irector put his audiences in: a watcher who sees (or thinks he sees) what he is powerless to stop" (2000, n. p.).
L. B. "Jeff" Jeffries (James Stewart) is a professional photographer, otherwise known as a professional voyeur, who travels around the world using his camera to document adventures that happen in exotic places. In his last adventure, however, he broke his leg while getting his action shot at an auto race. He is a week away from getting his cast removed and returning to work by the opening scene of the movie. Jeff is so bored, confined to a wheelchair his New York apartment and only two visitors that he warns that he going to do something "drastic". He amuses himself by watching the neighbors through the rear window of his apartment. He even has pet names for the people he's watching, much like people do when they have a favorite show. His nurse, Stella (Thelma Ritter), is worried about his compulsion to spy on his neighbors, letting him know that the New York penalty for Peeping Toms is six months, commenting that, "we've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change". In using this line at the very beginning, Hitchcock is using the dialogue to comment on voyeurism, the need to look. He is not judging that n
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