SpoilerShow
Well of course it's extreme, but I think this speaks to the issue when you mention that him being videotaped is what makes it extreme. Obviously what you mean is that him being present is extreme, and it's an emphasized placeholder for a range of bystander moments we forget/have forgotten (a similarly accentuated expression of culpability to how Greenfield and Lowell rationalize the final kill much faster than they would in reality yet still using the same methodology thereby exposing its problematic nature), but your phrasing is notable: the fact that Burnham's presence was filmed and objectively forced into our awareness is what causes us to process the dehumanization of his character or binary categorization of good/bad.
I hope this example isn't misperceived in bad taste, but I was reminded how many people I know who rationalized police interventions against their problematic video footage (specifically, refusing to believe Eric Garner's death as wrongful) because the videos were "incomplete" (not covering every angle of omnipotent ground) or there were some arguable elisions, but the video of George Floyd's death convinced all the normal deniers I know because it was so completely captured and inarguable in its objectivity. The fact that we need something to be produced to snap us from the fog of comfort and doubt and demand action is itself a problematic device, and so the videotape evidence both elicits our extreme reaction, and Cassie's, but also- for me- brings up... well, what about all the shit I, you, or others have maybe been passive to that wasn't videotaped? Does that make it less extreme, if we and Bo Burnham all equally forgot these things happened? Is the variable that we have become forcibly conscious to compelling us to anxiously assess his character's worth in binary terms? Obviously it's important to have evidence, but I think the presence of lucid exhibits that deprive us of complacency are related to the outcome of our judgments in a really uncomfortable way- much like how Connie Britton only begins to care when she is also shaken from her safe bubble.
I don't have any examples from my personal life, and this is hypothetical- which I 'get' makes this perhaps moot. But I also think that in the omissions of our consciousness lies toned-down examples, but maybe not less-impactful to some Nina's life, of on-the-fence bystander complicity, that could be seen as such in some Cassie's eyes, and I shudder to think of how my privilege (as well as drug/alcohol use) could place me in a similar position as Burnham- partly because of egocentric reasons as he identifies in his actions, and partly because of how hard it is to think about contributing to another's harm. I won't beat myself up for non-evidence, but that character reveal and this conversation gets me thinking in a way that I think the film is intending.
I hope this example isn't misperceived in bad taste, but I was reminded how many people I know who rationalized police interventions against their problematic video footage (specifically, refusing to believe Eric Garner's death as wrongful) because the videos were "incomplete" (not covering every angle of omnipotent ground) or there were some arguable elisions, but the video of George Floyd's death convinced all the normal deniers I know because it was so completely captured and inarguable in its objectivity. The fact that we need something to be produced to snap us from the fog of comfort and doubt and demand action is itself a problematic device, and so the videotape evidence both elicits our extreme reaction, and Cassie's, but also- for me- brings up... well, what about all the shit I, you, or others have maybe been passive to that wasn't videotaped? Does that make it less extreme, if we and Bo Burnham all equally forgot these things happened? Is the variable that we have become forcibly conscious to compelling us to anxiously assess his character's worth in binary terms? Obviously it's important to have evidence, but I think the presence of lucid exhibits that deprive us of complacency are related to the outcome of our judgments in a really uncomfortable way- much like how Connie Britton only begins to care when she is also shaken from her safe bubble.
I don't have any examples from my personal life, and this is hypothetical- which I 'get' makes this perhaps moot. But I also think that in the omissions of our consciousness lies toned-down examples, but maybe not less-impactful to some Nina's life, of on-the-fence bystander complicity, that could be seen as such in some Cassie's eyes, and I shudder to think of how my privilege (as well as drug/alcohol use) could place me in a similar position as Burnham- partly because of egocentric reasons as he identifies in his actions, and partly because of how hard it is to think about contributing to another's harm. I won't beat myself up for non-evidence, but that character reveal and this conversation gets me thinking in a way that I think the film is intending.