The Duality of Attitudes and Portrayals of Surveillance in Media and Art
When we think of fictitious depictions of surveillance on the silver screen or spy chases in between the pages of a novel, normally one of two visuals come to mind: a calm, cool spy wearing a tuxedo with a passion for law and order, and martinis, shaken not stirred, or, the dystopian warnings of the dangerous possibilities of censorship and scrutiny. These two artistic renderings of spies and surveillance have existed in tandem for years. George Orwell’s 1984 and the first of Ian Flemming’s James Bond novels were both published within five years of each other. Power, policing, spying and surveillance have always had a duality in tone and subject matter. But where did this duality come from? And where is it headed?
While spy and surveillance fiction was born in the nineteenth century, it did not erupt into the mainstream until the Cold War in the mid twentieth century. Surveillance and espionage began to be something that was simultaneously feared, causing tremendous paranoia and utilised as a tool of political navigation. This ideational two-sided coin of public attitudes towards spying became an asset in morphing audience approaches to surveillance.
The introduction of television and film as affordable forms of entertainment allowed for a significant rise in how many people were consuming content and who had access to this media. Additionally, policing and surveillance was increasingly becoming a part of the everyday political landscape with the rise of Mccarthyism, which was incredibly reliant on citizen-reporting, encouraging surveillance within the population.
However, as most of the actual activities of spies and surveillance agents were confidential, the lifestyle and image of spies depicted in the media was wholly sensationalised and often romanticised. Characters such as James Bond were seen as effortlessly stylish and artful extensions of the nationalistic ideology they represented to a global audience. This glamourisation of surveillance was also countered during this period, mostly by literary works such as 1984 by George Orwell or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, novels which are still relevant today about the threat of censorship and totalitarianism. This dual-attitude regarding surveillance, that it could be considered as either ultramodern or ultra dangerous, was both caused by and galvanised media depictions of it.
Fast-forward to the early 2000s: the dawning of a new millennium and a brand new political and technological landscape gave way for a modified approach to how media and culture portrayed surveillance. With the introduction of social media and reality TV, as well as a rise in more journalistic documentaries on surveillance, the seeds of simultaneous fascination and skepticism of surveillance grew into a forest of interest. The interweaving of corporate and governmental surveillance due to political tensions of the time and the newfound appeal of self-surveillance created a new frontier of surveillance based novels, film and television. The rise of fly-on the-wall television with shows like the aptly titled Big Brother or docu-series with lighter tones depicting the real world surveillance methods used in the legal field such as the also aptly titled Surveillance Oz were the result and the cause of increased attention garnered surrounding surveillance at the turn of the century.
Today, with political tensions at all time highs, it’s only fitting that the way surveillance is portrayed is equally divisive. Due to the genre’s popularity and influence, recent attention has been called to the systemic racism and misogyny embedded within the genre. The glamourisation of spying, surveillance and policing common in the Cold War is still alive today and calls for a more intersectional approach in storytelling and production. We have to call attention to the violence and threats of romanticisation when it comes to surveillance. With technology as an element of everyday life, series about the dangers of self surveillance and data safety allow the audience to call attention to the ways their online lives and data can be used and manipulated in various ways.
This media, reflecting prominently on self-surveillance, also reaches out into the real world as online spaces and social media is structured in a way where inter-surveillance among users is embedded into our online interactions. As we continue to curate online identities, we are constantly watching and listening to each other. This continued addiction to online internet-surveillance and self surveillance, galvanised by the sheer amount of media and romanticisation of it, creates environments of fear and stress that are extremely notable in the modern age.
When watching or reading materials about surveillance and how it’s used, it is always important to ask who is telling this story? What do I feel about the subject matter? As our lives become more and more curated and as we live more and more of our lives online, questioning how surveillance and our attitudes towards it are portrayed on screen or on the page becomes crucial in climates much more interconnected, complicated, and surveilled than ever before.
