Ohhhh gotcha. lol, I forgot we were talking about that too.
I mean....sort of? It tackles the concepts, you're right - but I feel that it does a very mediocre job of it. I feel the complete opposite actually, I think Black Mirror does a better job of it (depending on the episode.) Both Ex Machina and Her were unidimensional characterizations masquerading as a complex critique in the vein of Haraway. However, if you break down the concept of the movies, it completely loses the core meaning of anything Haraway describes. Just because the women/machines "win" at the end, in some sort of abstract way, doesn't mean that they ever had autonomy to begin with. The movies make the males complex, emotional, three dimensional. The women/machines are omnipresent, but have no defining characteristics other than a vague femininity. In the case of Ex Machina, this was sort of addressed in the "oh hey we're sexy robots on a rampage" - but what does that really say other than "oh look, men create women to look a certain way because male gaze, durrr." Like, no shit, Sherlock. Haven't we gone over this since The Jetsons or something? The critique, as developed in the films, ceased to be relevant or useful decades ago. We can absolutely tackle the meaning of machines and femininity, or even machines and class, and I am sure we will continue to do so, but could we stop pretending each Blade Runner redo is revolutionary?
This is why I go back to 2001 being the best conception of AI, male or female persona aside. That truly tackled alternate intelligence in an informed, enlightened, and autonomous perspective. The creator of the machine trope was absent completely from the story (other than "man creates machine," in a very very very abstract sense.) We seriously don't need anymore Frankenstein-esque narratives about androids, we really don't. It's enough! we know! Machine has daddy/mommy issues! boring!
Bookmarks