The sci-fi genre has been used by filmmakers to comment on different circumstances to inhabit, lifestyles to live, and struggles to face in society; Through imaginative and innovative special effects, these films help reframe and challenge gender in these films.
Beyond the Body: Fluid Gender and Anti-binary
The modification of the human body is a familiar sci-fi plot. Whether it’s mechanical prosthetics or superhuman evolution, characters reveal traits that break the stereotypes and discuss gender fluidity.
In Ghost in the Shell (1995), Major Motoko Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka) is a cyborg primarily made from mechanical prosthetics with distinctly feminine features. Of her squad, which consists of her and two men, she is the most modified and capable.
With its grandiose soundtrack, the film demonstrates the ‘manufacturing’ of Major Motoko Kusanagi at the beginning of this cyber tale.
The film’s villain, Puppet Master (Iemasa Kayumi), has a feminine body with a masculine voice. Befitting the name, Puppet Master can invade others’ ghosts via their electric minds and control them. Eventually, he enters the Mokto’s body, and they evolve into one being.
Ghost in the Shell blurs gender, with cyborgs and robots acting as fluid bodies with shifting identities and perfect functions. Only a part of Major’s brain comes from the previous self. The piece of human left makes her wonder whether she is a person and question what makes a human being.
While Major Motoko Kusanagi is asking who we are, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) from Lucy (2014) shouts out the question of where we come from and where we are going.
After accidentally absorbing brain-enhancing drugs, Lucy gains the ability to be who she wants, where she wants, and in any form she wants. Lucy’s consciousness eventually transcends her physical body. She can change her appearance on a whim, and biological features are no longer a limitation for her.
AI and Consciousness: Sexing the Androids
Artificial intelligence and its relationship with humans are another pivotal way sci-fi interrogates gender. Some films are guilty of reinforcing gender stereotypes through the way gender is adopted for AI. Fighter types are given male features, like with The Terminator and RoboCop, while AI providing emotional labour are portrayed as females with characters like Joi (Ana de Armas) from Blade Runner 2049. By sexing the androids, we get a good microcosm of existing societal gender problems and norms.
A film that directly confronts these ideas is Her, Spike Jonze’s tale of a man falling in love with a Siri-like AI on his phone. Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix), a letter writer dealing with the aftermath of a divorce, falls in love with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), the operating system on his phone. Through their relationship, his loneliness is healed, and excitement is brought back into his life. Johansson’s vocal performance perfectly captures a fast-absorbing AI without flaw.
Samantha and the Operating Systems of Her are lovers and friends, able to help people with their carefulness and humour. Theodre’s colleagues describe him as having an inner female because of his ability to write letters. This further examines and confronts gender codes, with the film seeing conventional feminine traits as features rather than things restricted to specific genders or species.
Ex, Machina follows a more demanding approach. Ava (Alicia Vikander), a humanoid robot, has been created with a female body and awareness. Within the process of testing her, the film dives into the ethics of developing gendered AI and the power relations involved.
Behind the metaphor of gender inequality, female robots stand for the status of women in reality. They’re objects of desire or tools for goals under the patriarchal system. They are denied the willingness of women. Ava’s story is a mirror reflecting the real-world themes of great escape for independence and liberty for women.
Feminine androids are reflective of Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, with gender rules being similar to programmes for AI. They are things we act, rather than defining what we are.
Science fiction is, of course, about the reflection of our present through hypothesising our future. Underneath the metallic sheen, it asks what the core of humanity is and disputes our perceived norms. The ability to confront gender in these films challenges us and makes us reconsider what we define as feminine, masculine, the in-between, or what exists beyond the binary.
