CHAPTER ONE
VIDEODROME: âNOT A LOVE STORY â A FILM ABOUT PORNOGRAPHYâ1
âMy greatest ambition is to turn into a TV programmeâ.2
The focus of this chapter is Videodrome (1982). This is not an example of a text being âtranslatedâ from a literary entity into a cinematic one but the analytical focus here will be on potential links between Cronenbergâs work and a range of analgous texts including the work of media prophet Marshall McLuhan, some of the early short stories of Clive Barker and J. G. Ballard and Brett Easton Ellisâ novel American Psycho (1991). The relationship of Videodrome to the generic area of pornography will be also discussed, particularly in connection with the writings of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.
For Stephen King, â[t]he only director I can think of who has explored this grey land between art and porno-exhibitionism successfully â even brilliantly â again and again with never a misstep is the Canadian filmmaker David Cronenbergâ.3 However, on considering Videodrome specifically, critics seem to find it strangely puzzling and usually view it as an ambitious failure. Some commentators, like Julian Petley, âfind it profoundly uninteresting, deeply unattractive and generally quite underwhelmingâ.4 Bearing in mind Cronenbergâs last-minute re-writing, the censorship that the film received in its various versions and Cronenbergâs own dissatisfaction with the project, Videodrome is perhaps best viewed as a partially successful experiment, with more ideas than space to breathe, a luxury that Cronenberg could afford in later years with the commercial success of The Fly (1986) behind him.
âEverybodyâs going to be starring in their own porno filmsâŠâ Pornography and Cronenberg5
In Ballardâs High-Rise (1975), there is mention of âa continuity girlâ working in pornographic films, who âhas to note the precise sexual position between takesâ, a difficulty Cronenberg has mentioned in connection with his direction of the apartment scene in Crash (1996).6 On being complimented on his direction of this scene, Cronenberg claims not to have seen Andrew Blake-directed pornography but admits âIâve done sex scenes before, you know, like in videoâ.7 He does not expand upon what these were but the casting of porn star Marilyn Chambers in the lead role in Rabid (1976), although admittedly not his first choice for the part, and his own role as the âdisembodied, wide-eyed porno freakâ, Tom Cramer in Blue (Don McKellar, 1992), does seem to indicate at least a passing knowledge of the genre.8
Cronenberg has shown interest in the structures and stylistic tropes of pornography over many years. Referring to the opening of Shivers (1976), Victor Sage notes that âwe have at least two narrative codes being played with: the promo film and the porn filmâ.9 A middle-aged man struggling with a woman dressed as a schoolgirl (a porn clichĂ© itself) is intercut with a couple being shown around the building. The name of the clients, the Swedens, like the group watching Volvo crash videos in Crash, alludes to the stereotypical association of Scandinavia with the porn industry. As Mark Kermode notes, Cronenbergâs breakthrough into mainstream cinema was achieved âthrough the taboo orifices of the horror and soft-core porn genresâ due to âhaving failed an audition as a porno director for Canadian skin-flicks company Cinepixâ.10 In an interview with Cronenberg, Susie Bright jokes that âmaybe in your dotage we could corral you into making just an unabashed cock and cunt porn filmâ, to which he answers in a manner which makes it unclear whether he is being serious or not: âwell, I like watching those myselfâŠâ11
However, it is simplistic to see Cronenbergâs use of displaced genitals, such as Maxâs slit, as pornographic in itself. Marty Rothâs notion that âthe border between horror film and pornography is a blurred oneâ, is useful here.12 Both genres share an inability to achieve complete narrative closure and Steven Shaviro notes that âhorror fans know that the dead always walk again, even as consumers of pornography know that no orgasm is ever the lastâ.13 He also observes that â[v]iolent and pornographic films literally anchor desire and perception in the agitated and fragmented bodyâ.14 Both horror and pornography are about arousal, more specifically provoking fear and a sexual response respectively, and are the two prime genres that speak about and through the body. Ian Conrich underlines the ârelationship between the opened bodies of pornography and splatter-obsessed hard core horrorâ that Richard Gehr calls âcarnographyâ, which suggests that a text like Videodrome, featuring as it does bodies that are tortured, with a protagonist whose stomach opens without apparent reason and an antagonist who, upon death, bursts open with cancerous tumours, could be deemed pornographic.15 However, Cronenbergâs ânew fleshâ redefines how this might manifest itself.
Is Videodrome pornographic?
We see how the porn industry works in Maxâs first meeting of the day with Hiroshima Video, whose name reflects the poverty of taste in the environment in which he moves but also the sense of an over-stimulated environment to which Nicki refers later. The meeting itself is portrayed like a drug deal. The merchandise is kept in a suitcase and the deal revolves around price and the purity of the product, which is validated by a test of a key batch, the last one, talismanic number 13. The request seems strange as it takes the tapes out of order but reflects the serial nature of pornography and that the order of episodes is unimportant. The product is discussed in terms of mass production and of regular supply (âthirteen with the possibility of another sixâ), expressing Debordâs notion that âthe real consumer becomes a consumer of illusionsâŠand the spectacle is its general manifestationâ, so that âthe spectacle is the developed modern complement of moneyâŠâ16
Later, Harlan asks Max after being exposed to the Videodrome programme, âAre you in some kind of drug warp?â Certainly, William Burroughsâ descriptions of drug withdrawal accurately evoke Maxâs altered perceptions of video technology: âsense impressions are sharpened to the point of hallucination. Familiar objects seem to stir with a writhing furtive life. The addict is subject to a barrage of sensations, external and visceralâ.17 Maxâs explanation of Civic TVâs status on The Rena King Show continues the sense of pornography, rather than Burroughsâ preferred metaphor of drugs, as a prime paradigm of capitalist economics: âItâs a matter of economics. Weâre small and in order to survive we have to give people something they canât get anywhere elseâ.
The viewing of âSamurai Dreamsâ acts as a bridge between the hotel deal and the Civic TV management as we track back from the screen to see Max and his associates around a table. Street level operations interconnect with corporate business. Max muses whether they will âget away with itâ, as if cheating their audience with a product that is in some way inferior or diluted. Maxâs listless dismissal of âSamurai Dreamsâ expresses on behalf of his consumers (and possibly himself) a level of sexual ennui that is later articulated in Crash. There appears to be little pleasure in fooling his audience as he asks rhetorically, âDo you want to get away with it?â On repeated viewings, it is possible to recognize the girl as the subject of one of the photos in Maxâs kitchen earlier, implying possibly that the woman is a known star or alluding to a sense of precognition on his part (i.e. that the product has become predictable).
The Head of Production at Universal Studios, Bob Rehme, demanded cuts to the âSamurai Dreamsâ sequence, when a doll is lifted to reveal a dildo beneath. Ironically, in a film about the potential effects of the media, such an image of female self-pleasure might have helped Cronenbergâs reputation with critics like Robin Wood. The cuts to the scene for the version shown on BBC2 mean the actions of the girl are incomplete but guessable, making the effect of the scene even more coy and Maxâs frustration with its âsoftnessâ, even more appropriate. For Roth, âVideodrome is all about pornography, about the difference between hard and soft pornography, the pornography of the present as opposed to that of the futureâ.18
Roth is only partly right here. Max and his two colleagues express different views on the film, which represent an historical perspective on pornography. One expects that it will get them an audience they never had before (the present), another rejects it as ânot tacky enoughâŠto turn me onâ and moralizes that âtoo much class is bad for sexâ (the past). These represent the traditional positions of white middleclass/aged males, whose tastes have historically dominated the US porn industry. Whilst Max is looking for âsomethi...