Author's Warning: I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, in
places.
'There's a very long history of sexy, pneumatic,
hydraulic women in science fiction.' --Russell T. Davies, "Torchwood
Declassified".
Let's
face it, science fiction has a history of being sexist. It's been said a lot recently and while it's
possible that robotic women are used to objectify the human female form,
sometimes it is more about the question of history. Robotic form fascinates us; it is the same
but different. A perfect robotic woman
would be woman-like without all the icky human foibles and flaws. Humanity seeks progress and perfection, often
at the same time. The more human the
gynoid looks, the better we like and/or fear it.
We
ask ourselves about the ghost in the machine, about what lays between head and
hands in a being that has no heart. Can
a woman without a heart be a woman? If
not, is that why it's okay to objectify her?
Is it okay? If the robot is a
woman, does that mean she has a soul?
Pretty
philosophical questions.
We'd
all like to say that it's because science fiction is a male-dominated genre
that it is relatively slow to change and, historically speaking, often contains
examples of what sweaty-palmed boys everywhere have found attractive and
desirable in the arenas of sex and violence.
Sure, okay, that's true. To some
extent. But it's only part of the bigger
picture of where science fiction comes from.
Modern science fiction seems to be the weird Scylla-like hybrid of at
least two disparate parents; combinations of science-based fiction, adventure,
paranormal, and fantasy are just a few of them.
The
female automaton has her true antecedents in antiquity's mythos. As James Strong, the director of Torchwood's
first series episode "Cyberwoman" has said, she is an iconic
image. She might be the fodder of a
teenage boy's wall posters now, but that was not always the case.
Pandora
was a woman created of inanimate materials by a vengeful god and meant to be
alluring and perfect. Pygmalion's
Galatea was carved as an expression of devotion to perfection in
womanhood. You can call the Frankenstein
monster's bride a sister here. By the
definition of 'created', this also includes Eve of the Abrahamic tradition, as
the woman who serves as a bespoke helpmeet.
The
gynoid or cyborg woman features in many literary works going back to the early
19th century with the robot character Olimpia from the German short story
"Der Sandmann" by E. T. A. Hoffman (1816). She was delightfully silent, being capable of
saying only 'Ah, ah' in response to all conversation directed at
her. She danced beautifully and was
lovely to see and was completely empty-minded, the ideal woman for a gentleman
of the times. Perfect, obedient, silent
and beautiful.
Another
literary example can be seen with the android named Andreide from the 1886
novel L'Eve future by Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.
And
we won't even go into Isaac Asimov. That's a different conversation altogether.
The
earliest movie with a female robot character was the German film Metropolis
(1927), a socialist story concerning the struggle between the working class and
their upper-class overseers, those who own the means of production. Maria seems perfect and beautiful and all
things that an intelligent but idealized woman should be. Better yet, she has a reputation among the
workers as a revolutionary. For much of
the story, Maria is, in fact, a created model used to discredit the real woman
whom she is made to mimic. The android
urges the workers of the undercity to rebel against their 'masters' and the
machines, following her programming to mimic the real Maria. She leads the revolution which then turns
against her. She dies, burned at the
stake, fire providing the revelation of her true identity as an automaton.
Robot
women, in many cases, are portrayed as subservient and sexually perfect
facsimiles, but the modern movies and television shows in which they are
embedded are, in some important cases, social commentary or deliberately
tongue-in-cheek forms of sexism. Often
the message is missed because of how easy on the eyes a female android or
cyborg is.
In
1975, the film The Stepford Wives revealed a satirical version of the
Cult of Domesticity lifestyle. It
features suburban middle-class men who have replaced their wives with
submissive and docile gynoid twins who could and would be all that their
husbands desired. This gender conflict
story comes from the 1972 novel of the same name, penned by Ira Levin; the film
was remade in 2004 but has been stripped of its real meanings, its feminist
message lost.
On
Star Trek: Voyager, we see a Borg female named Seven of Nine who becomes
a sex symbol. This is not the first time
a Borg female has appeared on Star Trek as a source of sexual
interest. In the Next Generation
movie, First Contact, the cyborg species is revealed to be a collective
hive mind with a semi-independent Queen at the center.
On
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there is April and the Buffy-bot, both gynoids
created as objects of sexual gratification.
Joss Whedon seems to have been pointing out the very obvious about nerd
men in their early twenties and what they might do if given the skills and
knowledge to create android lifeforms.
Of course they'll create a robot that is the perfect girlfriend. What else would they do?
In
the movie AI (Artificial Intelligence, 2001), there is Rouge City
where robot lovers can be procured with ease; Joe and Jane are two android
characters who work as prostitutes with meters embedded in their flesh and the
ability to change certain aspects of their appearance with little more than the
twitch of a finger or a shake of their head.
We only see Jane for a moment, but there's no mistaking that she is a
sexbot and probably turning tricks in much the same fashion as Joe, who can
even play appropriate music for his clients.
And
then, with Blade Runner (1982), there are Pris the sexbot, Zhora the
assassin-bot, and Rachael who believes that she is truly human. They represent three views of a female
spectrum in culture and behavior and yet, being replicants, are all subject to
the same laws of existence. They only
live for a handful of years. Relatively
speaking, Rachael's lifespan is going to be just as short as the other
replicants', no matter how different she might be.
The
difference in how they are treated by the protagonist, Deckard, is telling; the
class-driven sexism is hard to miss.
Intelligent and classy Rachael has been implanted with false memories
and behaves like a human, appears to be in a socially-secure position. Deckard falls in love with her. Less intelligent Pris is very punk, a product
of deliberate dystopia who is desperate to survive; Deckard kills her. Also given average intelligence and working
as an exotic dancer to hide among the humans on Earth, the extremely dangerous
but sexually intriguing Zhora is shot in the back and 'retired'.
T-X
in Terminator 3, Cameron from Sarah Connor Chronicles, the
fembots of Austin Powers, the classically-named Galatea in Bicentennial
Man...the list of hot robot females goes on and on and on, both in literary
and televisual formats, and while many of them are unique in their own ways,
most are sexualized to make them potent to the human imagination. Many are also less intelligent than their
human creators, easily manipulated.
What
does this have to do with Ianto Jones?
Ianto hid a buxom, half-converted Cyberwoman in the Hub's
sub-levels. He is, when he leans in to
tenderly kiss Cyber-Lisa, representative of every science fiction writer who
ever lifted pen to describe a sexually attractive female whose body was
enhanced or even wholly created by metal and whose mind could (potentially) be
manipulated by her creator.
Ianto
isn't overwhelmed by the cybernetic changes to Lisa's body; he's had time to
get accustomed to the differences. He
was brave enough to pull his girlfriend out of a conversion unit in the first
place and move her (and the unit) to Cardiff from London. He seems capable of seeing the remains of a
strong human woman under the metal and cyborg enhancements, even if Ms.
Hallett's human heart doesn't really exist anymore.
In
this way, Ianto is brother to Mister Universe in the Joss Whedon movie, Serenity
(2005), the reclusive techno-geek hacker who marries a gynoid named
Lenore. He might even be comparable to
Gary and Wyatt from the John Hughes cult classic, Weird Science (1985),
who create a perfect woman (another Lisa!) to ease their hopeless need for
female companionship in the face of being bullied outcasts.
But. There is a big difference between Ianto Jones
and those other lads.
Ianto
doesn't want Lisa to be perfect or cyborg or even obedient; he wants his
girlfriend back, fully human once again.
In this way, he is similar to the vampire Spike, on Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, who decides he's not happy with his Buffy-bot because he prefers
the snarky human woman whose mission in life is to kill vampires and demons,
making her his natural enemy.
Ianto
Jones isn't trying to save a subservient girlfriend or create an ideal
woman. For our favorite tea boy, Lisa
represents those things which he lost at the Battle of Canary Wharf. She is a friend and lover who needs
healing. We suffer with Ianto as the
last shreds of his innocence are lost in the moments before her final death,
when he realizes that Jack is right: there is no coming back from a
Cyber-conversion, even an unfinished one.
I
did the Hawkeye test on the idea of Cyberwoman.
The
Hawkeye test is part of the Hawkeye Initiative, designed to draw attention to
how hypersexualized and unrealistic female superheroes and protagonists appear
in the cover art of books, graphic novels, magazines, and comics. The idea is to replace the female with a male
dressed in similar costume and in similar pose.
If the male looks ridiculous, then the art is considered sexist.
I
imagined a hunky naked male in incomplete cyborg armor, half-converted to a
Cyberman, and decided that, yes, it is sexism, but only in the way that eye
candy of any kind is sexist. If the
roles were reversed, with Lisa Hallett joining the Cardiff team in order to
save a half-converted Ianto Jones, the reaction may have been just as sensually
provocative. Make your half-converted
Cyberman from a handsome man and the results would not change; the horror of a
Cyberman is intensified by its newfound hybrid look. It is no less sexist but calls into question
whether the episode could have been used as the show's selling point. Could Russell T. Davies have sold 'Torchwood'
with the idea of a Cyberman who was a half-naked male?
Either
way, the show would have stood out with this unique take on the classic Doctor
Who alien hell-bent on upgrading every living creature they encounter. But, sci-fi is always seen as much more exciting
when there's sex added to the story and between the two, a half-converted
Cyberwoman gets far more wolf whistles than her counterpart, the half-converted
Cyberman.
I
suppose the producers could have sold the show's premise with the suggestion of
a voluptuously three-breasted green alien assassin sent to find and kill Jack
Harkness for crimes against another planet's sexual conduct laws.
You know...one of those times when he didn't go back to
apologize.
Photo source: BBC Torchwood
Google images
No comments:
Post a Comment