Bodily Autonomy in Cronenberg's 'Shivers'

Director David Cronenberg’s debut feature, Shivers, is about the loss of bodily autonomy. It’s about what happens when an outside force enacts itself upon someone and robs them of their agency. Sure, in this case, it’s a slug like parasite but the meaning, at least in a modern context, could not be more symbolic of governmental interference. Given that bodily autonomy is a top headline in the battle over abortion in America today, it’s an interesting time to look at Cronenberg’s 45 plus year old take on the idea behind Shivers.

The symbols of conformity are what we first recognize in the opening scenes of Shivers. A disembodied, soothing, oily voiceover tells us about the self-contained amenities of an island apartment complex called Starliner Towers. It’s the picture of perfection. There is no need to ever leave as the building has doctors, dentists, grocery stores and pharmacies. All of that plus the serenity of living more than an hour away from the teeming masses in urban centers. Naturally, Cronenberg is here to splash blood all over this multi-dwelling Eden.

A Young Symbol of the Future

The scene shifts at the end of our slideshow commercial to a vehicle carrying a fresh faced young couple to Starliner Towers. They are moving in soon and signing the lease today. Once again, the picture of conformity, a youthful, stylish, catalog picture ready couple with the world as their oyster. They are moving into the home of their dreams in this self-contained colony. And these are not even our protagonists. This couple is symbolic of what Starliner Towers is supposed to be, a place where attractive people come to live and raise a family.

An aside, Cronenberg uses some lovely touches here to underscore the idyllic nature of Starliner Towers. As the young couple awaits the landlord to sign their lease they see an elderly couple enter the building. It’s clear that this elderly couple are joyously in love after many years together. They say nothing, they just pass by as the young couple admires them and then they’re gone. The implicit point is that Starliner Tower is where these two vibrant young people can grow old together.

A Violent Assault

Time to pop that balloon. Inter-cut with the arrival of the young couple is a scene of violence in an upper floor apartment. A young woman in a school girl outfit is barricaded against a door. Someone on the other side is banging so heavily that the girl shakes from the blows. He finally gets inside and the girl is thrown to the bed. Again, during this, Cronenberg is cutting between the young couple and this violent attack as if revealing to us, though not the couple, that all is not what it appears to be at Starliner towers. It’s a terrific sequence held back only by the amateur actors who are just a little too stiff.

Back to that upper floor apartment, our theme, the taking away of bodily autonomy, is playing out among this older man, Dr. Hobbes, and this young woman, Annabelle. It appears to be a sexual assault in progress but no, Dr. Hobbes is here to commit murder. He strangles Annabelle to death. But this sequence and the cross-cutting is not over. The next scene finds Dr. Hobbes carrying Annabelle’s lifeless body to the kitchen table. Here, Dr Hobbes performs surgery, he cuts open Annabelle’s stomach and pours acid over her organs.

The Theme Stated

This scene evokes our theme in the harshest and most brutal manner. Here is an older man taking control of a young woman’s body and destroying it. This takes on an even greater portion of our theme when you see the rest of Shivers. Soon it is revealed that what Dr Hobbes was really trying to kill was this young woman’s sex drive. Prior to what we see in the movie, Dr. Hobbes invented a parasite. The stated goal was to grow the parasite in the body to make it into an organ replacement. The goal Dr. Hobbes did not share with his partners was also to increase the sex drive of the young woman he was keeping captive at Starliner Towers.

Hobbes’ plan backfired when Annabelle’s insatiable sex drive caused her to begin sleeping with other men in the apartment building. In doing so, she also passed on the parasite which begins to perpetuate itself from one person to another via sexual contact. By increasing the sex drive, the parasite drives people to a sexual mania wherein they end up moving the parasite throughout the population. This parasite is itself our next example of the loss of bodily autonomy by the invasion of an outside force.

The Loss of Bodily Autonomy

Nick is a married man who has been sleeping with Annabelle and has recently become infected with the parasite. Through Nick we learn about the parasite. Seeing Nick fall ill in an excellently staged sequence, we watch Nick in the distance vomiting. With the camera positioned in the living room and pointed toward Nick in the bathroom in a static shot, we listen as Nick vomits. Instead of the familiar splash vomit makes when you throw up, we hear an unfamiliar slapping sound. It’s the sound of a parasite which escapes from Nick’s body and makes its way down the drain. We don’t see this, Cronenberg’s visuals tell the story, blood in the tub and a trail headed to the drain.

Nick is the first indication of the parasite expressing a desire to spread, the need to perpetuate itself. It’s a need the parasite will express for the rest of Shivers by inducing sexual mania in its victims. This will culminate in a massive orgy in a pool that provides a shocking and unforgettable image of writhing bodies and intense sexual energy. But what we need to remember is that none of the mass of bodies, these people in the pool, wanted this to happen. All are under the control of this parasite. These people have lost their agency, their ability to consent to this behavior.

What the Parasite Stands For

If you imagine that the parasite is the action of the state, the government, forcing itself into the lives of the people you get our theme. From this perspective, Cronenberg’s first feature is a modern, often brutal but remarkable commentary on the way government or even industry, if you want to take it in that direction, forces itself on the people via laws that regulate private behavior. Whether it is the debate over abortion or the conversation surrounding trans-gendered people, you have examples of government interfering in the bodily autonomy of everyday people.

Obviously, since Shivers was made in 1975 it was not talking about our modern debates. That said, the timeless direction and prescient skill of Cronenberg’s style and storytelling does lend itself to the idea that he foresaw such interventions and made a movie to reflect that. It’s a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but it is not out of line to believe that Shivers was crafted with just this idea in mind, the interference with bodily autonomy and a state perpetuating its will by any means necessary.

Shivers is the classic on the June 6th, 2022 episode of the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast. David Cronenberg’s new film, Crimes of the Future is currently at the Cannes Film Festival with plans for a theatrical release over the summer.