Commercial TV

Moving on from cinema, the next two chapters switch from the big to the small screen and consider the significance of TV in DeLillo’s work. Across his oeuvre, DeLillo recognises a degree of convergence between TV and cinema. Both have an eerie stickiness, a hypnotic power that transfixes the spectator. At the same time, critical distinctions are drawn between the media. The dangers of cinematic seduction are not ignored, but film is still credited with a capacity for artistic creativity, philosophical seriousness and an invigoration of the senses. Conversely, TV is largely associated with social control, the erosion of subjectivity and psychopathology. There are two main ‘channels’ on ‘DeLillo TV’. The first is dedicated to disaster: news and footage of death live on TV in the form of assassination, terrorism, war, accidents and climate catastrophe. The second channel is devoted to advertising and although often comedic in tone it essentially constitutes a complementary form of atrocity exhibition. Both the advertising of disaster and the disaster of advertising carry out ‘raids on human consciousness’ to borrow a phrase from Bill Gray in Mao II (p. 41). In this context, we consider commercial imagery on the TV screen across a range of DeLillo’s novels.