Remember that movie Being There with Peter Sellers, where he played a man whose only experience of the outside world was through television? Well it was a great film with funny and profound implications. But I was wondering:
Take that same scenario, but substitute the internet for TV. How do you think our new Chauncy Gardener would view the world then?
I’m guessing he’d have a really short attention span, and expect the world to look like a porn site.
Help me develop this concept. What do you think “eChauncy” would be like?
I don’t know–even at its mind-numbingly worst, the Internet is still a largely interactive experience, as opposed to Chance’s purely passive submission to the boob tube. On the Net, you have to make choices and decisions, orient yourself and navigate, explore, etc.–all requiring more initiative than Chance was capable of, IMHO. Plus, wasn’t he largely illiterate? I can understand what you’re getting at, but this would require that our protagonist have some basic sense of curiosity about himself and the world, which automatically makes him different from Chance.
Anyway, I always thought the film was flimsy and labored in its conceit, and not particularly profound or clever (though that final shot is lovely and very Magritte-like)
I can’t answer your question directly, since thats not really what I saw in the movie. I thought Being There was more about taking a severely sheltered and admittedly uneducated man and putting him in a series of circumstances that made other so-call sophisticated people misjudge him to be extraordinarily smart and deep.
I loved the movie and thought it was one of Peter Sellers best. Not so over the top as the Pink Panther series.
I agree with uberDave on the theme of the story. IIRC, the book didn’t even talk about TV so much. I suspect it was enhanced because of the more visual nature of the medium.
That being said, I also agree with ArchiveGuy’s statement that “eChauncy” would be a very different person. Can’t say as I agree with his opinion of the movie, though. This is one of my all-time favorites.
Hmmm. I’ve not yet read the book, but my take on the film was that the TV angle was important, if not central. The scene that stands out to me was when Chance first goes off into the real world and is accosted by a gang of toughs. When they frighten him, Chance pulls out the TV remote he brought with him and clicks it at them, as if he could turn them off.
I imagine “eChauncy” going around trying to click everything, and being baffled when every object does not do something. He might pick up a book and not understand why the letters don’t scroll past him. And maybe speaks the way people do on line in chat rooms.
You get the idea. I think it would be an interesting way to remake the film. Not that it really needs re-doing - I think it remains timely and important.
I know I’m very late in replying to this topic. . .
I agree that in the movie the television element was very important. If you watch the movie, you will notice that in a lot of the Chance scenes, the dialogue is actually carried out through the television. This is most obvious in the love scene with Shirley Maclaine. So it’s more of a story about a man whose center has actually been placed upon the television, instead of himself.
There is also the fact that everybody around sees themselves reflected in his utter simplicity, which results in Chance playing pretty much the cosmic fool, which is demonstrated directly in the last scene.
If you wanted to take it further, you could look at it as Chance being the avatar of television in the modern age. I don’t know where that would lead you, though. Seems to make sense if you look at it that way.
I first watched this movie after reading a Hunter S. Thompson book that has him proclaim that this is one of the only movies about politics that’s worth watching, and I can definitely see it being that from the drug-induced angle.
In that sense, I still think it’s a valid argument today. But not applied to the internet. Like ArchiveGuy said, at the very worst the Internet is still largely interactive, which is directly contrary to the passive experience Chance was having. Which is hopeful, if you think about it. (At least think about it like I do.)
Also, Being There is the only place I’ve seen the cartoon for Cheech & Chong’s “Basketball Jones”, for which I will always remember it.