Videodrome

“‘the Videodrome’ is a socio-political battleground in which a war is being fought for control of the minds of the people of North America.” (Videodrome)

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Videodrome is a movie written and directed by David Cronnenberg released in 1983. The plot of the movie involves the main character, Max Renn, the CEO of a small Canadian tv station, discovering a broadcast signal, which broadcasts a plotless show featuring torture and extreme violence called the Videodrome. Max initially thinks that the signal, and the broadcast, are coming from Malaysia but upon further investigation finds that the Videodrome is actually being broadcast from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Believing Videodrome and other staged snuff TV to be the future of television, Max orders the plotless show to be pirated and begins watching it. Max soon develops several malicious side-effects that come from watching the Videodrome, not least of which is the development of a malignant brain tumor from exposure to harmful signals that the Videodrome emits. Ultimately, Max finds that the Videodrome’s creators have “been secretly working with [another character] to get Max exposed to Videodrome and to have him broadcast it, as part of a crypto-government conspiracy to morally and ideologically "purge" North America, giving fatal brain tumours to "lowlifes" fixated on extreme sex and violence" (Wikipedia). My brief summary skips much of the story, but what I’ve included should be enough to make my point.

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Based only on the conflict presented in Videodrome, I would assume that some cultural anxieties and socio-political issues of 1983 might pertain to government censorship, imposition of morality and violence in entertainment media. The Vidoedrome works on a sensory level, and it was created to attract sadists and sociopaths and poison them through (their version of) pleasure. When people watch movies and TV, they identify with the characters and imagine that they in their places, so the way that some would derive pleasure from watching pornography, a sadist would derive pleasure from watching Videodrome. The creators of Videodrome (the government) sought to attract these people and poison them with radiation. First, it would seem absurd that a cable company would ever broadcast such a program, but if small, local-access companies broadcast soft-core pornograohy at night, why wouldn’t they consider violence when violence is more prevalent and explicitly featured in American movies than sex? And second, what right does the government have to poison people who are technically innocent but probably disturbed and maybe dangerous? This raises questions about what the government should do to control TV content and how it should decide what is acceptable to broadcast and when and where it should be permitted, as well as whether the government should be proactive in weeding out potential threats to society or handle situations as they arise.