80's Commodity Culture and Money

"...everything and anything connected with mass entertainment and communication is skewered. John's hyperbolic representation of his pornographic "hobbies" as stressing "the element of lone gratification" (67) has, however, a serious side. The text's allusions to George Orwell's 1984 not-so-subtly underline the ways in which "[i]n the mass-mediated commodity culture where Self has temporarily thrived, advertising and film" have, like Orwell's Occania, reduced "human freedom and choice by steadily narrowing the range of thought" (Diedrick 100)." (pg.4)

“The process [of mass-media deception] has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies all this is indispensably necessary.” George Orwell (1984)

In the essay, Gendered Money Drabble, James Miracky attempts to uncover the different modes of cultural interpretation from two books written in Thatcher-era UK. One of the more interesting elements he talks about in his essay is that of the influence of 1980's social and economic forces. In Money, there are a few of these forces that are distinctly referenced or focused on by John Self; first the ways in which England has become a 'less intense' America, and secondly the cultural A.D.D. that so often captivates our narrator. 

The cultural mingling of America and the UK is present on several levels in Money. Self was born in the UK but grew up in New Jersey and London, making him an apt observer for the cultural shifts that have taken place in both societies. His hedonistic jaunts around both of these major metropolises also serve to represent the ways in which consumer culture have simply made London a somewhat less intense New York. He's able to satisfy his appetites in essentially the same ways wherever he is, and at certain points the cities seem so similar that we need street names and local accents to remind us where we are. 

The Orwellian idea of the "unconscious mass media deception" is also very clearly depicted in the novel. Self, who has experience in both advertising and film, understands the ways to make products, stories and people appealing. He sees the old naked shell of Lorne Guyland, a film icon, and cannot bring himself to truthfully respond to his question "Is this the body of an old man?". He understands what kinds of characters sell, and how to make a Pork-Roll tv dinner look like a sex banquet (at least on screen). But while Self is a conspirator in this deception, he is also very much lost in the sensory overload of mass media. He is bombarded by blips of information from all around the world to the point where he can't seem to mediate any form of appropriate response; in its place, Self responds with a kind of cynical humor. While this form of response seems fairly nonchalant, it is clear that this sensory bombardment is leaving John without any real information, or means of understanding it.This to me is best depicted on page 332 where Self speaks to the reality of television; 

"Television is working on us. Film is. We're not sure how yet. We wait, and count the symptoms. There's a realism problem, we all know that. TV is real! some people think. And where does that leave reality? Everyone must have, everyone demands their vivid personalities, their personal soap opera, street theatre, everyone must have some art in their lives..."