Rewritten by machine on new technology

Voyeurism is defined as "obtaining sexual gratification from looking at others sexual actions or organs" (Oxford). Indulging in voyeurism is usually seen as a cowardly act by mainstream society, because it entails exploiting the sexuality of an unwitting object while the voyeur remains at a safe distance, refusing to participate firsthand and thus take on the risks associated with equal relationships. In common usage, the word voyeurism is also used to explain the human hunger for shocking imagery that is bread and butter to film, television and newspapers. These media, and others, exploit our human biology by presenting us with content we find almost impossible to ignore, be it sexually themed, violent, or, most commonly, a mix of the two. The media serve to take voyeurism to a whole new level in society, not only allowing the voyeur to maintain an even greater distance from the object, but also broadcasting its compelling content to a massive audience. Both Sunset Boulevard and Watchmen comment on the phenomenon of voyeurism by developing characters who indulge in or oppose voyeuristic behaviour, and by showing how media-sponsored voyeurism effects individuals and society as a whole.

At first blush, it seems that the most voyeuristic character in Sunset Boulevard is Norma Desmond: her first appearance in the film is as a pair of reflective glasses shining through a shuttered window at the front of her house; she has no concept of privacy and personal space, as evidenced by her treatment of Joe Gillis; and she is certainly a person who prefers not to participate in events going on in the outside world. But on closer viewing, it becomes clear that Max von Mayerling is the real voyeur, and Norma Desmond his object. As Ms. Desmonds servant he has total access to every facet of her life, and he preserves that state of affairs by controlling what information she receives about the outside world, and even about herself. By sending her fake fan letters and assuring her that she is "the greatest star of them all" (Sunset Boulevard), Max keeps a powerful spotlight on Norma, a light that blinds her and exposes her at the same time. The perverse sexuality of the situation is revealed when Max confesses to Joe that he was Ms. Desmonds first husband. A musical crescendo reinforces the creepiness of this revelation.

The titles of Norma's and Max's respective roles in the film industry reflect their roles in life: Norma, the star, literally acting, while Max, the director, stays out of sight behind the cameras, controlling but not joining the action. He goes beyond the use of his own eyes as tools of voyeurism, but lets an entity of greater social power, the film camera, do that for him. As a result, young and spirited Norma Desmond was made into an object to be bought and sold, and watched, by millions of people unconnected to her life in any way. After a number of years as a great star, Norma's identity became so dependent on the approving gaze of strangers that she couldn't live a normal life off-camera. She only feels real when the reels are turning. This was not done to her in ignorance, but by people who were well aware of the danger to Normas selfhood. Another director, Cecil B. DeMille, regretfully spells it out: "A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit" (Sunset Boulevard).

Sunset Boulevard compares the dark environment of Norma Desmond's life to another character who possesses none of the qualities of a voyeur: Betty Schaeffer. In almost every way, Betty stands in stark contrast to all the other characters; she is young and unspoiled by the industry she works in; she is ambitious, energetically pursuing her sensible goal of being a writer; and she glows with physical, emotional and sexual health. She always appears either working responsibly at her job at Paramount, or socializing with other young, energetic people like herself. Her relationship with Artie is equal, honest, and headed towards a nice, normal marriage until she falls in love with Joe, and even then the viewer is led to believe that she will cope with his influence on her love life in a healthy, balanced way. In fact, Betty's only flaw was an imperfect nose, identified as such by the film industry and corrected years ago.

Watchmen addresses the human fascination for violent and sexual imagery by presenting us with an apocalyptic society that has gone through trauma after trauma and is in shock from the overload. People in the story have experienced terrifying events firsthand: child abuse, rape, street violence, war and the consequences of runaway technological advancement. Their coping strategies are various, and voyeurism is treated as one of them. The most obviously voyeuristic character, Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, sits in front of a wall of TVs, secretly monitoring the state of the world and thinking up his plan to save society from itself. Like Max von Mayerling, he controls events according to his own vision but does not participate in the lives of his objects, in this case the whole world. He is kept above the action by his elite position as head of his corporation, and by his reputation as a man of remarkable physical prowess and as "the smartest man in the world" (Moore, chap.1 pp.17). Television is Adrian Veidt's one-way connection to the world, providing "information, information in its most concentrated form" (chap.10 pp.7) to guide him as he makes his plans for humanity. Illustrating how far removed he is from the day-to-day lives of regular people, Veidt makes a decision, based on viewing TV ads, to invest in the porn industry. He spares no thought for that industry's effect on women's safety and virtue, issues which matter so very much to his colleague Rorschach. The payoff for Veidt's voyeurism is not sexual gratification but megalomania: Veidt has set for himself the goal of becoming mankind's saviour.

The character of Rorschach is almost a mirror image of Adrian Veidt, but while Veidt is elevated on a pedestal of his own making, Rorschach is abased. His true identity is hidden as thoroughly as Veidt hides his master plan. His purpose in life is to attack injustice, and to this end he patrols the city nightly, alone, tracking down all its most horrible secrets. He is the only vigilante who refused to give up his vocation and go mainstream when the Keene Act was passed outlawing masked adventuring. Voyeurism featured largely in his traumatic childhood, from his accidentally seeing his mother having sex with a client, to the voyeuristic fascination of neighbourhood bullies with his mother's sleazy occupation.

Headlines of the major New York newspapers are often used to mark the turning points in the alternate history of the world of Watchmen, usually underscoring the major characters' reactions to these changes. When Rorschach explains to his psychologist his reasons for becoming a masked vigilante, in fact the very origin of his masked identity, the front page of the New York Gazette declares, "Woman Killed While Neighbors Look On" (chap.6 pp.10). The real-life story of Kitty Genovese's murder, which awakened so many to the problem of apathy and passive voyeurism in society, reflects Rorschach's rage at injustice against virtuous women and girls, even as he holds prostitutes in contempt. He remarks, "I knew then what people were, then, behind all the evasions, all the self-deception" (10). Later, he elaborates on his motivations while talking about the Comedian's philosophy on life, saying "Once a man has seen, he can never turn his back on it no matter who orders him to look the other way." (15). Rorschach's (and the Comedian's) reactions to witnessing injustice are the opposite of voyeuristic: he acts in the situation, at considerable risk to himself.

The definition of corporation is "a group of people authorised to act as an individual" (Oxford) and the corporations making up the various New York media in Watchmen can be looked at as individual characters, all with definite voyeuristic tendencies. They routinely invade the privacy of other characters in the same way that Norma Desmond and Max von Mayerling invaded Joe Gillis's privacy in Sunset Boulevard. The newspaper Nova Express, using information provided by a bitter ex-lover, humiliates Dr. Manhattan on national television, setting off enormous political consequences; later, television crews swoop down on Rorschach's apartment after his arrest, salaciously interviewing his sleazy landlady and photographing his squalid room filled with copies of another newspaper, the right-wing New Frontiersman. The film industry behaves similarly in Sunset Boulevard, sending a newsreel crew from Norma Desmond's beloved Paramount Studios to capture her final disintegration on film. Although these media claim to serve the public by exposing hidden bits of necessary information, the reader knows that the media really are driven by the need to raise ratings and make advertising dollars. They attract viewers and readers by appealing to the public's passive voyeurism.

Sunset Boulevard gives us the history of large scale voyeurism by telling the history of films. The novelty of moving pictures, and the public demand for more, is what has made all of the characters what they are. Regardless of what shameful personal habits the characters may indulge, it is the audiences hunger for more pictures that makes the consequences of those habits so very destructive. Then, once the novelty of mere moving pictures had worn off, the studios came up with sound, followed by Technicolor, and the audience began ravenously to consume movies featuring those new enticements. We learn almost immediately from Norma Desmond that these were the changes that took away her audience and thus her stardom, and thus her reality as a person. "We didnt need words, we had faces," Norma declares, referencing a time when she had been more whole (Sunset Boulevard).

In the end, Sunset Boulevard and Watchmen deliver the message that voyeurism is a social phenomenon that reflects back on itself. It is television, the inciter of so much violence, that delivers the news to Adrian Veidt that he has succeeded in his radical plan to save humanity. It is the film industry which both elevates and debases, creates and destroys Norma Desmond, then goes on to make and distribute Sunset Boulevard, a film showcasing its own destructive nature, for the entertainment of the paying customers. Those customers, and by extension everybody, become complicit in their turn in terrible events when they succumb to the temptation to watch without acting.

WORKS CITED

Moore, Alan. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 1986.

R.E. Allen, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Sunset Boulevard. Billy Wilder, dir. With William Holden and Gloria Swanson. Paramount Pictures, 1950.