David Foster Wallace published his now ubiquitously cited “E Unibus Pluram” in 1993, beginnin, “Fiction writers as a species tend to be oglers.” Today, the same could be said of most Americans, whether the gaze of the ogler be toward a television set or mediated through a smartphone toward whatever some event, be it joyful, tragic, or somewhere between. Wallace was undoubtedly working on Infinite Jest (1996) while writing the essay, a novel warning of dangers of over-entertainment. Television of the last 10-15 years confirms much of what Wallace posits in “E Unibus Pluram” and in a way confirms through satire the concerns of Jest’s videophony. Beginning with The Office in 2005, the “mockumentary” format attempts, like Wallace did with fiction, to remove the masking conventions of fiction behind which traditional fiction (or, in this case, television) hides. Viewers know that they are watching a television show, because within the world of The Office, it is a television show. Parks and Recreation in 2009 took on a similar structure with even more Wallacean sincerity than its predecessor. Michael Schur, writer and producer of The Office and creator of Parks and Rec, has admitted to reading and being influenced by Wallace. The Wallacean references in both shows—as well as some of their contemporaries, such as New Girl and The Good Place—are both overt and covert, serving not merely as superficial inside jokes for Wallace fans, though they do accomplish that. These television shows have paved the way for the metanarrative in television that in the 1993 essay Wallace argued did not widely exist. Such television is now available for mass consumption, and receives popular and critical acclaim. Wallace’s influence on television both critically and stylistically cannot be denied, beginning with but not ending with Michael Schur.
About the presenterAndrea Laurencell Sheridan
I am an associate professor of English at Orange County Community College (SUNY Orange) in New York. I teach mainly contemporary literature, but also teach interdisciplinary courses, such as on the Lost Gen, Post/Post-postmodernism, and Horror. My research interests include metafiction/metanarrative, David Foster Wallace, the intersections of pop culture and academia, experimental forms, and the intellectualization of anything/everything pop culture.