In voyeurism, the keyhole
is a symbol of spying. Intended for the introduction of a key by
which a door may be locked or unlocked, the keyhole is emblematic of
the means by which to ensure privacy. By locking a door, an
individual establishes a private space which is supposed to be
inviolate. Behind locked doors, in the privacy of one's home, whether
“home” is a house, an apartment or a condominium, or a hotel or a
motel room, one is supposed to be sequestered; what goes on behind a
locked door is supposed to be private.
The key phrase, of course,
is “supposed to be.” In reality, little is truly private anymore,
especially in an age of surveillance by camera, drone, and Internet
spying mechanisms. Nevertheless, we resent the violation of our
privacy, and one's peering through a keyhole, into our private space,
into our private lives, into our private behavior is not something
most people would accept. Voyeurism is a violation of the law because
it is a violation of personal privacy.
There is another reason
that voyeurism is, and should be, off limits, horror movies suggest.
Peering through a keyhole can violate not only the privacy of the
person or persons within the room, but also the voyeur's sense of
propriety, of rationality, or even of reality itself. As Hamlet
cautions Horatio, “There
are more things in heaven and earth . . . than are dreamt of in your
philosophy,” or, as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
warns us all, “If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes
into you.”
Most
horror movies which incorporate an element of voyeurism don't use a
literal keyhole as a plot device. Instead, as in Psycho,
Peeping
Tom,
and 13
Cameras,
the voyeurism occurs through a hole in the wall or a hidden camera's
lens, and the voyeurism as such, like the nudity (when nudity
occurs), is incidental; the central part of the story, its theme,
deals with the causes or the effects of such an invasion of privacy.
The cause, although it may be related, superficially, to the voyeur's
sexuality or lack thereof, is, on a deeper level, related to his or
her (almost always his) emotional state.
Insecurity,
a fear of women or of rejection, or a desire to know all and to be
all places, including private ones, is often the basis of the
voyeur's spying. In a word, whether the word is “omnipresent,”
“omniscient,” or “omnipotent,” the voyeur's sin is a
variation upon that of Adam and Eve: he wants to be like God.
However,
their desire to be like God is, of course, ludicrous, for human
beings are finite, fallible, and mortal; only God can be infinite,
infallible, and immortal. Such a desire, the height of arrogance, is
also a sin. God suggests as much to Adam and Eve when he warns them,
“Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat
of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die,” but they, like the voyeur, prefer to believe, as Satan told
them, “Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day
ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil.”
The
keyhole, the hole in the wall, or the hidden camera's lens allows the
voyeur to spy in secret, to know that which he is not supposed to
know, to learn that which, ordinarily, would be hidden from him, and
it allows him to violate his victims' privacy with impunity (as long
as he is not caught). Armed with such secret knowledge, he may
blackmail, kidnap, torture, rape, maim, or kill, as he chooses, crime
begetting crime, as sin begets sin.
The
keyhole is a modern-day equivalent of the Biblical forbidden fruit,
allowing secular filmmakers to tap into Judeo-Christian themes from a
perspective outside religious faith, transposing the external,
supernatural world of Satan and God with the internal, natural (i.
e., psychological) environment of the self.
The
temptation to be omnipresent, to be ominiscient, to be omnipotent,
begins long before one looks through a keyhole, drills a hole through
a wall, or hides a camera. In all likelihood, it is a desire that
develops over years, slowly, until it becomes an obsession, but it is
born of the inclination to know more, to be with, and to be more
powerful than one's victim.
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