Filmic Bodies as Terministic (Silver) Screens: Embodied Social Anxieties in Videodrome

The horror film genre utilizes spectacles of the human body while alluding to our worst fears beyond the silver screen. "Body horror" is a unique sub-genre that distorts the very nature of human flesh for horrific effect. David Cronenberg's <italic>Videodrome</italic> (1983) is an exemplary body horror text that incorporates themes of disease, metamorphosis, and gendering bodies to allude to a litany of social problems facing the larger body politic. I explore how such fears are rooted in the loss of human control surrounding mortality, identity, exploitative media, technology, corporate influence, and gendered power dynamics. I argue for the extension of Kenneth Burke's terministic screen theory into the realm of filmic visual rhetoric, identifying ways that cinematic bodies in <italic>Videodrome</italic> shape particular messages regarding broader social problems. In doing so, I argue that rhetorical critics should focus not only on <italic>what</italic> horror films communicate, but <italic>how</italic> they do so.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Bagwell, Daniel Steven

• bodies

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/39301

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/39301