a self manufactured to be seen, made "true" only by being watched — appearance vs. being, and the figurant

echoes

Early text: "What put him on television in 1989 for you to see is that he can't be seen... That no one is really the way they have to be seen"; and "Doesn't matter what I think. That's what the show is about. They make it true. By watching him." Susan's counter: "If no one is really the way we see them, that would include me". [closing section] The husband corrects "be" to "appear" throughout ("both sharp and relaxed").
IJ echo: Hal's interior self that no longer reaches his watched surface (scene 001), and his meditation on the figurant — the televisual background figure who exists only to be seen (scene 162); the novel's preoccupation with selves constituted by, and dissolved into, being watched.
Weight: prefiguration