The cable guy

Douglas, Steven and Robin are the three main characters in this film. The cable guy, Douglas, is an electronics geek who is alternately bizarre and compassionate. Steven is a normal, straight guy in contrast with the cable guy, and has been bounced by his girlfriend, Robin, after proposing marriage. The setting is the rapid development of cable TV in America. Apparently, the cable guy in this film is the symbol of cable TV. There are many similarities between the cable guy and TV.

In the first place, the cable guy tries to cheer his friends up. He is both entertaining and helpful. A case in point is that to get Robin back to Steven, he beats up Robin’s date at the men’s room; installs free cable TV for Robin and convince her to return to Steven by inventing to her a sad story. Similarly, the cable TV offers a huge variety of shows, some of them bringing fun to the audience and others providing suggestions and help.

On another front, the cable guy feels lonely all the time and needs friends. Sometimes he insinuates into people’s life and makes friends through illegal means. And we can see the cable TV also does everything to attract a bigger audience, sometimes by deceptive advertising, and all its shows pursue higher rating. In the movie there is a montage of shows on cable TV as Steven flipped through channels at the beginning of the film, from which we know there are a huge of shows to attract audience, for example, a woman in lingerie claiming ‘I am a man’, which is so ridiculous.

In the end, the cable guy falls from the satellite dish, gets hurt badly but survive. It suggests there are strong objections to cable TV for years and many people have criticized it harshly, yet it is still alive.

To sum up, the cable guy and cable TV have many aspects in common. Both of them have good aspects and bad aspects. Just as the recurring snippets in the movie. The case is about a former movie star suspected of murdering his twin brother. Twins are commonly used as a metaphor in western art and literature. The killing therefore metaphorically suggests the struggle between the two sides of the same thing. 

 Rating: ★★★