"It is in this mode that it can be said: TV watches us, TV alienates us, TV manipulates us, TV informs us. . . Throughout all this one is dependent on the analytical conception whose vanishing point is the horizon between reality and meaning" (56).
The presence of the camera immediately changes the reality of the subject, but can also skew the reactions and emotions of everyone present. Would the Loud family have acted differently if they were being recorded non-stop? What if the subject was a minority family? Would America have reacted differently?
"The manipulative truth of the test which probes and interrogates" (52) is a force that can break us down mentally and physically. We, in the presence of a camera, are tested. I now understand what Baudrillard means by this. The camera does not test audiences, it tests it's subject. The reality lived by the subject will never be portrayed correctly to an audience, and we all know this. But we as an audience still decide to accept camera footage as an absolute truth. We are collectively gazing at the subject from the perspective of an eye, which is the closest thing we can get to actually being there.
The tension that arises between camera, subject, and viewer is a triangle of doom. There will never be ultimate clarity between each corner of the triangle, and that is something that needs to be exposed on a more drastic level.
The presence of the camera immediately changes the reality of the subject, but can also skew the reactions and emotions of everyone present. Would the Loud family have acted differently if they were being recorded non-stop? What if the subject was a minority family? Would America have reacted differently?
"The manipulative truth of the test which probes and interrogates" (52) is a force that can break us down mentally and physically. We, in the presence of a camera, are tested. I now understand what Baudrillard means by this. The camera does not test audiences, it tests it's subject. The reality lived by the subject will never be portrayed correctly to an audience, and we all know this. But we as an audience still decide to accept camera footage as an absolute truth. We are collectively gazing at the subject from the perspective of an eye, which is the closest thing we can get to actually being there.
The tension that arises between camera, subject, and viewer is a triangle of doom. There will never be ultimate clarity between each corner of the triangle, and that is something that needs to be exposed on a more drastic level.
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