Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 6:19 pm
So we shouldn't be wary of the media but the message. This is very interesting because the film seems to show a struggle between the two groups trying to control the media through which they send their message, but this larger struggle is filtered through a hallucinating perspective of an outsider getting caught up in the plot. A little like watching a war from the perspective of a footsoldier, given important tasks or carrying important information but in the end expendable.
Thinking this way it seems like a struggle between money and intellect. I got the sense that Spectacular Optical were using the videodrome signal as part of a 'testing' process - of examining its effects before deciding on what practical, commercial (weapon?) use it could be put to.
While on the other hand the O'Blivions were heavily involved in the use to which the signal could but put, not for commercial ends, but for the benefit of others.
It could be seen as way of illustrating a 'public domain vs copyright' issue or perhaps the way that you can have a proprietorial software package, yet not have much control over the uses to which it is put by the customer, especially when media is becoming more 'interactive'.
It also seems that the O'Blivions were some kind of breakaway faction, with access to the technology, and in danger of revealing corporate secrets, so a threat to Convex.
The O'Blivions do seem a reactionary group, rather than a strike first, terrorist organisation. Convex and Spectacular Optical on the other hand are pro-active - placing Harlan with Max and first exposing Max to the videodrome signal, making copies of the tape for Max to watch in his apartment and confronting Max face to face to intensify his hallucinations first with the slightly weird-looking, unreal helmet and then with the full on hallucination of the videotape in the stomach.
The O'Blivions are the opposite (perhaps creating the idea that bad things will track us down but we actually have to search to find the good things in life!) Max has to hunt down Bianca O'Blivion at the Cathode Ray Mission, she doesn't come to him, and he has to tell her about his exposure to the signal, which suggests that she hasn't been aware of his exposure or hasn't been monitoring him, making her a part of a group 'apart' from Spectacular Optical.
Then she sends Max her father's tape - a way of subverting the violent torture programming he has so far received, that triggers a hallucination, but a non-threatening, pleasurable one where he is reunited with Nikki through the television. (This could also show why the Cathode Ray Mission is set up - yes it is 'patching them back into the world's mixing board' but it seems that the vagrants sitting in front of television aren't just getting a few hours of gameshows but probably each receiving their own videodrome signal. Could this be seen as disturbing as Convex's overt machinations, though? Are the O'Blivions pure of heart in providing access, knowledge and power to the powerless? Or is it something more sinister? To create an army of willing soldiers in any confrontation with the power behind Spectacular Optical? Or is it for personal advancement, making Bianca O'Blivion a new druglord peddling the videodrome signal to the underclass? Motivations are left unclear, especially as the film becomes more and more subjective, but does it suggest that any actions perfomed in the public sphere, like Spectacular Optical or the Cathode Ray Mission are fronts for their real, more disturbing and less publicly acceptable purposes?)
So all Max's good experiences come after the O'Blivion signals and his horrific visions after Convex programs him. However there is also the sense that both 'sides' are playing with something bigger than either of them, that whether for good or bad purposes they are destroying Max and pushing him into madness. Bianca is probably less culpable since she does not expose him to the signal in the first place, but she does capitalise on Max blundering into the situation and exacerbates his hallucinations through the tapes, then uses Max to assassinate Convex, making Max's role as a footsoldier unaware of the wider picture, just the orders he has to follow, more explicit.
In a way I agree with the article I posted that the ending is pessimistic - he is being given an escape route, but through suicide. It seems to me that this is some form of self destruct routine built into the O'Blivion program - go and assassinate Convex then kill yourself - but because it comes from the more benign organisation Max is given redemption and a promise of a new life, in a new form, with Nicki. Probably the Convex program was similar - kill Bianca O'Blivion and then yourself - but it wouldn't have bothered with 'sugaring the pill' for Max.
What this suggests to me is exactly the point you made - the media of the videodrome signal is not 'good' or 'evil'. It is not intending to cause hallucinations and brain tumors. It just is - similar to how the virus in Shivers isn't spreading through the apartment block for an 'evil' purpose, it is just propagating itself (the opposite of Shivers would be a film like Invasion of the Body Snatchers where the spores actually are a concious, hostile threat to humanity).
It is the way the signal is being used, with Max (and incidentally Nicki, necessitating her removal from the picture) as the test subject, which is the truly horrific part of the film. Both sides of the struggle are so caught up in their war that they are willing to make sacrifices, Convex to get control of Civic TV, Bianca to stop him. Everyone around them is expendable, from Max's partners to Masha, to Nicki, to Max himself.
It really is a fascinating film, saying a lot about how it must feel to be at the ground level of a conflict much bigger than you are, with only an inkling of the larger picture, just the disturbing feeling that you are being used for someone else's needs that might not have your best interests as its top priority - something that we don't need a sci-fi concept like the Videodrome signal to already be familiar with!
Thinking this way it seems like a struggle between money and intellect. I got the sense that Spectacular Optical were using the videodrome signal as part of a 'testing' process - of examining its effects before deciding on what practical, commercial (weapon?) use it could be put to.
While on the other hand the O'Blivions were heavily involved in the use to which the signal could but put, not for commercial ends, but for the benefit of others.
It could be seen as way of illustrating a 'public domain vs copyright' issue or perhaps the way that you can have a proprietorial software package, yet not have much control over the uses to which it is put by the customer, especially when media is becoming more 'interactive'.
It also seems that the O'Blivions were some kind of breakaway faction, with access to the technology, and in danger of revealing corporate secrets, so a threat to Convex.
The O'Blivions do seem a reactionary group, rather than a strike first, terrorist organisation. Convex and Spectacular Optical on the other hand are pro-active - placing Harlan with Max and first exposing Max to the videodrome signal, making copies of the tape for Max to watch in his apartment and confronting Max face to face to intensify his hallucinations first with the slightly weird-looking, unreal helmet and then with the full on hallucination of the videotape in the stomach.
The O'Blivions are the opposite (perhaps creating the idea that bad things will track us down but we actually have to search to find the good things in life!) Max has to hunt down Bianca O'Blivion at the Cathode Ray Mission, she doesn't come to him, and he has to tell her about his exposure to the signal, which suggests that she hasn't been aware of his exposure or hasn't been monitoring him, making her a part of a group 'apart' from Spectacular Optical.
Then she sends Max her father's tape - a way of subverting the violent torture programming he has so far received, that triggers a hallucination, but a non-threatening, pleasurable one where he is reunited with Nikki through the television. (This could also show why the Cathode Ray Mission is set up - yes it is 'patching them back into the world's mixing board' but it seems that the vagrants sitting in front of television aren't just getting a few hours of gameshows but probably each receiving their own videodrome signal. Could this be seen as disturbing as Convex's overt machinations, though? Are the O'Blivions pure of heart in providing access, knowledge and power to the powerless? Or is it something more sinister? To create an army of willing soldiers in any confrontation with the power behind Spectacular Optical? Or is it for personal advancement, making Bianca O'Blivion a new druglord peddling the videodrome signal to the underclass? Motivations are left unclear, especially as the film becomes more and more subjective, but does it suggest that any actions perfomed in the public sphere, like Spectacular Optical or the Cathode Ray Mission are fronts for their real, more disturbing and less publicly acceptable purposes?)
So all Max's good experiences come after the O'Blivion signals and his horrific visions after Convex programs him. However there is also the sense that both 'sides' are playing with something bigger than either of them, that whether for good or bad purposes they are destroying Max and pushing him into madness. Bianca is probably less culpable since she does not expose him to the signal in the first place, but she does capitalise on Max blundering into the situation and exacerbates his hallucinations through the tapes, then uses Max to assassinate Convex, making Max's role as a footsoldier unaware of the wider picture, just the orders he has to follow, more explicit.
In a way I agree with the article I posted that the ending is pessimistic - he is being given an escape route, but through suicide. It seems to me that this is some form of self destruct routine built into the O'Blivion program - go and assassinate Convex then kill yourself - but because it comes from the more benign organisation Max is given redemption and a promise of a new life, in a new form, with Nicki. Probably the Convex program was similar - kill Bianca O'Blivion and then yourself - but it wouldn't have bothered with 'sugaring the pill' for Max.
What this suggests to me is exactly the point you made - the media of the videodrome signal is not 'good' or 'evil'. It is not intending to cause hallucinations and brain tumors. It just is - similar to how the virus in Shivers isn't spreading through the apartment block for an 'evil' purpose, it is just propagating itself (the opposite of Shivers would be a film like Invasion of the Body Snatchers where the spores actually are a concious, hostile threat to humanity).
It is the way the signal is being used, with Max (and incidentally Nicki, necessitating her removal from the picture) as the test subject, which is the truly horrific part of the film. Both sides of the struggle are so caught up in their war that they are willing to make sacrifices, Convex to get control of Civic TV, Bianca to stop him. Everyone around them is expendable, from Max's partners to Masha, to Nicki, to Max himself.
It really is a fascinating film, saying a lot about how it must feel to be at the ground level of a conflict much bigger than you are, with only an inkling of the larger picture, just the disturbing feeling that you are being used for someone else's needs that might not have your best interests as its top priority - something that we don't need a sci-fi concept like the Videodrome signal to already be familiar with!
