I am Donal Draper and will act accordingly

“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 reailty? Everyone must have, everyone demands their vivid personalities, their personal soap opera, their street theatre, everyone must have some art in their lives….Our lives, they harbor form, artistic shape, and we want our form revealed even though we only move in our detail, with keys, spongebag, coffee cups, shirt drawer…..money”(332-333).

I feel that the passage above really hones in on the recurring theme of acting, or actors, in Money. Better put, the quote speaks to the theme of entertainment and how it has disconnected us from a true handle on what is real. Starting from the final sentence and working backwards it seems that Amis is speaking to consumer culture. Not merely to consumer culture, but to the “realism problem” that has stemmed from a mass consumption of entertainment. These are not groundbreaking ideas, however I think that there is an ironic sentiment worth exploring. That is, as the book comes to a close in what seems to be a journal entry, reflecting back upon the events the story to me seemed to play out like a well devised soap opera with witty commentary to assure it a context of satire as opposed to seriousness. Nothing was what it seemed and everyone played a role that was more a less an archetype orbiting John Self. Self was pulled into the façade through the prospect of money and was a central cog in one “actors revenge”(347). Indeed, the ultimate revenge for an actor could perhaps be an immense manipulation of reality in reality- also known as fraud. This fraud however could only exist around the condition of the “postmodern man”,(played by Self and observed by us) who would easily follow the money trail, which would lead him to those “vivid personalities”, he and we demand. Self understands that these vivid personalities, like Lorne Guyland, are crucial to making his film a success and so, accommodates a story for them to make real. This is precisely I believe to be the point. That is, these archetypes inform our reality and how we know what is real, regardless of their distance from us on screen. John Self, also accommodates a story by so readily embodying the archetypal modern man with no scruples and a desire to acquire the “details” that would give his life “artistic shape”. I think that what Amis is saying above is that, like John Self, we are subject to these forces and must consider more thoroughly what it means that John Q. Public loves to be surrounded by a world of escape characterized by “mythomaniac” stories like Act of Valor and Rambo.