(Feb. 14, 2023 ● Oslin Pierrette)
David Cronenberg is one of the masters at creating their own genre. Like these films live in their own world. This technocracy existential crisis film genre. I really connect with what David Croneneberg was speaking to in these two films. Two films that feel very related to each other. So here’s my breakdown of both of them:
David Cronenberg is an odd individual. How did he make this in 1983? How is he 40 years privy to what was to come? Watching this after eXistenz is so wild, it feels like he better executed his idea in eXistenz, but this one is not too far off either. Perfectly summed up in the third act.
Basically a media and technology warfare on humanity. Again with the idea of TV, media, augmented reality is what becomes reality. And actual reality becomes meaningless and obsolete without a screen. That’s when the difference between reality and augmented artificialness gets blurred. That’s why it was crazy to see “…TV, the one you take to bed with you”. Basically enforcing that idea of constant programming on the human mind. People understand that TV and media have an influencing power, but people don’t really acknowledge or not privy to how deep it’s programming is on humanity. Our mind is so sensitive to programming information. Making very deep imprints on our consciousness whether we are aware of it or not. “The television screen has become the retina of the mind’s eye”
It’s understandable that technology evolves. That’s natural in human existence. But it’s about who’s the programmers, what are their ethics? What are they for? And that’s seemingly where the issues come from. Technology and humanity is at its best when human well-being comes first. We lead with humanism, and create technology around it. That’s when the powers of technology are used for good.
But when you have parasitic programmers, you have them programming or corrupting the programmers for technology to use humanity, to control and take over humanity. Using the power of media and technology to ingrain destruction, dehumanization, torture, murder, chaos, hate, gaudy sex, things that were once taboo within media because of the effects it could have. Now it’s front and center. Where you get overstimulated by the spectacle of it, but after constant programming. Especially when you’re bringing it to bed with you. You become desensitized to it. It becomes regular to you. You accept it as reality. This could taint someone’s mind frame. You can program them to do what you want. Make some turn into mercenaries of war. And it all depends on who’s your programmer. Who’s good, who’s evil, that’s dictated by the media you receive.
Then there’s the aspect of morphing with technology. Humanity is turning into a technocracy. That’s the path that humanity is being forced into by the parasites and media. And it’s also on the path of the destruction of humans. And humans are literally morphing with technology. As time goes on, the less time in reality humanity experiences. Already the majority of the day is owned by technology through the screens, and with the development of virtual/augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Constantly making large groups of the masses purely dependent on tech. Lot of the youth is born into this technocracy. They don’t know life without the dependency on it. That’s why there’s so much lawlessness and chaos within the youth. That’s what they’ve been fed. They are not under control of their parents and elders. Technology and media controls the majority of their mind frame. We lost the youth to the media and tech. They turn into zombies controlled by gadgets once they get a hold of them. They don’t listen to parents when they have tech rulers. And soon they will be fully consumed and immersed into technology.
People who are aware of the dangers of technocracy and destructive media, basically Videodrome, are now on a mission to destroy them.
This is why it’s such a great film, especially since it’s 40 years old. People today in tech, AI, and virtual reality are very worried about the very destructive possibilities of it. They understand with great power, the wrong unethical programmer can come in and do massive damage to humanity. Since they have the ability to simulate humanity on humans, they can augment it to their will, causing a deep psychosis. What is real, what is not. This simulation feels too real. This reality feels very artificial, we don’t know anymore. And that line that we in reality own that separates reality from delusions gets shattered, and causes this assault on our sanity… and it begs the question, now that we know it’s real, simulating reality, has it always been real in our existence. Is this a simulation, has it already been mastered? Are we in this technology existential crisis?
And this is why it’s important to be conscious of this and be cautious of your media intake. Avoid Videodrome.
David Cronenberg is amazing at this genre, how does he know this much especially at the time he created this. How was he privy to this? He’s amazing at what he does.
He’s also amazing at creating these metaphysical surreal and visceral worlds. Also he is obsessed with his fetishy kinky obscure fleshy horror worlds. They have such a creepy effect.
Great weird performances.
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Wow. This film was crazy on so many levels. A perfect explanation of where this simulacrum can take us. A very very dark outcome.
What is real, what is a simulation. Are they the same thing?
“A simulacrum is something that replaces reality with its representation.
Reality can be represented in many ways; we are often subject to the copy or representation of reality in our postmodern society, art can be reproduced as copies of the original, flight scenarios can be re- created by complex simulators, and we can even project a representation of “ourselves” through Social Media and virtual gaming.”
The representation of reality that has been replacing reality itself hasn’t been perfectly augmented like in the film, but the effects are here. People are fully immersed into these worlds of artificial reality through social media and technology. Life isn’t real for many in whatever’s left of reality. All that matters is what’s in the simulation. That’s what many believe in anyways. There’s this growing meaningless happening in the natural world. And only being able to be stimulated by the artificial realm. The problem comes with what is being fed to them in the simulation? What are they ingesting? Because that’s what permeates into reality. All these simulated diseases become very real, and disturbs reality.
And in our simulation, we get fed absurdity, outrage, division, morbid violence, morbid death, chaos, distrust, greed, substance abuse, enablism of unhealthy lifestyles, twisted identities, confusion, delinquency, etc. And this is all being permeated in reality. You see all sorts of destruction and chaos.
Who is the life source for this simulation? And it’s us. We are the bioport these simulations have been created from and get their growth from. The simulation is a reflection of us, and we are turning into a reflection of the simulation. And the further we go down that path, it’s leading to an abyss of empty nothingness.
“As a kid, The Jetson’s seemed cool. But now technology does not have a direct relationship with happiness, experience, and human optimization. It’s more of a parabolic relationship. Too little makes life hard, too much makes life obsolete and too privacy invasive. We have enough.“
After a while, it gets to a point where it’s like, we have to stop and maybe destroy this simulation. Who is running the simulation, they become the enemy, but then you have people who are for the simulation. Causing these massive divisions. Who is ruler of the simulation, what is their purpose for all this. Are they good, are they bad? Is this all a simulation? After breaching multiple layers of this simulation, that leads to this psychosis. You have to separate what’s real and what’s not, and once you destroy that barrier, an assault on your sanity can happen. Where you don’t know what’s what anymore. Your reality is totally blended in with your delusions or augmentations, and you can’t differentiate the two, all you can do is live with what’s in front of you. Just trying to make sense of your new psychosis existence. There’s no going back to regular reality and that’s all there is. Now you went down Pandora’s box.
What made this film so crazy was at the end of the film, they had these touchscreen looking tablets. And I was like what year is this film, and it was 1999. So I was like how?? Maybe there were already iterations of touchscreen tablet devices already. But also MetaFlesh, and this was artificial reality. I thought that was crazy too, or maybe this was Mark Zuckerberg and his team’s inspiration. Which is scary, because they too are trying to colonize the existence and attention of the masses, with social media and metaverse.
David Cronenberg and the Cronenberg family is such an odd group of people. They are tapped in this world that is so foreign, so odd, but makes so much sense. I appreciate how much of a disturbed group of people they are and how they bring that to film. Love what they do. I really appreciate this art.
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