Strange Days male fantasy VR

A typical scene depicting Hollywood's (male) fantasy of virtual reality

Along with several other films released in 1995, Strange Days offers one of the richest and most problematic visions of Hollywood's imaginary relationship to virtual reality. Referred to be some as "virtual, virtual reality," scenes such as this one are typical of the male fantasies that are often projected onto the technology of VR. This scene offers a narratively inconsequential vision of what the "wire" technology at the center of Strange Days makes possible, by initiating a "virgin brain" into the wonders of VR by allowing the client to experience a few minutes of what it is like to be an "18-year-old girl taking a shower." The gender politics of the film grow increasingly problematic as the film plays out a narrative involving horrifically brutal scenes of rape, torture and murder, using the VR technology to enhance the killer's sexual excitement. This aspect of the film's narrative is entirely gratuitous and it has been argued that such scenes in Hollywood movies served (consciously or unconsciously) to increase the moral panic around the emerging technologies of VR and video games more generally.