Science fiction, as Samuel R. Delany writes, is a 'significant distortion of the present' (1984, p.177). In an age where our social and political discourse are constructed by the images of the media, from the way we think about issues such as the 9/11 attacks to even those that concern gender; where then do we draw the line between the realities of the present and the fantasies and magic science fiction has manufactured for its viewers (Gamsom, Croteau, Hoynes & Sasson, 1992, p.374)? How can we then apply this to the discussions of gender, especially when the female presence in the media still takes on traditional roles despite today's more progressive gender relations? Science fiction has been instrumental in perpetuating the hegemony of …show more content…
In an age where gender hierarchies have weakened and gender relations have progressed, it is natural that science fiction narratives have also seen heroines in their narratives. Patriarchy, however, in all its depictions, continues to rear its ugly head in these narratives, manifesting in a form of hyper-masculinity that is divorced from sex or gender and embodied by these heroines. In my essay, I argue that the benchmark for heroism, in the context of science fiction, is still inherently male, perpetuating our society's already gender-biased expectations and ideas of power, dominance and leadership. Science fiction heroines may have their visibility heightened on the stage but this does little to further their cause for gender equality and equity. A novel interpretation of hyper-masculinity instead has been imposed onto these characters, creating heroines who are muscular, possess great physical force, dominant and violent, pointing not to a more gender equal display in science fiction but a reinvention of patriarchy in face to changing gender relations of our time, distorting the realities of gender to venerate the male's role as the power-bearer of our time. Through …show more content…
The bag of drugs, CPH4, was forcibly sewn into her abdomen. In captivity, when one of her captors kicks her, the drugs enter her system. She becomes a machine through a process that was purely out of control. The re-masculinization of the machine was brought about by society's acceptance of technology and the benefits it brings. Machinery has helped humans performs tasks they could not before, 'override obstacles' without the complications of emotions, conscience or personal ethics (Varney, 2002, p.159). The weaponization of Lucy as a machine panders to the comfort we take in the wonderful service machines have done for us and the fantasies of the male-machine link. At the end of the movie, when she metamorphoses into the supercomputer, she is dehumanized in the most unconventional manner. Noting that in events that follow her weaponization, she is portrayed as an emotionless piece of technology and later turns into a component of a larger process of containing all knowledge of the universe, we notice the limitations of her 'heroism'. Her performance as the weapon in Lucy mimics those of heroic men in other science fiction narratives. It, however, also perpetuates the idea that roles in science and technology that should be attributed to masculinity and the male-machine link. Lucy's ascension to the heroine of Lucy was the direct result of her weaponization, erasing her emotions, which dehumanized her in every aspect,
With the release of JJ Abrams’ Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens in late 2016 recording a staggering domestic gross of over $936 million (Box Office Mojo 2016), the Star Wars series continues to be one of the biggest pop culture icons of the 21st century. However, for a film targeted towards all ages and demographics, with women making up 52% of all movie goers in North America (Motion Picture Association of America **), there is a startling lack of female representation within the series. Furthermore, with the growing prevalence of media in our daily lives combined with media’s role in the development of beliefs and ideas in its viewers, the messages delivered by mass media texts are partly responsible for the for the
In the first paragraph of Laurie Penny’s essay “What to do when you’re not the hero anymore” she tells the reader how she recently went to see the new Star Wars movie. To her surprise a female character, Rey, fought off a bad guy as an equal. Hollywood has incredible power in how messages are portrayed in books, TV shows, and movies. It is no secret that media representation normalizes the reality of white male power. Penny explores how it is becoming more common to see a women lead in books, movies, and TV shows, rather than the stereotypical male.
A textual example of feminist science fiction is Octavia Octavia Butler’s, Bloodchild, which challenges conventional roles in sexual reproduction. The story is set on an alien planet, where humans have fled in the wake of a dystopian catastrophe on Earth. An alien race known as the Tlic have set up “Preserves” for humans to live, on the condition that each family provides one male to act as a host for the Tlic’s young. T’Gatoi is the matriarchal figure in charge of the Preserve. A young boy named Gan was promised by his mother to fulfill such a role. Gan’s character is parallel to what we consider a woman in our society. Women are typically the bearers of offspring; however, Butler makes a deliberate choice to give males this role. The thought of males in our society being subject to such action is almost unthinkable. Furthermore, the pain of childbirth is not familiar to men. This familiar female experience is mimicked through the painful removal of Tlic grubs from the host males. Butler’s choice to reverse gender roles presents the reader with the opportunity to consider how gender is
There are so many codes of cultural context to learn, social rulebooks to observe and accept norms to understand. It’s flung at us in disjointed bits and pieces, seemingly offhand phrases and at informal moments. Maybe the core stereotyping role we are all passed from birth is based on gender and the norms that surround it, that never leaves our side. Director Siebel Newsom is no newcomer to gender issues. With 2011’s “Miss Representation,” a study of the damaging effects of mainstream media on women and girls, she addressed the frequently accepted underdog gender in an inspirational
With countless inventions throughout the 20th century, audiences had a strong interest in technology and the amazing unpredictable future they present. On the other hand, technology, particularly after society witnessed the effects of WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction) in the World Wars, sparked fear and ethical concerns regarding technological abuse (The Levine Institute 2017). As such, in a society filled with innovative technology like televisions, SF filmmakers have been able to take advantage of these widespread worries and wonders and explore captivating themes in a fictional world free of racial, religious and political boundaries. Both Blade Runner and Lucy play on the concerns of audiences and portray a dysfunctional society dominated by dehumanising consumerism and technology. SF, which is viewed as a male-dominated genre, has also been heavily influenced by gender roles during the Golden Age of Science Fiction (1935-1956); a dry period following the World Wars that saw SF increase in popularity (Dirks 2017; Lilly Library 2010). During this time, females were seen as delicate housewives and were not encouraged to pursue science and maths, thus appearing uneducated in these areas (Coob 2005). Men, however, were strongly seen as science, mathematics and machinery lovers (Brewer 2017). As such, SF became a genre for male readers and male writers,
Men are looked at as brave, selfless people and are perceived as heroes all throughout society. Johnson addresses this point saying, “The idea of heroism, for example, has been appropriated almost entirely by patriarchal manhood. From movies and television to literature to the nightly news, our ideas of who and what is heroic focus almost entirely on men and what they do” (548). Since men have power in this world, they have generated a society that pleases them. Superhero movies are a huge money maker in today’s world. But, the most popular superheroes are exclusively men such as Batman, Superman, Captain America, The Flash and The Hulk. This media only feeds into the ideology that men are the heroes in the world and they are the ones making sacrifices for others. They see a world that appeals to them and do not see a reason to mess with the system. Kilbourne writes, “When power is unequal, when one group is oppressed and discriminated against as a group, when there is a context of systematic and historical oppression, stereotypes and prejudice have different weight and meaning” (499). Men now see patriarchy as natural and how life should be. They can look back at previous generations and see that they succeeded with patriarchy and feel they should do the same. Men see absolutely no reason as to why they should relinquish their position of
Nowadays, women are not just seen as nurses or lovers in war stories. They are soldiers, captains, and lieutenants. Women do not have it anymore easier in war than men do. They are not handed medals or become heroes painlessly. Although O’Brien respects women having stronger souls than credited, he still believes they must earn the characteristic of being a hero
Throughout most of literature and history, the notion of ‘the woman’ has been little more than a caricature of the actual female identity. Most works of literature rely on only a handful of tropes for their female characters and often use women to prop up the male characters: female characters are sacrificed for plot development. It may be that the author actually sacrifices a female character by killing her off, like Mary Shelly did in Frankenstein in order to get Victor Frankenstein to confront the monster he had created, or by reducing a character to just a childish girl who only fulfills a trope, as Oscar Wilde did with Cecily and Gwendolen in The Importance of Being Earnest. Using female characters in order to further the male characters’
In Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano” the theme of machine versus man is a major subject matter. In this novel, the machines force man to give up their individuality to be categorized as an engineer or manager. Vonnegut tries to give men back their power without having to depend on machines. Machines have replaced men to the point where they feel that their self-worth and value in life is no longer important. One of the main characters in this novel is a prime example of machine dependency.
Margaret Cavendish’s Blazing World qualifies as both a precursor to science fiction and an exploration of utopian literature. Cavendish redefines customary representations of women through challenging the boundaries of gender whilst eradicating conventions of the genre. In her essay Gender, Genre, and the Utopian Body, author Marina Leslie suggests that Cavendish realigns three of the dominant modes of discourse which are employed in the representation of women in literature; misogynistic narratives of women-on-top, literary conventions of romance and finally the evolving textual practices of philosophy.
Many women characters appear in fiction who have been damaged by or disintegrate under the stresses of life. Just as in life, however, many fictional characters survive, adapt, and triumph; these characters may never be recognized within a larger world, but they are vitally important to other characters and are the objects of deep love and respect. Creating this woman in fiction can often be difficult, because the writer must present a whole character, not one trivialized by sentimentality or stereotyped by convention. Willa Cather in My Antonia and O.E. Rolvaag in Giants in the Earth have developed such characters.
She discusses science and the creation of cyborgs, for example, biology teaches us that a Cyborg is the combination of human and machine, many examples of this can be found in the medical field by the use of prosthetic limbs. Contemporary science fiction is full of cyborgs - creatures simultaneously animal and machine, which populate worlds ambiguously natural and crafted. Haraway uses the metaphor of cyborg identity to describe ways that things considered natural, like human bodies, are not natural but are constructed by our ideas about them. This is particular related to feminism, since women are often discussed or treated in ways that reduce them to bodies. The concept of the cyborg is a rejection of rigid boundaries, notably those separating "human" from "animal" and "human" from "machine." Cyborg theory contends that technology comprises material extensions of the material human body.
This advocacy Wells was among continued strong in the decades to come and sparked the Women’s Rights Movement leading up to the day that the 19th amendment was passed, allowing women the right to vote. Besides, Wells discovered his writing style similar to the process of dreaming and with other themes now woven into the fundamentals of modern science fiction. Not only did he create a new genre from his themes prevalent throughout his novels, he influenced literature profoundly as he boosted science fiction’s popularity after his first science fiction novel release. Consequently, H.G. Wells successfully disrupted the Victorian era by advocating for sexual freedoms and women’s rights, and by inventing science fiction writing many successful, influential novels. His successful disruption of the Victorian era concludes he followed the path of most resistance in his era and could be considered a “winner” analogous to his quote once said: “The path of least resistance, is the path of the loser.”
In the early days of science fiction literature, women authors were at the forefront of the genre. In the article “Science Fiction Finds a New Muse: Feminism,” David Levesley argues that there is a distinct difference between science fiction television and science fiction literature, also known as “fantastical literature”: “While sci-fi TV that bases its lore on feminist ideas and gender studies is still developing, it has long been the case for fantastical literature.” Deven Maloney echoes this sentiment in the article “The Most Feminist Moments in Scifi History.” Maloney cites two novels by women authors that embody the spirit of early science fiction literature: Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, and Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Both
Haraway defines the cyborg as "a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction" (CM, 149). Her argument is introduced as "an effort to build an ironic political myth faithful to feminism, socialism, and materialism" (CM, 149). She claims blasphemy and irony as her vantage tools. Blasphemy invokes the seriousness of the stance she adopts, as well as her distancing from the moral majority without breaking with the idea of community and connectivity, and "irony is about contradictions that do not resolve into larger wholes, even dialectically, about the tension of holding incompatible things together because both or all are necessary and true […]. It is also a rhetorical strategy and a political method" (CM, 149). Thus, she posits the embracing of difference and partiality as a different perspective on identity, while the "Manifesto" of the title evokes notions of political commitment and avant-garde activism, alongside with historical reverberations of Futurists’ acclamations to the new machine-age.