Please find the accompanying blog post linked here for more context!
I hate declaring generalities about “society,” but I watched Videodrome by David Cronenberg last night, and it evoked a lot of thought about American society’s paradoxical relationship with violent and taboo media. So here it goes.
The film suggests that society finds the type of violence and sexual degeneracy portrayed in the snuff films the protagonist deals in as abhorrent. The important distinction is that the protagonist believes what he sells is fake, so it is ok.
Why is there such demand for this product? Are the producers mostly to blame for its existence? Or are they simply filling the demand that already exists? The protagonist claims that if he wasn’t doing it, then someone else would.
Only when he is faced with a potentially “real” snuff film is there a dilemma. The true conflict is that he is both tantalized and repulsed by the prospect that it is real.
That begs the question: does the fulfillment of this taboo desire exacerbate it? Will those who revel in the taboo, knowing it is fake, eventually crave the real thing?
The protagonist claims to be repulsed by the thought that “Videodrome” is real, but why can’t he stop himself from seeking it out? He is stimulated by the fact that it is “wrong,” even to his own detriment.
I don’t ask these questions to be pedantic. It’s obviously wrong to fulfill a demand for a truly unethical product just as it’s wrong to eagerly consume it. But I don’t think the film’s main purpose is to necessarily declare a moral judgment about that.
I think the more important point that the film highlights is the friction between our higher selves vs our baser tendencies. The taboo desire is in lockstep with the shame that surrounds it. They are each other’s shadow.
Should we seek resolution to this paradox? We obviously can’t just start believing that these horrible instances of violence are acceptable, nor can we doom ourselves to believing our curiosity and, by extension, our nature is wicked.
Do we simply accept that the taboo curiosity and the shame surrounding it are two sides of the same coin? Do we resign ourselves to becoming comfortable with this dissonance? That doesn’t make me feel settled either, but I don’t think David Cronenberg sought to make a film that left you feeling comforted.
Image credit: Death of Sardanapalus by Eugène Delacroix — Free Download | Fine Art Free
Millerwiller 
One thought on “Videodrome_260808_220412”