Videodrome: Days of O'Blivion by Lee McGeorge Read Free Book Online Page B

of the walls with lighting for now. At least until they
figure out which colour is best.”
    Susan led them upstairs
to a long corridor with doors on either side. She opened one to a
room with three women sitting around a table covered in costume
sketches. “Ladies, this is Brian, he’s in charge of the Veraceo
signal.”
    The three women looked
up and said, “hello,” in unison.
    "Carol is our art
director, Denise is in charge of costumes and Deborah is writing
the scenarios as she’s an expert on the philosophy of
sadomasochism.” There was a mannequin by the door dressed in a
black rubber suit with a gasmask and draped in a dirty,
cyan-coloured oilskin apron.
    “Do you like it?”
Denise asked. “It’s the provisional costume for the Punishers,
although the psychologist is more inclined to use a hood rather
than a gasmask.”
    “Why?”
    “Depersonalisation.
They don’t want the Punishers to look like people. The feeling is
the gasmask makes it look like a man in a suit, whereas the hood
makes them shapeless as well as faceless. We’re going to shoot some
tests this afternoon and see which looks better.”
    Susan brought him out
of the room and into an editing bay with two other women. “This is
Sonja, the director and Lynn the editor.”
    “Is everybody involved
a woman?” Brian asked looking puzzled. “I didn’t expect that, given
the nature of what we’re doing.”
    “In technical
production, yes,” Sonja said. “The psychologist was concerned that
a male production team would subconsciously veer towards
eroticising or over-sexualising the content. He felt women would be
naturally repulsed and therefore more clinical in the film
making.”
    “He must think women
are sexless.”
    Sonja smiled. “I
thought that myself for a while. I think he’s worried this would
end up as sleazy soft-porn. He spent a lot of time assessing our,
how can I say... feminist credentials. A lot of time went into
assessing our attitudes towards pornography.”
    Brian took a seat.
“This is somehow refreshing. I was afraid of involving myself in
such a sleazy enterprise. Can I ask, what is your attitude to
pornography?”
    “I think the liberal
consensus that has persisted over the last few years, the idea that
‘whatever turns you on is fine’ may be wrong headed. I think
pornography has nothing to do with freedom of expression as some
people say. It’s merely the advertising of prostitution. People see
it as entertainment whilst forgetting it’s primarily a business, a
ruthless and impersonal industry masked behind glamour and
eroticism.”
    Brian nodded. “I worry
about its spread on television and home video. I’ve concerned
myself for some time with media and how it shapes the human brain.
We have no media theory for pornography yet, no deep exploration on
how it impacts the plasticity of the brain. Books, for example,
require effort. Reading, even the word itself, 'reading’, has
multiple meanings and the brain must decide instantly which meaning
to use. Therefore, the very act of reading, of consuming textual
media is shaping the mind of those who consume it. Those who listen
to radio as their primary media will have their brains shaped more
passively than readers and those who consume nothing but television
will question their reality least of all… but pornography takes us
to a new media of the flesh. I believe it could be an addictive
substitute for human relationships and we have no understanding
where that could lead.”
     
    ----- X -----
     
    Brian connected the
Veraceo-Two signal generator to the patch bay of the editing booth.
“Have you seen anything with Veraceo?” he asked Deborah.
    “No,” she shook her
head. “But I was fascinated when they went through all of the
non-disclosure agreements. For a while I was sure I was going to
work as a secret agent or something, the security and scrutiny was
intense. It's a lot of secrecy to make a dirty movie.”
    “It’s not the movie
that’s a