MovieChat Forums > Videodrome (1983) Discussion > Long live the new flesh?

Long live the new flesh?


What does that mean?

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The old flesh is physical mass without spirit, a man without imagination. He knows only what it sees, therefore he is completely privy to the causation of the physical world. The new flesh is physical mass with activated spirit, a man that can imagine anything. He knows things that he cannot see and he can grow from nothing, spreading into O'blivion like a cancerous tumor.

Hi I'm an aspiring children's entertainer youtube.com/wildcatpeace

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good explanation, thanks beetleborg

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[deleted]

The new flesh is physical mass with activated spirit, a man that can imagine anything.

To think/live "outside the box", perhaps?

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»nec spe,nec metu •´¯`»
And yet, the only exciting life is the imaginary one. »

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It means nothing or everything.

Obviously Max was psychotic by this time because he was completely living in a fantasy world created by a TV show called Videodrome. The "show" was used by interested parties to create slaves to whatever they wanted. This is what Prof Oblivion (based on Marshall Mcluhan) discovered, that human beings can't tell the difference between reality and VR. So whatever message is in TV, Movies, Video Games will BECOME the participants/viewers reality.

Long Live the New Flesh means the projection of Max's consciousness into the VR.

When you play MMORPGS and project yourself onto the game's avatar...that is the new flesh.

The film is a warning. The film states don't just be a passive watcher. QUESTION everything. What is the message? Who is the messenger? What is their motive? What do they want?

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This post and the message therein is more relevant now than ever before.

It's amazing how many people bought into the COVID nonsense, injected themselves with a deadly substance that has -- for the last two decades -- been GUARANTEED to kill humans when it is introduced into the venous system, yet people willingly went along with committing assisted suicide because the television told them to.

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There is a subtext to it that hasn't been mentioned (that I've seen): He may or may not have actually thought that he was going to be "alive" like Nicky through video images only, no physical body. Nicky believed it as did the shrink that was the first victim. But, it could have been sarcasm, too.

If you were observing this nutty planet, would YOU want to make contact?

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I thought it was something along those lines. Transforming into a new kind of life form, possibly. A fusion of the old and technology somehow.

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My interpretation is that the 'new flesh' is the next evolution of humankind predicted and even stimulated by O'Blivion. Brian's daughter effectively makes Max into a messiah for their new cathode ray religion.

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I do have one theory to follow up on flyingcowherder's post. Based on some other Cronenberg work and themes. He early on in his career always seemed to have some evolution on the cusp of happening to the human body as we know it. In Shivers for instance there is a new human being evolving that may eventually be the new earth.
Is Bianca Oblivion in fact worse then Videodrome? Is her idea of the "New Flesh" a world eventually all under the influence of hallucinations without death from brain tumor? (Oblivion suggests the tumor will evolve not to death but a new extension of the brain) Videodrome wanted to eliminate in their opinion weak minded social degenerates of the world and have a pure race of humans if you will (kind of the Hitler purity thing going on there). While Bianca and her father (idealist liberal thinking in a Cult sense taken to the extreme) may have wanted to change the entire world into hallucinating entities like a permanent LSD party. Certainly would be a evolution of the human race. Two radically different philosophies with Oblivion's side wanting the "New Flesh" for all humankind.

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