Stiller, Ben. The Cable Guy. Columbia Pictures, 1996. Other characters in the film do the same thing without being quite so manic about it. Broderick moves into a new apartment and immediately wants his cable hooked up. His girlfriend is especially happy when she thinks that he has given he free cable as a way of making up. Broderick's best friend is a cameraman who works for a news show. The computer screens on every desk in Broderick's office swerve as links with the rest of the world not unlike the television screen,a nd indeed these screens, like the television, both help and harm. When Carrey uses the screens to play a video of Broderick saying bad things about his boss, thus getting Broderick fired, he shows the harm that can come through the screen. The Carrey character is a representative of a TV-fed generation, and in a flashback we see that as a child, he was left in front of the television by his mother. He asks for her attention, and she leaves him alone because she is more concerned about her own needs than his. The film does not make a lot out of this, but it seems evident that the intent is to blame television for shaping this particular character and for giving him the psychological quirks he shows. All of these aliases he uses in the film--and he never does give his real name--are characters from television shows. This is obvious to many in the audience, though the other characters in the film never get the joke until it is explained to them. For all their TV watching, they have little TV literacy. If they understood what they watched better, they would understand this character better and be able to see through his facade. The culture in which these characters exist does involve one leveling force--television. Everyone in the film wants cable and wants to watch essentially the same show--specifically, the Court Tv presentation of the twin murder case, a fictional account of two twins who once starred in a television comedy |
