It's been a while since I made an entry in the favorite films series (having a hell of a time finishing off those last 2!). In honor of the impending bluray release from Criterion December 7th, I give you this brief meditative piece on the horrifyingly prophetic nature of Videodrome.
"America's getting soft Patron, and the rest of the worlds getting tough. Very tough."
Even though I found my initial viewing of David Cronenberg's masterpiece Videodrome to be a frustrating affair, I could intrinsically sense the foreboding prescience in that menacing line. The intervening 15 years since I first tried to wrap my brain around the film have seen not only the meteoric rise of computer technology, but also the advent of social networking and the realization of the disembodied Internet persona. A persona whose lineage can be traced back through the character of media prophet Prof. Brian O'blivion to his basis, the Canadian communication theorist and educator Marshall Mcluhan. In the wake of 9/11, we've also witnessed an ever darkening global situation in which facets of the American intelligence, political and business communities have come to be perceived by some here and abroad as a shadowy cabal endeavoring to achieve world domination. It should be noted that Videodrome tells its sordid tale free from moral judgements and devoid of political allegiances. It is a complex and vague depiction of a world populated by unscrupulous media pornographers and conspiratorial power brokers, both intent on exploiting cutting edge technology in the interests of manipulating the masses to gain ever more power and control. If that's not the world you see staring back at you from your computer and television screen, I don't know what is.
At the time of its release, Videodrome creator Cronenberg was touted as the Baron of blood and credited with the creation of his own sub-genre, referred to as body or venereal horror. Videodrome had plenty of transformative imagery concerning the flesh, but what arguably has left a stronger impression than its literal hand guns or stomach vagina's, is its revolutionary notion that in the future, the body would become an outdated relic. A cumbersome corporeal representation of self to be shrugged off. Free to travel coaxial cables as a pre-recorded ghost, endlessly droning personal philosophy into a labyrinthine echo chamber. O'blivion's monologues detailing a life conveyed through playback of thousands of recordings once seemed like the ramblings of a senile crackpot. Now we have Youtube, where people use accounts under an assumed name to disseminate their most intimate thoughts and deeply held beliefs. There are plenty of these people whose videos we watch that may well have passed on and unbeknownst to us, fulfilled the socio-technological prophecies of O'blivion. In fact, there are very few of us (and certainly less and less each year) who don't use some "special" name to go to and fro in the cyber-universe, electronically walking up and down in it.
The specter of Barry Convex looms large over the second half of the film and represents everything from glad handing politicians to world swallowing corporate behemoths to the almighty military industrial complex at the core of American foreign policy. At one point, he pointedly asks James Woods cable access impresario Max Wren why anyone would watch a scum show like Videodrome. Woods drolly responds that his reasons are "professional". But Convex knows that isn't the whole story. He inherently understands that which titillates the average consumer is also that which makes the most profound impression, and thereby that which can best be utilized to implant product preference and enforce the party line. The medium is the message indeed. When I first saw the film, I found the idea that even a small station would broadcast video of political prisoners being tortured outlandish and distasteful. Imagine my shock when less than a decade later I heard the Daniel Pearl beheading audio played on the local morning zoo during my commute. Suddenly, streaming video of this horrendous act began popping up all over the web, and that was only the beginning. It's not hard to see the through line from Videodrome's electrified, clay walls and stripped, strangulated victims to Abu Ghraib's naked dog piles and hooded prisoners, trussed up with wires in a Jesus Christ pose.
These lamentable incidents seem to have mostly faded from public consciousness, supplanted by the latest reality show meltdown or internet meme, but the psychological scar remains. Extreme, challenging cinema is capable of exerting a similar effect on our psyche and Videodrome exemplifies and personifies that fact. It forcefully questions the very nature of reality and the manner in which we interact and ultimately exist within it. Horror and Science Fiction are the two genres most capable of holding an unflinching mirror up to the society that spawned them. Videodrome is the perfect melding of their respective aesthetics and preoccupations and an eye opening education on who we are and what we're becoming.
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