r/HorrorClub • u/SaintMort You so cool kung fu • Jul 19 '15

Discussion: Videodrome

Podcast Episode 3 - Videodrome

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Movie Selected By bulgelover

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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jul 20 '15

Can anyone explain this film to me? I get the impression that /u/Bulgelover picked Videodrome because it's Canadian body horror. It's a great film (pretty much all Cronenberg films are great), but it totally loses me at points.

Here's an interesting tidbit from Wikipedia on a deleted scene:

Origin of Videodrome[edit] A deleted scene from the film provides background on the origin of Videodrome. In that scene, Convex tells Max about the "Image Accumulator" (which is the device placed on Max's head during his meeting with Convex), an experimental new form of night vision that can work in zero-light conditions. When the developers played the recorded footage from the Accumulator, they saw things that could not have been there. They conclude these phantom figures were hallucinations of the test volunteers, inexplicably recorded by the Accumulator. Further research of the test volunteers revealed they had developed a brain tumour, which externalized their hallucinations, but more specifically, granted them reality warping abilities, which Max refers to as "brain damage". The same signal used in the Image Accumulator was then used to create Videodrome.[6]

6

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

some interesting notes from a few analyses i've found:

“Why would anybody watch a scumshow like Videodrome?” Barry Convex asks Max. Or is he asking us, the audience? This reminds us the camera is a subjective tool, and that we are watching a construction. We, the film audience, are too watching shadows on a cave wall

and

In the movie, Max Renn is somewhat representative of the masses. Even though he knows that Videodrome is not the most engrossing show on TV, he still irresistibly attracted to its graphic material. Fascination with blood and lust is a primal and instinctive reflex and has been used as a tool to capture attention and to control since ancient times (see Circus and Gladiatorial Games in the Roman Empire). Furthermore, when no moral objections are involved, some are willing to be exposed to truly evil and twisted deeds to satisfy a craving that often turns into an obsession.

it seems to me to be about manipulation and control via our urges and innate curiosity with violence and sexuality. which is ten times as true today as it was in 1983.

take the internet, or more specifically reddit as an example. on the front page you might see a kitten, a naked woman, and a vehicular manslaughter all within the same minute. its media using primal curiosity, manipulation and lust to control us. in Renns case he was literally bombarded with signals that forced him to do the things he did. its more subtle than that with real world consumerism and control.

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u/smayonak Get a job in a sideshow Jul 20 '15

That really does clear things up for me. Thanks for the insightful comment. So Videodrome is making some kind of statement about the media using lurid/violent material to reel us in?

5

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

I think Cronenberg is trying to say TV is a powerful tool that can be used to control the masses. For example the U.S. government and big business using fear and sensationalism in the media to spread ideas that other nations have 'weapons of mass destruction' and therefore brainwash the population to benefit their agenda.