living with mental disabilities as well as the progress of science fiction films. This is not to say that the themes of science fiction or the genre itself have improved, but the advancement of visual effects and perhaps an increase in the availability of larger budgets have greatly improved science fiction films as a whole since the painful virtual reality scenes of The Lawnmower Man. Now that I have addressed these two pressing issues I had with the film I shall move on.
I found the "love scene" between Jobe and that wealthy single woman with the lemonade very interesting. This scene brings me back to that section in N. Katherine Hayles' article, The Seductions of Cyberspace, that brings up the idea of "teledildonics" which Hayles has gotten from Howard Rheingold. Teledildonics is essentially a convergence of VR (virtual reality) and eroticism. There are some striking similarities between the apparatus Rheingold describes and that which is used in The Lawnmower Man.
The VR device in Rheingold's teledildonics requires that you "climb into a suitably padded chamber and put on your headmounted display". The need for padding is overcome by the suspension in giant gyroscopes, or "orbitron" as I have found it to be known from a google search, but both scenes involve the head mounted display. Before you can do this, however, you must "sli
p into a lightweight ... bodysuit". Anyone who has seen The Lawnmower Man undoubtedly remembers what the bodysuits looked like in the film, but just to be indulgent here is a reminder. You may describe them as "something like a body stocking, but with all the intimate snugness of a condom". Feel free to enlarge the image and see just how intimate these "body stockings" are with these fine actors' bulges. The final aspect of Rheingold's VR sex machine is "an array of intelligent effectors", a technology that does not yet exist, that line the inside of the body suit. As you can see these come in the form of fiber-optics and they are attached to the outside of the suit rather than within. This, I am sure, is strictly for the purpose of special effect coolness so that Jobe's suit can light up while he does his evil deeds in the shadowy darkness of night.
Now I am sure that teledildonics did not play a huge role in the design of the VR suits sported by Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Fahey but the similarities are striking. Furthermore, the lawnmower man actually uses the VR device in the film for erotic purposes. While I am confident that the devout advocates of VR would like it to be otherwise, it seems that the pornography and VR industries are destined to be best friends. This was so beautifully sollidified for me upon my casual viewing of The Big Lebowski. Never did I suspect that I would find any connection between that work of comedy genius and teledildonics but there it was. Jeff Bridges, the Dude in this context, is conversing with Jackie Treehorn, played by Ben Gazzara, about the ransom money, the plot point that has brought them to talking, as well as the crappy porn that Treehorn is producing. This is when Treehorn lays out for the Dude what will be the future of the smut industry, "interactive erotic software ... 100% electronic". Rheingold, a VR guy, sees the potential (inevitable?) as does Jackie Treehorn, the porn guy, and so both sides agree, VR and erotica shall live happily ever after. That is unless, like the dude says, people decide to continue to "jerk off manually".
Or, of course, VR could never really take of, as I would say it has not, at least not anything near how it was expected to when The Lawnmower Man was made, and thus it would never be able to fully form this beautiful symbiont with pornography.
Which is more real?
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