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Exclusives: Comparative Life October
23, 2002: View
from abroad Two films are being shown this month at the Edinburgh Filmhouse: Robin Williams's new psychological thriller, One Hour Photo, and a recent low-budget British flick, My Little Eye. The first features the buoyant Williams as a laconic Sprawl-Mart employee, stationed behind the film-developing counter like an Etruscan statue, clad in a white lab coat. He takes customers' photos, develops them in the darkroom, and studies them, in the process becoming especially attached to one All-American family. An aficionado of horror films will recognize this bachelorhood voyeurism as one that can only lead to trouble. And indeed it does. The film ultimately condemns his character's compulsive curiosity and illicit invasions of privacy. My Little Eye also starts with a premise familiar to the contemporary Western viewer. Six people are cast in a reality TV show and must spend six months together in a house being filmed at all hours. The film is broadcast live over the World Wide Web. At first it seems like a fictional reenactment of the cult British series "Big Brother" or the American MTV series "The Real World." However, things take a turn for the sinister when the contestants learn that the 24/7 surveillance is a deception and that they are in fact not being monitored. Here, the traditional assumption of voyeurism and invasion of privacy as negative is turned on its head, and surveillance, instead of precipitating danger, instead becomes a means of preventing it.
Perhaps I'm taking my cultural studies course too literally, but these two films seem particularly apropos to current issues of national surveillance, monitoring, and privacy. At the time of this writing, two of the major issues headlining the news are those of the suburban sniper in Virginia and of continuing threats posed by Al Qaeda and its associates. One obstacle preventing apprehension of the former is the fact that, at every one of his 11 (and counting) attacks, there have been a minimal number of clues and witnesses. Police are having great difficulty in tracing the murder weapon to its owner, much less obtaining a composite sketch of the sniper. In short, there were no cameras rolling at any of the scenes to give irrefutable evidence. Here in the United Kingdom, my British acquaintances simply don't understand how this could occur. At most urban street corners, petrol stations, and shops, video cameras stand as mute, immobile sentries. Evidence of a more lenient attitude toward personal privacy abounds here. My nine flatmates and I receive our mail in bulk, one pile for the whole flat; in another dormitory, residents receive their mail individually, but in open-faced boxes. There is no pretense at keeping the contents of one's personal mail private. Edinburgh's main library has magnetized strips in each book, which track the location of the text and sound alarms when the book is smuggled out of the library illicitly (something that Firestone has yet to institute). Closed-circuit TV operates on each of the library's five floors, further keeping tabs on who checks out what, and when, and where. One could even argue that the British are more obsessed with tabloid and paparazzi culture than Americans; simply switch the telly to channel five for members of the House of Lords behind bars or snap up the latest "Heat" or "Hello!" for the dirt on Posh and Becks. The list goes on, while bizarre incidences of suburban terrorism in Britain remain short. Across the ocean, however, Americans balk at any attempt to increase national surveillance. Web surfers criticize the small cookies websites use to see who has visited their site. The NRA refuses to institute more stringent gun-licensing (and tracking) laws. Citizens laugh at the notion of instituting uniform national security cards. Meanwhile, George Orwell (1984) is still studied in high school as a sort of modern Notradamus, cultivating among the young a somewhat hysterical fear of widespread surveillance. I don't suggest that there is a simple relation between increased civil surveillance and decreased crime. The issue is one of far greater complexity. However, Americans' compulsive protection
of their privacy seems a bit self-aggrandizing. I don't know what
websites you frequent, or what kind of leaded gas you buy, but my
choices are decidedly unremarkable. I would be willing to accept
a few cookies, and have an unflattering image of myself videotaped,
in order to ensure a greater sense of security, if not its actuality.
Mundane aspects of my personal privacy seem a small sacrifice to
make for increased civil and national awareness.
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