flipping around some pervert's dream

Cronenberg's "monsters" are forms of alterity that cannot be reduced to the economy of the Same, but that also cannot be identified as purely and simply Other. Autonomy is out of the question. A parasite is neither part of me nor apart from me; it is something from which I cannot separate myself, but that at the same time I cannot integrate into my personality. I do not become cognizant of alterity; rather, it insinuates itself within me, as a new and uncontrollable potentiality of my body. I am passively invested by forces that I cannot recuperate as my own. Boundaries between self and other break down; the festering wound of alterity is incurable. I am affected by, and compelled to "experience," something that remains irreducibly not-me: other minds (Scanners), media images (Videodrome), and even the altogether nonhuman (The Fly).