan’s Island.