White Christmas Film Analysis

In the first of the three connected plotlines of “White Christmas”, the novum of the “Z-Eye” is introduced and immediately blurs the boundaries between personal and public experience. Matt uses the virtual reality technology to crowd-source pick-up art; the men in his club take turns helping each other flirt in real time through remote surveillance and in-ear advice in return for the satisfaction of ogling any encounters which follow. Matt narrates Harry’s final night, already removing Harry’s story from first person. The club acts partly as the audience surrogate, vicariously watching Harry mingle at a Christmas party—the difference is, they can communicate with Harry. When the viewer sees themselves in the film, they encounter ethical questions. …show more content…
There is a rupture between what is happening from Jennifer’s point of view (a single man is flirting with her), and Harry’s point of view (a group of men are manipulating a woman). Part of Badiou’s theory on the philosophy of cinema interacts with this rupture, as he states, “Cinema is a unique relationship between total artifice and total reality. Cinema is really both the possibility of a copy of reality and the completely artificial dimension of that copy” (207). The virtual reality technology shifts real life into cinema, with simultaneous reality and artificiality. Jumping forward to the conclusion of the episode, the audience learns Matt was convicted for operating the illegal “peeping tom” club. Nevertheless, the viewer of the episode saw the same scenes as Matt and faces no consequences. According to Badiou, Harry’s reproduced experience meeting Jennifer is artificial. Then, the audience of this episode must ask how the line would be drawn between consequences for real and artificial actions in a world with technology that cinematizes personal …show more content…
But even when focusing on the first storyline, there are many resulting questions about how technology could convert life into cinema, how private experience can be expanded into public through the eyes of multiple observers, and how to discuss the ethics of watching. If the scale of government surveillance; businesses collecting big data; and sharing personal experiences through social media, reality television, or other medias continues to increase, the outline of the self will blur more and more until all experiences are artificial. Meanwhile, if all representations of life are artificial, consuming other people’s experiences becomes an unethical act. “White Christmas” extrapolates from the expanding sharing economy to warn of the incoming danger of losing personal