VideoDrome

Within our ever-growing exposure to media in our current socio-political climate, concerning what is real and what to trust, the rise of modern technology has given us faster and easier exposure to our media. It seems that we experience reality purely through the filter of media and technology. These societal fears as well as the other philosophical notions are found within David Cronenberg’s 1983 film Videodrome, in which Max Renn the owner of a sleazy cable TV station has is life spiral out of control by a manipulative form of broadcasting succumbs to a series of hallucinations creating a terrifying new reality for himself, is ultimately a film about media manipulation and control, a self-reflective analysis on the violence in the media of both the 1980s and today, our relationship to both media and technology and ultimately questioning reality and humanity.

During one of the hallucinatory scenes Max is in the Videodrome dungeon with his girlfriend Nikki. Whilst whipping Nikki the camera zooms back to reveal that Max is whipping an image presented on a television which in fact is revealed to be Marsha a soft-core pornographer and elderly friend of Max. In this scene we see Max’s reality converge with his hallucinations. These hallucinations through the film show that humanity can live out its own perverted desires for sex and violence through the filter of media. Society craves these perversions, stimulus is needed within humanity as it relates to our basic biological functions of sexual intercourse and reproduction as well as our lust for violence as president since the dawn of human civilisation and is ever present throughout human history as shown by countless wars and bloodshed, and it is these philosophical notions that Videodrome is expressing to us. However, how perceptions of reality are not merely a by-product of the media alone. We in turn must metaphorically give ourselves to the media, as the merge with humanity and technology ultimately leads to advancement. Max lives out his own perverted fantasies through Videodrome, as through media he can experience his fantasies in a seemingly safe and controlled way. However, this scene shows that his fantasies are coming reality and he is becoming one with the media, as he experiences these thrills through the media his perception of reality is now altered. Ultimately, Max’s fantasies are controlled by his subconscious mind. Throughout Videodrome we are experiencing the film both through reality as it is presented to us but also through the perspective of Max as the hallucinatory imagery throughout the film is reflective of how Max perceives his own reality and how the manipulation of the media has programmed him to think, feel and act in this certain way.

Later in the film Max is essentially reprogrammed by Videodrome. A seemingly living organic flesh-based videocassette is inserted into Max’s stomach. This physical body horror action is a metaphor for the psychological control the media has on both Max as well as us. Max and by extension the audience are becoming part of Videodrome, part of the media. As Max is reprogrammed the audience is also consumed with these ideologies throughout their own experiences of perceiving media. These ideas of not being able to trust news outlets and media corporations are societal fears that can be traced back to the dawn of media and technology of itself. This idea of Videodrome being inserted inside Max and a physical manner links into another defining narrative thread throughout the film how not only violence within the media affects us, but also how media outlets use sex to control us. The flesh-based cassette being inserted into a vagina like orifice further links to how within the ever-changing landscape of media, societies need for stimulation is linked to the extreme natures of sex and violence that is present within our own media. The media works like a virus implanting an idea into Max’s mind.

When max retrieves a gun from his stomach it shows the clear indication of the idea that media can be used as a weapon to manipulate people through violence. Through Videodrome Max acts out the violence how he now perceives it though a warped vision he sees the physically manifestation of his control through his deteriorating physiological state, the gun melding with his flesh shows that he cannot escape this he is now part of the violence, part off Videodrome, he has become the physical embodiment of the media’s violence.

At the climax of the film, Max goes to kill Barry Convex the head of Spectacular Optical an eyeglasses company and weapons manufacturer that was one of the leading of Videodrome. Max shoots Barry with his biomechanical handgun these bullets eat and erode into him becoming cancerous tumours. Max uses the weaponry given to him by Videodrome to destroy it as Convex is eaten up by his own cancerous tumours. His own media then bursts out of him from the inside out eroding his flesh further linking to the fact that Videodrome works as a virus infecting people with an ideology in order to be controlled Videodrome and vision a reality artificially constructed by the media. Max’s line “death to Videodrome long live the new flesh”. Could be viewed as a societal cry to arms. We must free ourselves from what we perceive as our form of control into something new however by the end the film it is shown that this evolution is purely just another form of manipulation.

At the end of the film Max sees Niki Max is told “in order to become the new flesh you must first destroy the old flesh”. The media has outlived its use for Max due to the physiological limitations of the human body. Max watches himself of TV committing suicide showing that his artificial self-created through the media has outlived its use, as apparent by the flesh bursting out of the TV only the flesh now remains. Max kills himself in the same ritualistic way his final words “long live the new flesh” before a gunshot is heard as the screen cuts to black. In his mind Max is acceding to a higher state of being but, being fed another lie by the media he has outlived his uselessness, the flesh might be dead however the flesh ultimately does not matter. The idea of Videodrome will live on and has apparent by the film’s ending there is no hope in escaping its control humanity will become digitalised until it has outlived its usefulness and ultimately end.

Throughout Videodrome the perception of reality is made apparent throughout the film by the imagery presented to us on screen. This therefore seems to manipulate the entire context of the film in of itself as not only is the world of the protagonist manipulated but by watching the film the text and by extension our world within itself seems to manifest the same levels of manipulation. By watching Videodrome viewers question the manipulative controlling impact and dominance of the media not only through networking channels broadcast but also within the film itself therefore creating a subtext of a multi-layered narrative of manipulation meaning that no matter what we will always be under control.