Jon, was it on your recommendation that I watched Videodrome? I think it was. While you were doubtlessly watching some well-padded, helmeted, heavily ritualized homoerotica this evening, I plugged this little bit of weirdness into my DVD player. I can see why you liked it, as it seems so much like an outcropping of Shivers and a herald of eXistenZ, two other oddities from the mind of David Cronenberg that have seemed to interest you. As usual, I can't so much give a thumbs up/thumbs down, but I will say that Cronenberg's recurring images seem worth discussing.
So tell me: what exactly is the deal with James Woods having a vagina on his stomach? And isn't it just so interesting that it's the place where he keeps his gun? And isn't it interesting when that which is phallic is associated with that which brings death-- violent death, even?! And isn't it also interesting that the gun which so often penetrates his belly-vagina is the instrument of his own death? And does Debbie Harry not have the sexiest speaking voice under the sun?
OK, I should back up. For my readers who aren't Jon, (who are probably limited to my mom... and one funny little Republican) I suppose I should assume that Videodrome isn't high on too many peoples' must-see lists. Certainly not my mother's and I would hedge my bets that it's not on Joe's either. And therefore I should explain it and those other aforementioned Cronenberg ventures. Let's see: Shivers is about an invasion of little alien parasites that look like a cross between giant slugs and bloody severed penises. And once one of those little fuckers (yeah, entendre intended) gets in you, you suddenly become a sex-zombie and are, basically, a walking orgy unto yourself. The high point of this film is when all the imagistic implications of the parasites are fulfilled: one of them assaults a woman in the bathtub, crawling along the bottom of the tub between her spread legs, unbeknownst to her, until, hey! Surprise! It finds a logical point of entry.
And then eXistenZ, a much more recent endeavor ('99), stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law as players of this funky bio-gaming device, into which they literally plug their bodies. On a conceptual level, this reminds me of a piece by the artist Nicole Eisenman, in which she cut a hole in a pinball machine and if you won, your prize was that you got to fuck the machine. Assuming you had the proper penetrative parts, that is. (On a side note, I got to visit her studio in NYC shortly after her huge success in the 1995 Whitney Biennial. She was, at the time, working on a series of little drawings of Jesus fucking Christ-- in the most literal sense you can imagine. I can't help it-- I thought they were really funny.) Anyway, it's been a while since I've seen this movie, but as I recall, it's one of those stories that loops back and around on itself and you're never entirely sure when the characters are "in the game" or living their real lives. It's one of those Matrix-y questioning-your-existence, you-just-might-be-a-brain-in-a-jar-being-prodded-by-electrodes-for-all- you-know kind of things. But, the game unit is super fleshy-looking and a little slimy and draws a clear analogy to other slimy, fleshy, ominous bodily orifices we all know and love.
OK, so: Videodrome. This one stars James Woods as a guy in charge of procuring illicit videos for a kinky cable network, specializing in porn, torture, and, as it turns out, snuff films. And Debbie Harry, who is mainly there just to be luscious. She is just so effin' cool. Anyway, he stumbled upon a weird pirated broadcast of people being tortured and killed. Soon thereafter, he begins to hallucinate-- or so we think. He delves even further into an underworld of which he, given his job, was always destined to be part. And we learn that the transmissions are supposedly causing a brain tumor, which causes the hallucinations. And a bunch of stuff happens that I didn't quite follow, during the course of which, I guess, he takes on the responsibility of eradicating the syndicate behind the transmissions. However, he's also in the process of bodily transforming into some human/VCR hybrid (either he really is, or his hallucinations make him think so--- it's hard to tell). And this is how he gets a vagina in his stomach. It's the port for these hilarious-looking things that are basically video cassettes that are pinkish and pulse with life-- a little fetus-like, one might say. One bad guy shoves one of these cassettes into the James Woods character and the belly-vagina actually eats the guy's hand. Vagina dentata myth, anyone? But, also, Woods' character puts his gun inside the slit in his stomach for safe-keeping. And when he pulls it out-- god! It drips with what looks like a mixture that would be familiar to even the most casual of porn viewers-- KY jelly and feminine excretions, instead of the blood one might expect to find inside a chest cavity. Really, the image couldn't be more obvious. And it is with this gun that he kills a bunch of people and then himself. Because cocks are big, scary instruments of death and violence. Particularly if you happen to have a vagina. In your belly. Get it?
So, I know my overall tone in this post is hopelessly glib, but I guess I feel like I'm quite removed from the sexual anxieties as played out in this film. And in Cronenberg's other forays into horror and science fiction. Hello, penises of the world! I'm not scared of you! And I really kinda hope you're not scared of me either.
So, Jon, as usual, I can't seem to produce an actual opinion about this movie. Certainly, I found it interesting. But I don't think I was supposed to find it funny, was I? Please don't be mean to me in my comments thread. I'd put a hopefully, expectantly, innocently grinning emoticon here, but emoticons are beneath me. And I don't think there's a please-don't-hurt-me emoticon anyway.
And wouldn't you have rather been here watching movies with me than watching dumb ol' football anyway?
3 comments:
Ha! Well, yes, that was, indeed, a meandering comment. I do agree with you that Cronenberg's disgust-is-the-other-side-of-desire slimy-vagina imagery is recurring as part of the ongoing narrative of his ouevre. But, my question is why? Why is sex in Cronenberg films so ooky? And scary? He must be tapping into some cultural anxiety there... but why is my reaction, then, to scoff at it as though it's a dated quasi-Freudian analysis of psycho-sexual relations? I dunno. I think I have another post in me that'll inform this one a little. Stay tuned.
I stumbled onto this interesting article in which Cronenberg was interviewed about both eXistenZ and Videodrome. Cronenberg actually had quite a bit to say about his films. Interesting that he seems to concentrate more on the relationship between technology and man and how technology wants to be in our bodies, to return to its creator and that he sees technology as an extension of the human body by its nature.
On the recurring theme of things going into the human body: " It's more than a theme. To me it's kind of like a living presence, an understanding, that is behind all of the movies."
Also interesting quote about what the audience brings to the movie, which expounds on what I was just saying in my last post and on what you mention, M, about reactions to the film. " Anybody who comes to the cinema is bringing they're whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to. I'm often surprised -- I expect to be surprised -- by my audience's reactions to things."
and the link to the article i forgot to add:
http://www.splicedonline.com/features/cronenberg.html
Post a Comment