In an attempt to archive some academic papers I've written over the past few years (relying on the hard drives of sometimes faulty PCs has left me tired and frustrated), I will be uploading some of my old work to this blog over the next few weeks. Here is one I wrote for a "Robots As Media" class I took in the Spring 0f 2011.
Throughout today's mainstream movie culture, the science-fiction film is seen as a genre more in tune with state of the art special effects and explosions than with deep characterizations and intricate plot structures. Polemically speaking, today's oeuvre struggles for purpose. When sleek, shiny robots are thrust into the proceedings, the androids' inclusion has more to do with spectacle than substance. For an example of this, one mustn't look any further than Michael Bay's big budget, toy tie-in Transformers series, based on the 1980s cartoon program of the same name. The Transformers films have been widely popular (and critically panned) for being fast paced, expensive, and loud – rooted in nostalgia for many, the fan-base is unsurprisingly male-dominated. With Steven Spielberg serving as a producer, director Bay has had the flashiest filmmaking tools at his disposal, continuing his narrative about robots displaced on Earth, some to protect the human race and others to harm it, and the young man caught in between. It is perhaps very telling that all of the Transformers are males (in terms of gender and, in some cases, anatomy), and that our protagonist's beautifully dolled up girlfriend is meant to be nothing more than eye candy for the fantasizing men in the audience. In the world of Transformers, the women are merely bystanders. Two films from the 1980s, James Cameron's The Terminator and John Badham's Short Circuit, depict women as more integral and yet still not completely in control of their fates when confronted by robotic forces. Although older than Megan Fox's character in Transformers, the heroines in these two films (Sarah Connor in The Terminator and Stephanie in Short Circuit) are single women looking for the right partner to share their lives with. Sarah is at first shy and meek, disappointed by all of the men that cancel on her at the last minute; Cameron even gives her a sex-crazy best friend to bring out Sarah's difficulty at being assertive. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Stephanie, an animal lover who has to constantly deal with a possessive ex-boyfriend, one violently persistent at getting what he wants. She is not safe living on her own.
The two films introduce us to these romantically-oppressed women as in need of a masculine presence, and by the time the end credits roll both women will have obtained it, for a little while at the very least. One (Sarah) will even bear a child. What makes the directors freeze up when faced with the idea of two independent women? Why can't our lead women go throughout their respective films without being laced into a sexual partnership? The directors sadly make it so that their fates require it – damsels in distress always need a male figure to jump in and save the day – and quite literally so in The Terminator's case.
Sarah's relationship with Reese is predetermined by the futuristic set-up. While it is true that he must travel in time to 1984 to stop the title character from assassinating Sarah, Reese is also coming to impregnate her. He must form a bond with Sarah, telling her stories about how her son gave him a photograph (of Sarah's face) that Reese cherished. They will hide out in a hotel room, flirt with one another, and eventually make love. This is how things must play out. Sarah's destiny, unbeknownst to her, is to be a mother. Mankind will ultimately view her as an important figure thanks to her ovaries, and it's a male figure, John Connor, who is viewed as the true hero in the battle of man versus machine. Not taking the later sequels into account, Sarah is a successful woman because of her willingness to be protected (it is only in the film's epilogue that we see Sarah, already a few months pregnant and bound to her deceased lover, empowered and willing to protect her body; chalk it up to maternal instincts).
Short Circuit is a film that tries to have it both ways, portraying a woman that incorporates both the “mother” and “lover” female gender roles for the gain of our friendly animatronic hero. For multiple scenes, the viewer observes a budding sexual chemistry between the aptly named Number 5 and Stephanie. The curious robot (programmed with a male's voice and quite fond of manly John Wayne dialogue he memorized after an all-day television binge) at one point walks in on Stephanie washing her nude self in the bathtub. The director lets us know that Number 5 likes what he sees; he refers to Stephanie's breasts as “nice software”. Another scene features the robot courting his lady by partaking in a romantic dance to the tune of the Bee Gees hit song, “More Than A Woman”. And although strictly a family film through and through, Short Circuit implies that Number 5's personal characteristics make up the man Stephanie truly wants to be with. He protects her from imposing male figures with his strength, and she gives him a home and an education. Since the 1986 moviegoing audience probably didn't want to deal with robot-on-human sex in a big summer film, Badham has the nerdy inventor character (played by Steve Guttenberg) woo Stephanie in the end. Forced to go into hiding, the two human characters become the guardians of the rambunctious robot, and the ending feels like a cut-and-paste, dramatic cop-out.
In her essay “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century ”, Donna Haraway writes, “Among the many transformations of reproductive situations is the medical one, where women's bodies have boundaries newly permeable to both 'visualization' and 'intervention'. Of course, who controls the interpretation of bodily boundaries in medical hermeneubcs is a major feminist issue. The speculum served as an icon of women's claiming their bodies in the 1970s.” The female characters in The Terminator and Short Circuit are defined by society's expectations of their sex. If they are threatened by an old boyfriend (Short Circuit) or a sexless robot with a muscle builder's body (The Terminator), they will look towards a male for help. Reese is good with firearms and homemade bombs, while Number Five is a highly advanced military unit; the fact that Stephanie and Number Five do not become romantically involved is as much a social issue as it is a narrative one. The women are written as smart and open, but their films make them reliant on someone else, and for some odd reason, it always seems to come in the form of the opposite sex.
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