#misc horror

the 1983 david cronenberg film, videodrome, is about a man named max renn, the president of civic tv, a toronto tv station which specializes in airing sensationalist content. unbeknownst to max, forces outside of his control are conspiring to turn him into a tool/weapon which will help some objectively evil people (weapons manufacturers) take control of channel 83 by using max to kill off his civic tv partners. there’s a cult that also does (practically) nothing but show weird vhs tapes to unhoused people and experiments on them (i’m skipping over the dynamic interactions between the o’blivion cult, civic tv, and barry convex but honestly that’s more plot-relevant than it is theme-relevant). in the end, max turns on the people controlling him, kills them in an act of defiance, and then kills himself. what i’ve personally taken away from this movie as being the primary message is that sensationalist exploitation of other peoples’ suffering (physical, sexual, emotional) is one of the larger evil of capitalism, and that, under capitalism, we’re all exploiting each other in different ways, all of it inherently violent and corrupting (videodrome even arguably includes some minor commentary on the fetishization of other—primarily asian—cultures and how they are consumed... but i've also seen it suggested that even this is a mere ornament to the topic of exploitation-as-violence in the film). in general, it's pretty obviously saying “you are not immune to propaganda, media can and does impact reality, fiction or nonfiction." it contains an overwhelming amount of freudian references (mentioning freud by name, the cigarette-smoking, the  phallic/yonic symbols) and mulveyan “voyeurism is violent” messaging. similar to peeping tom (1960, dir. michael powell), it’s kind of the ‘ideal’ film-major-movie because it’s really dense with obvious ideas and symbols that we get taught about in foundational film theory courses.