"A Movie So Good It Will Ruin You—Would You Watch It? "

In a 1996 interview, Wallace called it “a kind of parodic exaggeration of people’s relationship to entertainment now. But I don’t think it’s all that different,” he said. Wallace was sounding an alarm. In the novel, US and Canadian relations are strained to the point that certain Canadian elements attempt to broadcast the movie into the US as cinematic subterfuge—an attempt to get America to “choke itself to death on candy.”3

In the novel, Wallace managed to use one seductive film as a metaphor for America’s entire entertainment industry. The US government faces the daunting challenge of warning people not to watch the film without amplifying the spectacle and exciting the masses to rush out to see the film immediately. Spoiler: it’s not possible.

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