Editing Rear Window (section)

=== Voyeurism ===
John Fawell notes in Dennis Perry's book ''Hitchcock and Poe: The Legacy of Delight and Terror'' that Hitchcock "recognized that the darkest aspect of voyeurism ... is our desire for awful things to happen to people ... to make ourselves feel better, and to relieve ourselves of the burden of examining our own lives."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Hitchcock and Poe: the Legacy of Delight and Terror|last=Perry|first=Dennis|publisher=The Scarecrow Press, Inc.|year=2003|isbn=978-0-8108-4822-1|location=Maryland|pages=135–153}}</ref> Hitchcock challenges the audience, forcing them to peer through his rear window and become exposed to, as Donald Spoto calls it in his 1976 book ''The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures'', the "social contagion" of acting as voyeur.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures|url=https://archive.org/details/artofalfredhitch00spot|url-access=limited|last=Spoto|first=Donald|publisher=Doubleday & Company, Inc.|year=1976|isbn=978-0-385-41813-3|location=Garden City, N.Y.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/artofalfredhitch00spot/page/237 237]–249}}</ref>

In his book ''Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window"'', [[John Belton (academic)|John Belton]] further addresses the underlying issues of voyeurism which he asserts are evident in the film. He says "''Rear Window's'' story is 'about' spectacle; it explores the fascination with looking and the attraction of that which is being looked at."<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Belton |editor1-first=John |last1=Belton |first1=John |author1-link=John Belton (academic) |title=Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' |chapter=Introduction: Spectacle and Narrative |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2002 |page=1 |oclc=40675056 |isbn=978-0-521-56423-6 }}</ref>

In an explicit example of a condemnation of voyeurism, Stella expresses her outrage at Jeffries' voyeuristic habits, saying, "In the old days, they'd put your eyes out with a red hot poker" and "What people ought to do is get outside and look in for a change."

With further analysis, Jeff's positive evolution understandably would be impossible without voyeurism—or as Robin Wood puts it in his 1989 book ''Hitchcock's Films Revisited'', "the indulging of morbid curiosity and the consequences of that indulgence."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Hitchcock's Films Revisited|url=https://archive.org/details/hitchcocksfilmsr0000wood|url-access=registration|last=Wood|first=Robin|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|year=1989|isbn=978-0-231-12695-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/hitchcocksfilmsr0000wood/page/100 100]–107}}</ref>