Pampering as infantilization — "uterine stasis" and the crib's-eye Entertainment
echoes
From: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
- Early text: the cruise's "fantasy-slash-promise of pampering in
uterine stasis" [sec. 5]; pampering advertised as a return to a cared-for,
choiceless, infantile condition (the "to pamper" verb "positively studs" the
brochures [sec. 2]); the brochure's "Absolutely Nothing" promise glossed as a
return to the womb — "every need met choicelessly from someplace outside
me … And that time I was floating, too, and the fluid was salty, and warm"
[sec. 4].
- IJ echo: The rumored contents of the Entertainment — a veiled maternal
figure filmed from a crib's-eye POV, addressing an infantilized, reclining
viewer (Molly Notkin's account; the maternal/apology conceit). "Pampering in
uterine stasis" is the same regressive-infantile fantasy the Entertainment
is theorized to weaponize — the viewer returned to the womb and unable to
leave.
- Weight: shared-preoccupation