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Wallace argues that TV differs from classic voyeurism because performers know the crowd of viewers and television becomes performance-driven 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 \nContemporary Fiction,13:2(1993:Summer)p.151  \nE Unibus Pluram:Television and U.S.Fiction  \nDavid Foster Wallace  \nAct Natural  \nFicTON WRITERS AS A SPECIES tend to be oglers.They tend to lurk and tostare.The minute fiction writers stop moving,they start lurking,and stare.They are born watchers.They are viewers.They are the ones on the sub-way about whose nonchalant stare there is something creepy,somehow.Almost predatory.This is because human situations are writers'food.Fic-tion writers watch other humans sort of the way gapers slow down for carwrecks:they covet a vision of themselves as witnesses.  \nBut fiction writers as a species also tend to be terribly self-conscious.Even by U.S.standards.Devoting lots of productive time to studyingclosely how people come across to them,fiction writers also spcnd lots ofless productive time wondering nervously how they come across to otherpeople.How they appear,how they seem,whether their shirttail might behanging out their fly,whether there's maybe lipstick on their teeth,whetherthe people they're ogling can maybe size them up as somehow creepy,lurkers and starers.  \nThe result is that a surprising majority of fiction writers,born watchers,tend to dislike being objects of people's attention.Being watched.Theexceptions to this rule—Mailer,McInerney,Janowitz—create the mislead-ing impression that lots of belles-lettres types like people's attention.Mostdon't.The few who like attention just naturally get more attention.The restof us get less,and ogle.  \nMost of the fiction writers I know are Americans under forty.I don'tknow whether fiction writers under forty watch more television than otherAmerican species.Statisticians report that television is watched over sixhours a day in the average American household.I don't know any fictionwriters who live in average American households.I suspect Louise Erdrichmight.Actually I have never seen an average American household.Excepton TV.  \nSo right away you can see a couple of things that look potentially great,for U.S.fiction writers,about U.S.television.First,television does a lot ofour predatory human research for us.American human beings are a slip-pery and protean bunch,in real life,as hard to get any kind of univocalhandle on as a literary territory that's gone from Darwinianly naturalistic tocybernetically post-postmodern in eighty years.But television comes  \n152 Review of Contemporary Fiction  \nequipped with just such a syncretic handle.If we want to know whatAmerican normality is—what Americans want to regard as normal—wecan trust television.For television's whole raison is reflecting what peoplewant to see.It's a mirror.Not the Stendhalian mirror reflecting the blue skyand mud puddle.More like the overlit bathroom mirror before which theteenager monitors his biceps and determines his better profile.This kind ofwindow on nervous American self-perception is just invaluable,fiction-wise.And writers can have faith in television.There is a lot of money atstake,after all;and television retains the best demographers applied socialscience has to offer,and these researchers can determine precisely whatAmericans in 1990 are,want,see:what we as Audience want to see our-selves as.Television,from the surface on down,is about desire.Fictionallyspeaking,desire is the sugar in human food.  \nThe second great thing is that television looks to be an absolute godsendfor a human subspecies that loves to watch people but hates to be watcheditself.For the television screen affords access only one way.A psychicball-check valve.We can see Them;They can't see Us.We can relax,unobserved,as we ogle.I happen to believe this is why television alsoappeals so much to lonely people.To voluntary shut-ins.Every lonelyhuman I know watches way more than the average U.S.six hours a day.The lonely,like the fictional,love one-way watching.For lonely people areusually lonely not because of hideous deformit","cbCaim9kHZhHfanP","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaim9kHZhHfanP","pdf",7254503,44,"English","# Act Natural\n## Fiction writers as watchers\n## Television as a mirror of American normality\n## One-way viewing and loneliness\n## TV versus classic voyeurism","[{\"question\":\"Why does Wallace describe fiction writers as watchers, and what tension does it create?\",\"answer\":\"Fiction writers tend to stare and lurk, partly because human situations are their “food,” but they are also self-conscious and often dislike being objects of attention.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Wallace argue that television helps U.S. fiction writers understand American life?\",\"answer\":\"Television is framed as a reliable mirror of what Americans want to see, making it a valuable tool for observing American desire and perceived normality.\"},{\"question\":\"In what way does Wallace say television is not the same as classic voyeurism?\",\"answer\":\"Classic voyeurism involves watching people who don’t know they’re watched, while TV viewers know they are watching and the performers know they are being watched by a large audience.\"}]","E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S.Fiction - Act Natural | PDF",1790051063,68]