It is perhaps most satisfying to contextualize Videodrome as a response to the advent of the home video in the early 1980’s. The film was released in 1983, right around the birth of the household VCR, and the limits of this new technology was still an unknown as were the ultimate effects it could have on its viewers. Director David Cronenberg uses the “what if” of this new technology and its effects on viewers as the backbone for the film’s fascination with dominant and submissive roles, which we, as spectators, play with the fictional character on the TV. In this sense, Videodrome is a highly self-reflexive and innovative creation. It poses questions to the characters within the film (as well as the real life audience) by asking whether film is so influential that it physically becomes part of the individual who watches it and is enamored with it.
“The television screen is the retina of the mind’s eye; therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those that are watching. Therefore television is reality and reality is less than television,” says Barry Convex (played by Leslie Carlson)
It is here that Cronenberg’s fascinations with the possibilities of technology merge with his signature use of flesh and gore. In the film, the power from the videodrome videotape forms a tumor in Max’s (protagonist) brain, allowing the creators of videodrome to control Max just like a video recording device. In addition, Max’s stomach is also mutating into a large vertical slit that resembles a vagina and functions as a mind controlling VCR. The slit is large enough for a human hand to insert a tape into Max’s stomach, directly programming him to perform specific (violent) actions. The slit’s vaginal resemblance emphasizes the violent sexuality within the context of the film, adding to the notion that videodrome, and cinema as a whole, are both forceful forms of manipulation bordering on assault. This violence is not merely reactionary to having watched the videodrome tape, but rather compulsory. The mutations in Max’s body also signify that perhaps people are not solely influenced by cinema, but also transformed by it, suggesting that cinema provokes physical experiences beyond just seeing. If diet campaigns claim, “you are what you eat,” then Videodrome examines the exchange of violence between spectator and screen, questioning whether are not “you are what you see.”
Bryce Brentlinger
