Pulp Reviews | Sci-Fi and Post-Human Femininity in Ex Machina and Annihilation
Do Ex Machina and Annihilation champion female liberation or reflect society’s shortcomings when it comes to gender representation?
Nicolette Petra investigates.
There is something to be said about the portrayal of the posthuman and postfeminine in modern cinema. On one hand, the #MeToo movement has seen tectonic shifts where the rights of female actors are concerned; female representation is the highest it’s been in twelve years, with 40 of the top 100 grossing movies of 2018 being female-led or co-led, meaning studios are increasingly backing more female-led films (Dry, 2019); and female characters are being written as more complex, relatable and human than ever before, breaking free of antiquated typecasts. Yet, filmmakers and critics of science-fiction thrillers continue to find difficulty in discerning whether female characters in this genre have inherited this humanity or remain stuck in the claws of the archaic alien or ‘other’ stereotype. Alex Garland’s speculative and hyperreal (Bronsky, 2019, Abstract) sci-fi films Ex Machina (2014) and Annihilation (2018) are highly divisive, being both acclaimed and criticised for this exact reason. Keeping in mind ‘the boundary between science-fiction and social reality is an optical illusion’ (Haraway in Vint, 2016), I will delve into these respectively cybernetic- and alien-based films, to discover whether the construction of woman in postmodern sci-fi Hollywood is the stuff of feminist dreams or misogynist nightmares (Bronsky, 2019, pp51).
Simply put, posthumanism is ‘the convergence of two opposing forces of reality: humanistic thought and science (Hassan in Bronsky, 2019, pp3).’ It is an amalgam of constant reconstruction (Hayles, 1993, pp3). Traditionally, where sci-fi films include posthuman females, whether as aliens or cyborgs, they have been depicted as different and, therefore, ‘other’; villainous, terrifying, inhuman. From the computer Mother in Alien to the robot in Metropolis, filmmakers have donned posthuman women with the façade of the monstrous-feminine (Creed, 1993, pp16) or the archaic mother, ‘present in all horror films as the blackness of extinction – death' (Creed, 1993, pp28). Depending on the lens one wears, Ex Machina and Annihilation are no different.
In Ex Machina, the posthuman female takes the form of artificial intelligence (A.I.), or cyborgs, such as Ava and Kyoko. They are manipulative, cunning, and vengeful, seeking to use their sexuality against naïve and unwitting males like Caleb, who falls in love with Ava, and Nathan, their creator. Thus, the film suggests femininity is what makes these posthumans dangerous. The myth of the ‘end of man’ due to the rise of women is perpetuated, reflecting real world fears of ‘an increasingly mechanized and feminized economy, where female workers are rapidly entering jobs and fields that were traditionally male-dominated (Seaman-Grant, 2017, pp45).’
The threat of the feminine is more difficult to spot in Annihilation, but it is undoubtedly present. It arrives in the form of the alien, the Shimmer, rather than the group of literal women. A central concern of sci-fi thrillers is procreation and birth (Creed, pp17), something inherently connected with femininity as the nexus of posthumanity. The Shimmer’s desire to clone itself and mutate with those who enter Area X, represents rebirth through acts of vampirism (Creed, pp17) which pervades and obliterates not only the world but all parts of an individual’s self (Creed, pp30). Hence, the genetic fusion of alien and woman in Annihilation preserves the narrative of the feminine as the feared ‘other’.
Interestingly, the final shots of both films follow through with this myth. In Ex Machina, Ava hides in plain sight in a crowded city. In Annihilation, the Shimmer has leaked into the world through the forever-changed Lena. Both movies leave audiences with the eerie feeling that something inhuman and threatening has been released into the world in the form of woman. However, this is only true when we consider posthumanism from a strictly male gaze.
While Ava is the perfect emulation of woman, being hairless, scentless, bloodless, menstruation-less – all traditional signs of purity' (Bronsky, pp49) – the shot when she covers her robotic innards (Bronsky, pp48) with skin symbolises feminine liberation from the male creator. While Lena is the perfect human woman – a beautiful, well-educated ex-military officer turned university professor who appears deeply loyal and in love with her missing husband – we discover she has entered and become part of the Shimmer in an act of repentance for her infidelity. It is this act of ‘self-destruction’ (Bronsky, pp27) that ultimately results in Lena being able to outwit the alien Shimmer by becoming one with it. Hence, where, Ex Machina may be interpreted as a critique on ‘the way women have been exploited throughout history’ (Bronsky, pp24) with Nathan’s murder and Caleb’s imprisonment symbolising ‘the white, bearded, hyper-masculine male finally [getting] what he deserves’ (Bronsky, pp24), Annihilation represents females owning their imperfect posthuman womanhood.
Yet, both leads are ‘young, thin, white – though ethnically ambiguous’ (Bronsky, pp48) – females, and this is where the current issue with gendered posthuman representation in sci-fi lies. Though this genre has progressed beyond the male gaze and catering to a strictly male viewership by positioning audiences to empathise with rather than villainise posthuman females, there is still a disconnect when it comes to racial representation. Women of colour in both films are not only secondary characters; they are flat and disturbingly disposable. In Ex Machina, Kyoko, Nathan’s subservient and sex-purposed Asian cyborg, becomes increasingly ‘robotic’ where Ava becomes increasingly human. Furthermore, she does not escape at the end of the film as Ava does, despite being the one to deliver the fatal wound to their creator. Hence, the film reflects deeply embedded prejudices that a person’s race determines their representation in post-humanity. Similarly, while Annihilation boasts a highly qualified, five-strong all-female lead cast, only two are women of colour (Hispanic and African American), and both do not reach the climax of the film where two out of the three white women do. What little limelight the women of colour do receive, shows them to be little more than stereotypes with tacked on emotions, sexualities and careers in an attempt to give them depth (Poscic, 2018). As the Shimmer consumes them and they become posthuman, the women of colour become the enemy that the white protagonist must reason with before the film ultimately dispenses them. Thus, both films are unnervingly and problematically narratives of white female empowerment.
Sci-fi thrillers such as these ‘are supposedly futuristic, yet many of them peddle antiquated myths and gender stereotypes.’ However, this is only the case if we look at them with the spectacles of the white male. We must instead aim to see through universal eyes to discern not only who is being represented in sci-fi, and films generally, but whose postfemininity has been liberated and whose remains alien, or worse still, jettisoned.
References
Bronsky, H. (2019) Posthumanism and Science Fiction: The Case of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina and Annihilation. https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/68561/EnglishHonorThesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Creed, B. (1993). Chapter 2 Horror and the Archaic Mother: Alien in The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge.
Dry, J. (12/2/2019) Number of Films With Women Leads Hit Record Highs in 2018. Indie Wire. https://www.indiewire.com/2019/02/movies-with-female-leads-record-high-2018-1202043494/
Hayles N.K. (1999) How we became posthuman – virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature and informatics. University of Chicago Press Chicago and London.
Poscic, A. (28/4/2018). A Shimmer In Their Eyes: On Alex Garland's Annihilation. https://thequietus.com/articles/24438-annihilation-review.
Seaman-Grant, Z.E. (2017) Constructing Womanhood and the Female Cyborg: A Feminist Reading of Ex Machina and Westworld. Bates College.
Vint, S. (24/5/2016) Science Fiction and Posthumanism. Critical Posthumanism: Genealogy of the Posthuman. https://criticalposthumanism.net/science-fiction/.
This essay was written as part of an assessment for ARHT3601: Cinematic Transformations 2019. If you have an essay you would like to submit to Pulp, please email us via pulpusueditors@gmail.com or DM us.