Essentially, this movie reveals that bodies do not define our identities, but rather, and perhaps more pernisciously, the recognition of our bodies determines our selfhood. She comments, The Gaze, as concept, and as camera operates by focus. The camera is an instrument of focus, but the computer screen is not. In Mulvey's article , she contends that the very act of looking conveys relations of power and access. Mulvey points out that in narrative cinema, the man looks while the woman, passively, is looked at.
Men are the voyeuristic or fetishistic viewers.
Yet, Case wants to distinguish the movie screen, from the computer screen. The Net incorporates both. We, as spectators, are positioned to view Bullock's body as an object and the technology which breaks down that objectification serves to erase Bullock's personhood as well. Finally, unlike Johnny Mnemonic , Strange Days , and Virtuosity , The Net takes place in present time. Because the plot could occur today, the movie comment that technology, even in its subversiveness, threatens to erase our identities.