Film 301/319: American Science Fiction Film

Image #1: Fredersen, Rotwang and robot Maria/Hel (Metropolis, 1926)

As seen in Metropolis, Forbidden Planet, and The Stepford Wives, fears of the technological are often expressed as an anxiety surrounding gender identity and sexual difference. Referring to our class screenings and reading assignments, answer the following:

According to J.P. Telotte ("The Seductive Text of Metropolis") what is the film's paradoxical relation to technology, both presented in the film as spectacle (the futuristic city, the robot), and used to create the spectacle (cinema)? How is this paradox represented in the robot Maria/Hel? For Telotte, why is the film's ending an insufficient resolution to the anxieties raised by the film?

For Mary Ann Doane in her essay, "Technophilia: Technology, Representation and the Feminine," how does the robot Maria/Hel (referred to as "machine-man") embody both the allure and potential danger associated with technological advance? How does the film resolve the "unnatural" desire on the part of the male inventor (Rotwang in this instance) to reproduce, or to appropriate the maternal function?

What does the gender conformity represented by the transformation of the Stepford wives suggest about attitudes towards technology in the second half of the 20th century?

This week, we looked at Lynn Randolph's Cyborg as a model for interactions among "cosmos, animal, human, machine, and landscape."* We also discussed how we are in many ways, "cyborgs", exemplified in Stelarc's performance art, but also in our daily interactions with technology. Referring to J.P. Telotte's "Trajectory of the Science Fiction Film" and our screening of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times (1936), compare the two different visions of human/machine interaction embodied in the film and painting. In particular, what transformations does the human body undergo and how does its response (for instance, the tramp's acquisition of speech) reflect a particular attitude towards technological advances as a sign of progress? What is the role of nature or the natural environment in both representations?

*Donna Haraway, From The Promise of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others.