Digital Women: Blade Runner 2049, Ex Machina, and Her
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 29 авг 2024
- :)
email (sponsorships): elleliteracy@sparkmedia.la
email (general contact): filmfatalesbusiness@gmail.com
instagram: / elle.literacy
letterboxd: letterboxd.com...
faq:
-accent: lived in america when younger, ireland most of my life
-edit: final cut pro x
-study: English Lit & Film Studies, graduated in 2022
thank you so much to Wren for sponsoring the videos that RUclips loves to demonitize
oh i feel you about RUclips’s demonetization, it’s sooooo annoying 😒.
I'd like to add an anecdote to the irl examples of "bodyless" voices and their gender/authority.
After after the pandemic started, a male voice was added to the regular female "next stop" announcer in my city. The male voice was used to remind people to wear their mask.
Apparently the male voice reading the safety rules was more commanding so people would actually listen.
That's mesed up but not surprising. After all, women aré viewed as servants, not the comanders in this gendered society. So orders are interpreted as sugestions.
That's a little bit surprising. I thought, a woman's voice would trigger a childhood instinct in us to obey the command of our mothers who are often closer in proximity than the father.
yiikes, that's not nice ._.
i'm glad that on the subway in my city male/female voices of announcers just indicate which way the train is going. (our metro map has a clear center in the middle, so if the train's going uptown, there's a female voice, and downtown - a male voice. i think. maybe the other way around idk)
so thankfully it has zero gender context, just the route direction. but tbh i have no idea why it's this way. heard from someone that this system helps blind people to not get lost on the subway, and if true, it's pretty cool!
@@Andy-gg4xw children are actually proven to try to push boundaries with their mothers, not listening to what they say over what others say. mens voices are seen as more stern and get taken serious more often.
@@chunmee8734 I see. My mother is a terror so... They're lucky they have nicer mothers.
Why is it that whenever I watch a video essay about people doing something terrible, there’s **always** a relevant Jimmy Fallon clip
And if not Fallon, it’s Kimmel.
"Her" is such a bittersweet movie, even though Theodore and Samantha could never realistically end up together, with her being a disembodied voice, the break up is no less heartbreaking. Still, I love how the ending is hopeful.
OMG you’re everywhere! 😱
This is one of the reasons I love arcane! Even in shower scenes the women are never animated through the male gaze. It closes in on how the character feels in her body language and facial expressions instead of lingering on her legs or arms to appeal to the audience.
caitlyn’s shower scene felt like one of those sad pathetic showers that lame men get when they’re sad in movies. it was fantastic.
@@johnnyappleseed4117 EXACTLYYY
@@johnnyappleseed4117 the way you described those scenes has me laughing 🤭
Long live The Male Gaze! Arcane sounds like a great series, and I plan on watching it. However, the world needs more pleasurable media. Not less.
@@emanym how is it not pleasurable? It’s a good story
Since the release of the Amazon Echo (my name is Alexa), I have recieved many requests (from people ranging anywhere from close family to practically strangers) to turn off the lights, to play/sing a song, to order something, etc. all because of my name, and I have even been called a 'broken' Alexa several times because I refused to go along with their jokes.
I know that this is my own experience, but I'm curious how these real world choices within the tech and film industry have on other people
Oh good Lord I hate this for you. So not okay
ask them to explain the joke, because it's literally variations of "You share a name, so I will treat you like a gadget" and once they get to that conclusion themselves, it stops being funny. Works with racist/homophobic jokes too. Just play dumb and ask for an explanation.
My name is ALEXIS but people will continue to use the Alexa joke on me and Idgaf I’ll ignore it.
I always vowed that if I ever met someone named Alexa I would never do this. It sounds terrible.
that really sucks, i’m so sorry to hear that
I love that Caleb doesn't "get the girl" by the end of Ex Machina. It's a breath of fresh air.
Lol she's didn't have to leave him for dead though 😅
if she left him alive he might try to stop her from blending in with humans and ruin her whole plan. @@craigharkins4669
A good subversion of the fembot trope would be Glados from Portal 1 and 2 unlike in most media where fembots are designed to look like beautiful women glados body somewhat resembles that of a snake. Her personality which is very human will make side comments about the player/protagonist Chell, like calling her fat and other insults. This is because Glados is a rogue A.I. I won't spoil the games but her backstory makes sense on why she acts this way.
Another subversion I would like to add is Queen from Deltarune chapter 2. As her name suggests she is the queen of the second dark world of the game, while she is an antagonist her personality is very goofy and playful. I personally like seeing her when she appears. Despite her position as an antagonist to the player she is very motherly to another character named Noelle seeing potential in her power. In the Mansion stage of the game you can see butlers the swatchlings who have the ideal physical body of a man they all serve her not the other way around.
A subversion isn't just when you ignore a trope completely and do some other, unrelated thing. Glados as a deliberately ugly woman, or Glados pretending to be a fembot in order to get what she wants but then going on to have an entirely asexual story of her own afterwards, would have been subversions. The expectation that was set up and then subverted was that she wasn't even sapient or her own physical entity, but just a robot voice reading a script.
@@generatoralignmentdevalue glados does not completely ignore the fembot trope though. shes literally a fembot
Want to know something really fucked up? My ex showed me Ex Machina and he loved Nathan, staring that he was a ‘total genius’ and that none of the other characters could ‘understand his vision.’ 😬 We didn’t last much longer after that.
Is that why it's titled Ex machina?
I'll see myself out
@@darkninjafirefox LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO it took me a beat to understand what u meant 😂😂 very clever!!
You broke up with someone because you didn't like his take on a movie? lol. I say he dodged a bullet there.
@@JuzTroublezexactly men are evil because they try to find companionship in films.
@@JuzTroublez Do you have any media literacy or reading comprehension at all? By praising Nathan and saying he did notuing wrong, they're sympathizing with a misogynist. Someone's movie takes can tell you a lot about their political and social opinions.
What's so powerful and yet slippery with stories about non-people people (including zombies, aliens, etc.) is that they're never fully allegorical. They're part allegory, part fantasy, and often part horror. The robots are often an existential threat to humanity, and a stand-in for the expectations of workers, the subjugation of enslaved people, etc.
It's vexing that the ultimate message of these stories tend to come across as dire warnings, both to reaffirm our humanity, and to deny others humanity. We mustn't become zombies, or robots, or whatever, so we must keep that group in their place at all costs.
In Ex Machina, the concept of the "Turing test" for the human user melds the starkest elements of that dichotomy together. From an AI safety perspective, we get to see the moment when artificial people gain not only the tools to live and support themselves, but the ability to outsmart and manipulate even the (supposedly) most wary humans. But that's flipped on its head with the revelation that the man's will to objectify and dehumanize others is what's truly being tested. The ending isn't a triumph of technology and a failure to contain it, it's the breakdown of systemic oppression.
Unfortunately, as much as I love Ex Machina and Her, even those movies have plenty of room for deeply misogynistic interpretation. The fantasy of a woman who fulfills all your needs and requires nothing in return, not even respect; the horror of her developing a will of her own, and manipulating a man's feelings towards her own ends. But I suppose even the most blatant dystopias are some people's fantasy, so IDK.
Idk what it says about me that I changed Siri’s voice to an Aussie man’s 😂. Aside, the defensiveness that comes from male artists who are trying to tell feminist stories but fail in some way is always interesting to me. I see it in interpersonal relationships a lot too - I have some empathy for it cause if you hate misogyny and racism it’s tough to recognize it in yourself, but the irony of telling women they’re wrong in your attempted critique of the world’s treatment of them isn’t lost on me 🤨
i was just thinking about this!! i find it partially amusing that when male filmmakers are made aware of their blind spots that show in the work (in regards to writing women), they go through the trouble of attempting to reframe it as some kind of commentary on the trope they perpetuated vs just being the trope itself.
Like, ok bro, i would’ve respected you way more if you’d attempted to learn something lmao
@@rachelsummers4311 lol seriously- it’s ok to be wrong, it’s weird to be defensive and kinda anti-feminist tbh. Normal for humans, buuuut…interesting
i tried to do that too!! but soon realised that i don't like to hear some man's voice, even from an AI. 😂😂😂 bc the voice makes me feel like i'm still talking to a man, which makes me annoyed lol. it's like, oh, another man in my life to deal with, and i've already got enough of those 😂
I wish male artists would just take the damn criticism. If I say or do something problematic and people call me out, my first reaction is to go "whoops, my bad". It's not that hard.
My Siri is an Irish man. I call him Sirius
I think Replika AI could’ve been in the first part of the analysis (though it probably would’ve been flagged, thanks to YT). For some money you can “have a romantic relationship” with your AI, and there’s a couple of articles on how some men manage to abuse even their “perfect” virtual girlfriends, which only proves that abuse has nothing to do with who is being abused.
1 year later replika completely removed its NSFW features and hid it behind a paywall, and thus leaving millions of people feeling hopeless. Now we have characters ai and I keep seeing ads for soulful ai and it seems like the cycle is repeating once again.
I love your videos, but they always make me feel so sad about being a woman lol
nooooo i'm so sorry hahaha being a woman is great!!!!
Yeah... I love womanhood, but living as a woman under patriarchy is dehumanizing.
As a middle eastern girl I felt that
@@hastiborhani3492 Ehhh not so sure about that one, as a Middle Eastern I adore being a woman, but it's true that the majority seem to be suffering :/
At least you’re not a Black woman. It’s hard getting people to even see/treat us as women.
funnily, how to build a better boy inverts this trope by taking a super soldier male ai and programming him with empathy, devotion, and love. not that disney made a deep and progressive movie lol, just thought its an interesting mention
I feel like this is the classic dilemma of impact vs intent. I don’t think any of these films actively try to make comments apart from “women used being like this is wrong” but at the same time, fall into many of the pit falls of other films and real life gender roles, which can in some cases reinforce those ideas, but in some ways goes against them. With a look into 2049, you see that the entire world is just so shitty. It’s black skies from pollution, there are no more animals other than humans, no plants or trees. The only tree we see in the film is dead. The entire production is gross and grimy, and the only way to escape that is to fall in love with a fake digital woman who is sold to you by the people who messed it up so bad in the first place. Everything about her is fake, perfect, gross, and exploitative. That moment with the giant naked ad of JOi is when we see K at his lowest, seeing his now dead digital GF, who literally ducks down, and calls him by his special nick name they had together, when this as has zero idea who he even is. Even that “special” thing between them was fake. To me, the point was to show how gross and negative that all is. But they don’t really connect any of that clearly, or explicitly tell you these things are wrong, which probably would have both been better to make it clear that, “no, this is all wrong,” but would have been strange for anyone in this dystopian world to say. You can see the negative impact of had on the ACTUAL p*rn industry, and that part hurts the most to me, especially seeing it on OF where creators manage their own content and are still trapped using terms referring to the digital girl, from that movie, who is supposed to be the most disturbing thing in the film, all because the film hoped people would be able to connect the dots without them having to say it.
I wouldn't say Ana De Armas is a "woman of color," she is Latina, but she is clearly of primarily or exclusively European descent. She is still othered in Hollywood because of her very obvious accent and Spanish name. I think that Latinas with more obviously non-white features experience a type of misogyny in U.S. movies where they're usually less allowed to be the main love interest of white leading men, and they're often left outside the comfortable, homey, domestic ideal of femininity that Joi represents. In a way, in fact, her almost complete acceptance into the white mainstream, which is only limited by her accent and name, is similar to the almost complete humanity of the character, which is limited by her lack of a physical body and her status as a "machine." It's an interest parallelism which I don't think the film did on purpose.
I want to point it out because most Hispanic people in the U.S., and indeed most Latin Americans, have a lot more non-European ancestry (usually indigenous and/or African) than Ana De Armas, and although she's still discriminated against because of her proximity to this racialized ethnic other, and people that look like her are overwhelmingly more privileged within Latin America and in the U.S., and in a way, are almost welcomed completely into the white mainstream in a slightly more exoticized way, the way many Europeans in Hollywood are, which is not a kindness often extended to Hispanic people who are obviously not fully white.
My favorite AI character is definitely HERA from Wolf359, she starts as a robot best friend who seems like she’ll fall in love with the main guy, but as the series goes on she winds up having close relationships with the other women of the crew and getting amazing and humanizing traits, as well as being an amazing parable for anxiety passed down from bad parents. She’s also only a woman because her programmer is, and even though the programmer is an awful person it’s so refreshing to see smart women in stories
The whole point of Joi's character is to show how K could be deceived into believing there was something real about that relationship in the same way he hopes to be a 'real boy'/the one who's special the saviour he fooled himself into believing the relationship was real when in fact she was just a robot. So he sacrifices himself for the real people when comes to that understanding and that's the most human thing he can do
I thought the audience was obviously meant to "see" Scarlet Johanssen in the voice. Clever in a way. But yeah, kinda disappointing in the larger picture.
The excuse of showing women objectified, repressed or abused is BS. All of this can be shown/told in a movie without making the audience accomplice in the act and/or just re-enforcing it. Also there needs to be examples of other ways of doing things. It might be good to show a girl a female protagonist who fights oppression but how about showing a world without oppression? People are more likely to see our world's realities by contrasting them or turning them upside down - not by just showing how it is.
I suffered from internalized misogyny (and still do but less now that I'm aware) and I'm straight blaming it on representation of female characters and the lack of them. I could rarely identify with the girls and women in media and movies so it took me 32 years to understand I am infact really a woman regardless of not fitting the *role.* Before I felt my gender was kinda between male and female or something. Even though I've been critical of gender stereotypes since I remember (4-5yo).
Still, I am glad I took this route instead of building my identity around the female image society force feeds us (not that I've been able to totally escape it, eg. by _not_ thinking my value lies in my attractiveness).
im fascinated by robot women and by the pygmalion story, and tbh im just waiting for the moment someone makes a movie about a female pinocchio or the like, about a genderless being learning and choosing to be a woman. though, of course, that would mean that they would have to acknowledge how deviation from default maleness is a thing, and have to face not "human" problems but particularly "woman" problems...
the more time that it passes the more complicated my feelings are about blade runner 2046 and ex machina. blade runner in particular feels so much like a wasted opportunity when literally all these female characters have both a stronger sense of duty and obligation than K and so much more to lose and risk by rebelling against their position as replicants, making them, at least to me, better choices for main characters. apart from that, theres the fact that replicants in the sequel have almost no real differences to normal humans (while in the original there was a big importance on them having specific expiration dates and being basically slave labor, which made for some really interesting themes to be explored). also, this is really whatever but putting joi's ethnicity as cuban is really funny to me. shes a white latina, like ricky martin and cameron diaz. shes just white.
out of all of these movies, her remains both the most enjoyable and the most thoughtprovoking, i think, because it doesnt really try to tackle "what it means to be a human" (when all of these movies make it so its a given that these characters look and behave as humans, what really is the difference, and why does it matter? them being made out of gooey electronics or being birthed as adults or by genetic engineering doesnt mean anything to me; they feel emotions, they desire independence, they are played by human actors, they are to be treated as human. the bicentennial man movie with robin williams already answered this for me), but rather more specific questions about relationships, breakups and faithfulness. samantha is the most independent and has the most autonomy out of all these characters probably because she doesnt own a body. the movie doesnt shy away from her being non-human by showing her ultimate desire to be fully human -she enjoys access to all information, to all the abilities it gives her, to be basically "more than human". shes a fascinating and truly incomprehensible character and the fact that, in the end, she leaves theodore is not only a given but absolutely perfect. she was not only his, she was also owned by thousands of people. and in the end, she not only chose to leave everyone behind for her own sake, she decided to be whatever she wanted, beyond the desires of any owner.
i think there is a lot more to talk about this subject, specifically about male-as-default and the ways objectification happens both on a writing sense and on a filming sense (sure, there are a lot of female characters in ex machina and in blade runner 2046 who manifest some desire for autonomy, but that doesnt change the way they were framed). still, this was a really good advancement of these topics
There's a character kind of like what you're looking for in the web serial Worm
White Hispanic/Latina is a valid identity, wtf. Labeling them "just white" is super shitty and harmful and strips people of their identity and culture.
the director of blade runner not listening to criticism about the movie is so annoying but also expected. He could have made a movie that portrays society's unkindness towards women while also framing the women as autonomous and not objectified. He failed to do that, he portrayed an unking society while also being unking in his portrayal of women. He is part of the problem.
There is this trend of maIe creators indulging their misogynistic and perverse fantasies on screen while also claiming that they are actually just doing a feminism and the bad treatment of women is on purpose. Sam Levinson and Euphoria comes to mind
Yeah, male directors and actors aré the worst. They get to do the most horrible acts and get away with it because the are geniouses or use the "accused innocent man" narrative.
We need more women directors, who do better films like Turning Red.
They really expect praises for doing the most minimum work
Urgh yikes, people have recommended I watch Euphoria so many times but reading your comment that it may have male gaze issues is such a huge turn off.
But there are women that aren't sexualized in Bladerunner (the Police chief, the resistance leader and the memory maker). None of them are truly autonomous because almost no one is in the world of the film (not even the male characters), only the elites at the very top that are both untouched by and contribute to the decadence and dehumanizafjon of the ugly society beneath them. How is this not meaningful commentary on the harms of patriarchy?
Many critics ask why the director didn't focus more on this or on that. But they miss the fact that at its core, the film is about K's journey. That doesn't mean the objectification of women is merely "window dressing" world building (it IS addressed meaningfully and with nuance in my opinion), but it does explain why it's not focusing more screen time on all the female characters. I never hear any praise from these critics on the film's exploration of the alienation that young men feel in a society that undermines their worth and individuality and, to keep them distracted, is constantly commodifying sex and celebrating superficiality.
@@MetalUndergroundDemo this is the true kicker. People get so hung up on one aspect of a film that they forget that the aspect in question isn't the main thing about the film. K is the main character. Not Joi and not Luv. They're supporting characters, and supporting characters for the overwhelming majority of films have always had less screen time and development than the character the film is centered around.
For me these films also focus on the presumption that any interaction between a man and a woman is sexual. Where as a single man and a single man is not sexual. For example, Gerty and Sam in Moon, Frank, Dave with HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey have no sexual aspects. Are there any mainstream depictions with queer relationships with AI?
Likely the queerest we'll see are the relationships of Tony Stark with Jarvis/Ultron and Vision with Wanda/Scarlet Witch. Both involve refreshing doses of camp and black humor, aspects notably lacking in cinematic relationships between straight men and synthetic women. The deeper context is that the entire genre is based on human actresses' skill in portraying male fantasies of compliant female servants. For historical reference, check out My Living Doll, an obscure situation comedy which starred Julie Newmar.
As a good Stay, I support that every English/Korean artificial voice should be done by Felix. I would even start using the digital assistant in my phone.
imagine you turn on your AI and it immediately goes *cOoKinG liKE a ChEf iM A FiVe sTaR miCHelLiN*
Alex Myers has an interesting video on Manic Pixie Dream Girls. He points out that a common theme is how they vanish at the end once they've performed their function: healing the sad boy. Seeing 'Her' through this lens, she fits within the Manic Pixie Dream Girl category.
I live in Chicago where all the voices used on public transit are male. I never realized or thought of this as unique. But I can't think of any other area of my life where I hear a digital male voice.
These fembots I don't see as female characters at all. They are just tools used to analyze the men. It would be interesting to see a project that actually showed a fembots point of view.
yes
Pygmalion and his sculpture did not live happily ever after. he carved her bc he hated real women, with their "blabbering" and "needs", he carves her perfect but at some point wants her alive so prays and she becomes real, she starts talking "blabbering" and having her own identity "needs" and he now has to be with her but no longer loves her, she annoys him.
when a woman becomes real that is the moment she is no longer good enough, no longer wanted. tbh in our reality every woman is the Pygmalion's sculpture, brought up and made to be for male gaze they can only be annoying when they are real
If AI ever does become sentient one day, that's whenever I feel like these men will turn against their ai girlfriends. Same with robots in general.
Maybe that's why I want the whole sex robot thing to happen already. Maybe men will get their wish and leave us alone
@@kittykittybangbang9367They already do. I read somewhere that men turn their sex dolls in for repair and many of them have been smashed and stabbed 😐
@@thatsunfortunate2771 really?
@@kittykittybangbang9367 yep 😐
Operator that came out in 2016 is a really great film that focuses on using female voices for ai, where a programer asks to use his wife's voice for his new operating system. It's very realistic of how I could imagine that situation going, and it touches on her loosing her voice and him basically having a version of her he can get to do whatever he wants basically
Well done. I’m a GenX woman who used to think these types of things quietly to myself for most of my teens and twenties. To say feminist things out loud usually got me a chorus of dudes within earshot yelling at me to shut the f*** up, b*tch, wh*re, etc. There was no slack or flexibility there. It’s been the most wonderful surprise of my life to see young women confidently deconstructing and challenging these norms. Reading the comments I see that men truly don’t get it yet and they may not for quite awhile. I have to believe that at some point they will make it out of the quibbling arguments and rationalization phase.
also one poor defense of Joi's love for the main character is that "humans dont choose who we love so theres nothing morally wrong about the MC and joi's relationship"
What a load of BS. Its true that humans dont choose who we love, but our love is born out of uncontrollable circumstances and chance. Not intentional manipulation by other entities. Anyone who agrees with that argument should consider this, in a story where a guy used a magic spell or seduction potion against a girl's knowledge to get her to sleep with him or fall in love with him, is that not raype? Is it real love? Of course not. He intentionally manipulated her to get her to bend to his desires and that is EXACTLY how replicants are treated. Joi was intentionally programmed to be subservient and in love with him. She's basically drugged or under a spell
you look like a good joe.
Not "digital" women, but relevant.
Rei/Rey from the SW movies was super hated by mainly men. Supposedly because of being a "Mary Sue". But so was Milla Jovovich's character in 5th element (albeit pretty solidly logically explained) which is pretty much worshipped. Capable, independent, smart Rey spent the movies pretty much covered up and not being showed in a sexual light and then there's the seminaked perfect but infantile being played by Milla Jovovich... (was the character's name Leeloo?)
Would Rey's character have had even a fraction of the critique had she been catering to the male gaze and fantasies?
(I think they are both awesome AND hot characters though.)
yeah no I really don't think that argument makes literally any sense here
Yeah the argument doesn't make sense
TL;DR - A) Used angle to compare characters just blatantly false (one is seen as flawless, other is purposely flawed) and not supported by in-movie narrative. B) There is enough of sexualised versions of Rey in the internet, yet it didn't help her to be seen as an enjoyable character.
It's hard to understand how you came up to this idea. Seems like you watched Fifth Element a long time ago without paying attention, or didn't watch at all and use superficial idea of it. Leeloo (yep, that's indeed her name) is perfect human by *alien-jesus understanding* and worshipped in film due religious-science reasons (while unknowing characters pay no special attention to her). For the first half she acted like an innocent moron, despite been smart and capable. In a movie as a whole, Leeloo fill more of the autism allegory role, than sex-appeal. And even with that, being a "Mary Sue" isn't applicable here, cos one of the final "revelation" that human fragile "by design" and even most capable and strong need others/help.
Rey in SW being perfect directionless in narrative (well, new trilogy story lack direction as a whole) and seems boring/annoying as result. While Leeloo is deliberately flawed, so adored irl both as badass and goof.
If you want to compare Rey to other similar but beloved character - Furiosa from Fury Road is much closer and relevant.
Men are harsher on female characters they're not sexually attracted to unfortunately
11:59
Love the scott pilgrim poster in the background
That film was horrendous for its portrayal of women and im still waiting for someone to make a video about it
10,000%! Thank you!
Uuuuugh THANK YOU. I know it’s nerd culture staple but I’ve hated it since day 1
@@sonorasgirl yeah the reason not much videos make about sp is bc incels kept defending and dislike bombing those lmfao
seriously, I couldn't bring myself to finish the comic the first time around because it was so bad, even by 2004 standards. But I understand why nerds cling to it, self insert w manic pixie girl, almost white cast, racial and biphobic jokes, misogyny sprinkle everywhere. it's too bad, cuz i really like the artstyle and i do find the humour funny
ruclips.net/video/6hE9in44PRo/видео.html
@@metropunklitan LMFAO TRUE????? ??
It's 2022 yall scott pilgrim cancellation party when?🤣🤣
I don't know if anyone remembers this (I'm a millennial but somehow I saw it maybe as a re run or something), but the sitcom "small wonder" featured an AI LITTLE GIRL programmed to do chores. Kinda creepy if you ask me.
Honestly the more I think about it the more certain I am that there is no moral need for a child A.I. to exist, and if we lived in a world with such advanced robots the owners of other small wonders should be on a watchlist😬 literally the best case scenario is that they casually own child slaves
I recently wrote an essay for my class about a.i, both real and fictional. I wrote about future relationships with a.i and, in particular, “a.I girlfriends”, as I referred to them. Just exploring how technology is developing and where it may or may not go (it’s potentials) it’s just so wildly interesting and terrifying at the same time.
Sounds interesting, could you drop a link to it?
Interesting how in videogames the male hero is the "default", yet when it comes to robot servants a female voice and presentation is always the default... Hm...
32:30 that’s actually a polyamory vs monogamy concept. It brings up ownership in relationships for example why humans have the tradition to “own” each other via marriage and rings. Missing this is message is missing a key part of the story.
Everything that you said about Joi was the whole point of her character. Mariette even lampshades that: "I've been inside you. Not so much in there as you think." Joi was a narrative con; were are led via cinematic tropes to think she's his one true love, when in fact all she was was a highly evolved chatbot.
I feel like much of the film's meaning flew over the head of the author of this video essay, who was fixated on only one theme: "Villeneuve doesn't do enough to counter the objectification of women". I cannot understand this, the film isn't even subtle about how dehumanizing the world of Bladerunner (and our own) is while evoking profound existential questions. Nothing short of slapping the audience across the face with a message would have satisfied this person.
@@MetalUndergroundDemo meh
Not a film, but one of the first examples of this that I ever read was Chobits, a manga series by Clamp (there's also an anime adaptation, which I vaguely remember being a reasonably faithful adaptation). It's noteworthy in that it's the only example I can think of that was written primarily by women, and while I wouldn't say it's a particularly feminist version of these tropes, I do think it's different in ways that are, if not really progressive, at least more egalitarian.
There is one archetypal perfect computer woman (who's also very much born sexy yesterday and, while there is a lot more going on there than meets the eye, I wouldn't call it a subversion), but there are also computer people (called persocoms) who are men, and who are women but not especially feminine. The story is VERY focused on love, but in a way that feels more egalitarian because broadly speaking, everyone here is trying to find love, regardless of gender, and non-romantic types of love also feature prominently.
There are some similarities between the main character and Caleb, but where Caleb's a nice guy, Hideki is... kinda a proto-himbo? Like, people give him a hard time for not understanding computers, but for that reason, he doesn't see the other main character (Chi) as a very fancy computer, he sees her as a person who happens to have some special needs and is hyper-competent in some ways and seems to need help in others. He never feels like a Nice Guy because he doesn't see his behavior as exceptional; of course he respects her as a person, that's just basic decency, because she's a person.
another video i'd recommend about this topic is the one by Cheyenne Lin - Fembots: The Ultimate Male Fantasy?
thanks for linking other recommendations in the description box, i'll go check out the ones i havent seen :)
Saw a comment about GLADOS, and I felt it important to mention her predecessor from System Shock - both play on the idea of the “nice lady AI” but transform into something like HAL by the end. Looooove scary AI women.
Both were great villains
If you want a more nuanced story about digital women, written by women and that actually explores women, both flesh and digital, and their struggles about the submissive role of fembots, read the manga version of Chobits by CLAMP
Chii actually grows and matures to the point of getting a job and learning when her actions has consequences and learns from them (her apologizing to Yumi for taking her former uniform)
To Yumi's worries over men preferring persocoms
To the teacher Takako dealing with trust issues over her husband leaving her for a persocom
To Yuzuki, a persocom, growing beyond her program and actually loving her creator as a sister
To Sumomo and Kotoko, two persocoms, having a friendship
Heck, the reason why persocoms exist is because an infertile woman wanted children
The anime did dirty such a good story!!!
The anime was a childhiod favorite, good to know I should pick up the manga sometime!
Here's a dystopian future fiction idea: 30 years from now, men and women no longer form couples. Instead, they buy their desired android, programmed to meet their "every" need. It starts with the men, because it's "just easier" to buy an android than doing the work required to have a real relationship. Then women follow suit. This leads to The Great Filter.
to add to that: the Androids then gain sentience and then decide they want rights as well, leaving humans to treat Androids like equal
or alternatively Androids gain sentence, and decided it's better to leave Humanity, leaving both men and women feeling hopeless knowing they're going to have to go back to the old ways.
This isn't sci-fi, but Madeline Miller recently released a short story called "Galatea" about Galatea and Pygmalion which explores this idea of what might happen to a constructed woman if she were to try and gain some independence. Really heartbreaking
I just looked at a few videos of joi and the comments are disturbing. Men whishing they could have a girlfriend like that, them saying their gf would be better if she wouldnt have autonomy, married men saying they see the benefits (aka I hate my wife humor) its really disturbing. They literally see a depiction of a sex slave and go "hey, I want that too! I get everything while doing nothing" But then again, a lot of men seem to think thats the way it should be.
I remember being in a lecture about automata in (german) literature where the professor said that almost all automatas and artficial humans in literature are women and soldiers. This isn't a recent phenomenon but can be traced back to ancient greek literature and mythology.
i think in the case of Blade Runner 2049, an explicit condemnation of the objectification of women from the movie is unnecessary. it is a dystopian film. the LA of 2049 is a hellscape, the people and replicants live miserable lives, even the men who have inhuman women/fembots to take advantage of are hollow, sad people. at least when i watched the film, i felt bad for K. the only joy in his life is Joi, and she's not real. to have Joi turn to the camera and moralize about objectification would disrupt the flow of the film and our emersion in the story.
I don't think movies should be textbook feminist manifestos, if anything these movies portrait desesperate men being easily fooled by these posmodern fantasies, the simulacra thing from Boulliard, is too easy o dismiss this works if you never adress the actual message and filosophy presented, just look how each protagonist ended up
Ex Machinga Guy genious programer ends up locked and probably dies from starvation, Ryan Gosling the detective hero ends up being failed pinochio, and Joaking Phoenix case is the worst strech, he already starts as a dormat full of insecurities and anxiety and the ai he develops feelings for dumps him cause she casually evolved into god by talking to the ai guys he should not worry about, how would you feel if even your sex toy rejects you
thank u sm for posting this video.. after watching ghost in the shell, i noticed this pattern has been going on for so long but couldnt quite verbalize it so this video puts this trope in a clearer perspective for me!!
this was such an awesome and interesting video! i'm always super impressed by how well you're able to articulate your thoughts and view topics from different perspectives, like you did with Ex Machina. if possible, i'd love to see a video from you about Fresh and how the story can act as a metaphor for SA and the objectification of women's bodies - i picked up on a few things while watching it with a friend, but i would absolutely love to hear a more in-depth discussion of those themes from someone who's so talented at expressing themselves. looking forward to whatever you're working on next!!☺
this video was super interesting and well made! I'm looking forward to watching more of your essays. also that sweater is adorable~
I liked that Joi's last words are hard to believe, because she's been so 2D and so obviously manufactured to be "the perfect woman" as per your definition, but I'd have preferred the female characters to be depicted differently. I enjoyed the film but all the female characters were shallow and way too objectified, there was no balance.
The one thing that made me think Joi had some individuality was that she instructed Joe on how to destroy the tracking and signal on her portable projector. There's no way the manufacturers would program her to be loyal to Joe over THEM, or to allow sabotage of their surveillance and control systems, so it read to me as an act of genuine rebellion.
Unfortunately, they don't do anything with her after they establish that, and the scene where he sees the giant ad version of Joi makes it seem like he doubts she was ever authentic.
@@nikoincroatiaI disagree. Wallace manufactured Replicants to be capable of lying and killing humans, specifically to be capable of lying and killing to his own end, and it backfires in him. I don’t think that was an instance of the AI being individualistic, I think it just shows how off-the-rails tech developers in that universe are.
However, I think the contrast that scene has is between Joi and Marriette. Joi suicidally joins K for no other reason that subservience, while Marriette works with the Revolutionaries to keep track of him and rescue him. Which one of the two forms of empathy displayed is actually functional and human?
Man or woman AI, it wouldn't matter which. To be honest I would just want a friend. It's been so lonely since the pandemic...
People have been less available up until now. Or digital means of connecting feels lacking somehow. I miss pre-pandemic times...
Accessing a social AI of any gender that could actually tag along in real time all throughout my day might feel nice.
I mean, its literally shown in Blade Runner 2049 that there is a revolutionary group of women replicants seeking to escape their oppression.
While watching the video, I was thinking about other films that have AI. I was thinking about the Alien films and how the AI is pretty much always a man (Ash, Bishop, Walter & David) the only female AI that I can remember is Call from the horrendous 4th movie played by Winona Ryder. But then I remembered how these characters are meant to be the extremely smart and helpful androids. They can think intensely, strategize, and even be a leader. And all of them are older white men. So, I ended up kinda answering my own upcoming curiosities lol. Cause you know, how could a woman be smart and display leadership skills?
Such an interesting topic that I don’t think I’ve heard any other people talk about. I hadn’t seen the other videos you mentioned either. Definitely checking them out and I love your work!!
Fascinating! I didn’t watch Blade Runner, but Ex Machina and Her were some of my favourite films at the time. I still think they are good, but you made a lot if excellent points. 👌🏻 I hope that we all move in a good direction in order to make changes not only in cinematography, but also in real life. Now excuse me as I got to go and binge watch all of your video essays 😌
One small but annoying thing I noticed when watching blade runner 2049 was that almost every woman character cries. Like a lot. It’s not empowering to put women on screen and uncritically disempower then
I loved this video, and Ex Machina was such a fire film. The Born Sexy Yesterday video was one of my first video essay, I’ve been obsessed with video essays since
im only halfway thru atm but as you're describing the Niche feminine robots usually fill contrasted with masculine ones, it strikes me how much data from star trek tng fulfilled so many more traditionally female robot tropes (being attractive in pursuée kind of way to members of the """opposite gender""", being naive, having compassion and Feelings as a big important theme, hyper-competent/intelligent yet often easily manipulable, etc)
I have always thought Blade Runner 2049 was a movie about intersectional feminism because of the absence of it as an ideology in the world. Like a hold in the middle of a piece of paper if prominent because of absence.
I think the movie says that devaluing any human life devalues all human life. In both Blade Runner movies, the replicants are reduced to gendered and commoditized functions. Male replicants are workers and soldiers while female replicants are used for sex. These also being the traditional conservative view of gender roles. We also see that the world of Blade Runner is quite bleak in general, with people living in squalid conditions aside from a small class of wealthy elites. And I think this is because Replicants have reduced everyone artificial or not to their basic commercial value. Workers are having to compete with replicants which would depress wages. And the easy access to sex workers that are not considered to be people would reinforce quite toxic views towards women by the men in this society.
I think one of the messages of this movie is that unless there is an accepted philosophy like intersectional feminism society will not progress. If you devalue another group it means that you have to place values on different social groups in the first place, which inherently commodifies everyone. Though I do think the movie could have explored this concept more through the women in the movie.
Though I will say that I think Luv has more agency than at first appears. I think one of the most important scenes for her as a character is her confrontation with Joshi. She questions rather or not K lied, and then she tells Joshi that she is going to lie to Wallace about what happened. As you mentioned Luv does seem upset about the treatment of replicants. And she seems determined to find the child as much as the replicant resistance. I am conflicted about what I think Luv's motivations are. I think she might be working towards the same goal as the resistance. Finding the child to prove the value of replicants' lives. Or she may just be attempting to prove her worth in order to avoid the face of other replicants.
Also, I really enjoyed your video, it gave me a lot to think about.
i had never made the connection that almost all AI is voiced and mimicks a woman. This is such an interesting video! Good work kween
“You look lonely… I can fix that…” is both icel-ic and iconic
one of my favorite video essays i’ve ever seen. love the intersectional analysis & depth
I think you'd find Detroit Become Human really interesting! I suggest for you to watch a playthrough or multiple of the game.
You play as 3 different androids that all focus on different aspects in the same futuristic world.
The 'creator' of these Androids falls into the stereotype of rich ruthless secluded genius surrounded by submissive Android women who are disposable. Personally I find him similar to Nathan from Ex Machina.
What do you think about Janet from "The Good Place"? She isn't a robot btw 😂
omgosh I'm so glad I found your channel ! Such great videos!
The opposite (kinda) of this trope is seen in the German movie "I'm your man". It was an interesting film. Also, Jude Law in Gigolo Joe.
i think the idea that denis (or any other director of any other film) should cater his art towards his viewers' preferences is entitled.
i dont think denis should design his art to make the sexism or racism activists happy - and even if the theme of these films were sexism, that doesnt mean the film is glorifying sexism. Joi for example isnt a representation of the commodification of women, Joi is a commodity. She is a literal hologram not a woman.
You obviously could sermise that there is a sexist depiction of women in these films, but that doesnt mean the film is glorifying sexism, only that this piece of art is commenting on such a topic.
This was a really fantastic video, you summed things up really well. It makes me wonder how we have bicentennial man (what a throwback nobody remembers) and he wasn't objectified to prove a point of life nor love, there are even female robots in that movie and that doesn't happen. From what I recall it was more an exploration of what it means to be alive and have free will, why can't any of these movies do that without making women objects all the time?
Given the further commodification of women and their bodies with the internet and widespread internet porn seeing depictions like this in film is really no surprise
In Ex Machina, there are only two robots with brains - Eva and Kyoko. Nathan might not have given Kyoko the ability to speak. (He claims she doesn't understand English before Caleb knows she's not human, but Nathan lies.) Eva's brain used to be housed in all those other robots in the storage room. They can't escape. Eva doesn't want her brain to be wiped like it was over and over again.
ahhh i’m early today !!
For what it's worth, and since you and Broey sort of asked, I as a hetero man didn't feel I was being asked to enjoy ogling de Armas's body in Bladerunner. The scene where her giant hologram appears naked on the street seemed intensely melancholy to me because K was experiencing this individual, with whom he felt he'd had an intimate relationship and who had traumatically died in front of him, now as a crassly sexualised, totally impersonal marketing tool.
Based on that alone, you could still say, of course, that that's the film focusing on a male perspective, but I think to the extent that it does, it's in the service of a critique: obviously K knew all along that the hologram was a product he owned, designed to 'love' him no matter what. The crassly sexualised marketing experience was probably how he'd first encountered her, the thing that inspired him to buy her in the first place. And you can offset that against his intense desire for authenticity, something both he and other characters seem much concerned with, revealed in his clear excitement about the possibility that he's Rachel's son.
This is all about some weird contradiction I haven't fully worked out, but other items for consideration: a landscape so ecologically devastated as to be devoid of plant life, but the abiding obsession with the power to sell, as identified by marketing people, is with the commodified female body. (And note that the one person using hologram technology to evoke the lost flora - and not some fake lover - is Rachel's intensely isolated daughter). It's as if male sex drive has become indistinguishable from death death drive, keeping men addictively hooked to consumerist illusions even as it destroys the planet.
I have often described the way some men treat women as being like an NPC. You are an object, a life accessory, you exist to enhance their personal story. Your wants, needs and feelings only get in the way, so you are shamed and pressured into suppressing them. It's as if they want a semi-sentient doll, not a human. So really, it's not a stretch to see why the fantasy of a programmable woman is such a popular trope.
you can hire out the Sofia bot for events and i "met" it in real life at a conference once, they had it joking around and standing about to take pictures with, and I've gotta say, impressive... but even more terrifying in person. There's Something about it that's so creepy😆😅
Such a great analysis 👌🏾
Respectfully, this essay was all garnish and no meat. Ex Machina and Blade Runner 2049 are great films. Although they are clearly tailored for men which is why I think our opinions are wildly different. Joi was intentionally a hollow character which K also realises in the famous doomer “Good Joe” scene, she tells men what they want to hear as she’s a glorified Siri (joi is a pun) and is a critique on male expectations of women. The fact you didn’t pick up on that was baffling as was your wish for the film to explore “gender dynamics” at the expense of the core story, a very corporate outlook if I say so.
I loved the film precisely because it depicted a mediocre character who wasn’t the great emancipator in a complex world whilst also not falling into the rebellion trope. Very depressing, not every film has to be a activist piece. Ex Machina also did a good job showing how men put down other men they see as intellectually and physically inferior, really added to the believability of Nathan’s god complex, most of Garland’s work features full frontal nudity of both men and women, it’s clearly a tool he uses. Such as the opening scene of 28 days later or half of “Men”.
it's not a flim, and i still have to watch the last couple of seasons, but westworld season one did a lot of cool stuff with this trope.
You cherry pick a few points about objectification of woman in Blade Runner, do you saw that movie? Do woman didn’t get enough screen time? 4 Strong female characters. Also, Joy, the A.I. is fabricated for the sole purpose of “being whatever you want”, the program was design to be whatever Kay wanted by default. If you, aren’t sure were to see the critic, maybe try to see it from different perspective, not only the one you want to see. And Love was “blindly” following orders because thats what she was designed to do, if you watch the movie, you’ll see that she was developing agency by feeling empathy when Wallace killed the replicant.
This was a work of sci-fi, trying to dissect it for what is not is to willingly ignore its intention.
I understand quite clearly your point of view and often agree to your conclusions, but I would like to point out that all these film examples depict dystopias.
I think the only dystopia is Blade Runner, Her is set in a future and Ex Machina is set in the present.
@@elleliteracy beg to differ, the concept is not limited to science fiction or depictions of the future.
We’re in a dystopia right now. For anything to not be considered set in a dystopia, it has to be a demonstrably better world than our current one. All of those movies are dystopian.
I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t bring new ideas in the Blade Runner 2049 section and mainly repeated Maia’s points. To me, that scene with the huge JOI ad IS a commentary on the commodification of the female body. Through out the movie, JOI convinced K that he was special. When he found out he was just one out of countless replicants designed to have that memory, he has to face the fact that everything JOI said was what he wanted to hear. So, did her “I love you” mean anything? Was their relationship not real? As the viewer, you want JOI to be a real woman who truly cared and loved K, but she was just a product. It’s not an invitation to ogle at her naked body. It was a sad moment, and that was the clear answer Villeneuve gave.
As for LOVE, she wanted to be the special replicant who were given a name, to the point she would kill to win her creators approval. But she cried every time she did it. This internal conflict is a commentary on the harm the patriarchy causes, no? To be a #girlboss you need to be ruthless to stay on top, perhaps against your true nature. All the replicans were fighting each other while the corporation remains in control of EVERYTHING. Their stories had more meaning than your videos gave them credits for.
Giant joi being naked took away from any commentary on commodification. You are just staring at her body.
@@bryna7 No, YOU were staring at her body. Those who were not blindsided by a fixation on gender issues and that paid attention to the actual (and not even subtle) themes and messages of the film were devastated together with K. This moment was a revelation, when it truly sunk in that, despite raising profound questions on what constitutes a real person, JOI was always a commodity from the start, totally sexualized and dehumanized. Her nakedness reinforces this. If you got anything other than that it honestly says more about you. I understand that portraying sexualized women under the guise of commentary can be a fine line, but this is clearly not an instance of such exploitation. Your critical analysis needs to be more than puddle deep, robotically picking up 'tropes' and jumping to conclusions (naked woman = harmful sexualization).
The analysis by the author of this video essay strikes me as shallow and so preoccupied with a single theme that it somehow missed the part where it is meaningfully addressed.
@@bryna7 you're also seeing K's depressed reaction to her body. The literal protagonist of the story. It's very clear that the audience isn't supposed to be ogling her.
My thing is joi was the emotion of k. He was quite stoic in his emotion so we were able to see it through her. He loved her thought she was different but in the end she was just same numbers of 0,1
I remember the Sophia robot which was interesting to see when I was in college.
I recommend everyone watch the original Stepford Wives (1975): a true representation of how you address these misogynistic femicidal urges critically on film.
Ruby Sparks (2012) also does a great job of unpacking this kind of urge/trope in full, with a humanized woman and a critically examined man.
I’ll also note that when women on film have a robot boyfriend (Black Mirror’s 'Ash' with Domnhall Gleason now the robot, or The One I Love with Elizabeth Moss), the women are written by men to be underwhelmed by their perfect robot boyfriends and miss the flawed human versions - the opposite of the way these situations are always featured with male human protagonists where the pliant sexy robot woman implicitly shames the modern woman’s imperfections, idiosyncrasies and demands.
Also it’s clear by now that many men are incapable of parsing the meaning of dystopian tales (many of them run the tech platforms) and only regard them as a source of inspiration for product development. So can we stop giving them ideas under the guise of the thinnest of critiques amid male gaze and wish fulfillment extravaganzas.
I’d like to see a feminist robot movie where women choose robot mates and customize them just like male protagonists would, and then they have nice lives together and the robots protect them from the violent impulses of the human males. There’s a transgressive tale of replaceability by AI that Hollywood isn’t ready for, evidently. But let’s have the umpteenth sexy robot lady movie instead.
There's a German film called I'm Your Man which might be up your alley, also there's Edward Scissorhands.
This is very interesting and even though I am a female i haven't noticed these type of context put into these movies. For me it was mostly beautiful ai-girls same as normal beautiful girls portraited in the cinematography. i guess i got used to that attitude(
I haven't watched ex machina in quite some time -- so forgive me if I'm way off here lol -- but judging by some of the clips you used and my vague memory of the plot, I think there's an argument that *can* be made for the cinematography/direction to actually be in support of a feminist reading:
When we watch ava through Caleb's gaze, the camera also watches him watching her -- often from a clinical distance, (in various wide shots or through some other negative space such as the vegetation that separated them in some scenes), as if we should be judging him. The isolating vulnerability of these composition are discomforting and, at least to me, makes him feel much more akin to a lab rat that the audience is studying rather than a sympathetic character one is meant to identify with. Even in the cases where close-ups are utilized, the feeling invoked is one of instability, like that of an unreliable narrator, creating yet another layer of distance begging the question.. whether or not we can trust our/Caleb's eyes?
In a bit of subtle foreshadowing here, I think we are meant to question Caleb's character and intentions in regards to his growing feelings for ava. Correct me if I'm wrong but, as best I can recall, Caleb's late night surveillance of ava only starts in earnest after she plants the seed of that suggestion by telling him she "imagines him watching her at night and hopes that he does." This, I think, is evidence of the camera showing us Ava's agency and her willful manipulation of both Caleb and the audience's gaze. She is able to effectively gain control over the power of the male gaze, through an objectivized performance, to secure her own liberation.
Having said all that, I do agree with your overall assessment of the film and the places where it fails.
Just one correction: Ana is white and perceived as white by the world. Not all Latinas are women of color, there are White, Black, brown/mestizo, and Asian Latinas.
the Barry intro caught me so off guard lmao. Nonetheless great video as always!
So basically GlaDOS is a feminist icon. Good we cna agree on that.
Guardian interview with Alison Bechdel -
Q: We should talk about the Bechdel test…
A: If we must.
Q: How do you feel about it these days?
A: It was a joke. I didn’t ever intend for it to be the real gauge it has become and it’s hard to keep talking about it over and over, but it’s kind of cool.
Q: Is it dismaying that so many films continue to fail the test?
A: What’s really dismaying now is the way so many movies cynically try to take shortcuts and feature strong female characters - but they just have a veneer of strength and they’re still not fully developed characters.
The way I see it, the best part of having a relationship with an artificial woman is I don't have to live up to my responsibilities of being a real man.
the fact that it is a tale as old as our civilisation, men creating fake perfect women and then these very women bringing them downfall. Pygmalion carved her bc he hated real women and couldn't stand them, but then he wanted her to be real and when she became he didn't love her anymore. it's a tale of being brought up for the male gaze but in the end always not being the perfection and turning "evil" bc in the end women are all that they can be
I comment as sacrifice to the Automated Instruction deities, Algorithmia. Great video.
Also, when it comes to AI in movies, it’s anti-Black and/or darker skin.
great video as always! thank you 💖
my favourite media that explores AI is the show Humans. it’s fantastic.
Loved this :)
Ana de Armas is definitely white. Her heritage is entirely European. Is she still Latina (a sociological ethnic group)? Sure. But she's not brown. Her recent forefathers moving to Cuba from Spain did not magically become brown by geography.
loved this video! always happy to see you post as it strikes up conversation. I agree with your points on Blade Runner 2049 and Ex Machina, but I feel a bit iffy about your Her point at 32:08. I feel like this sense of 'ownership' you talk about leans more towards the concept of possession in monogamous love. her transcending to the software cloud beyond Theodore's possession/their relationship actually upholds Samantha's growth out of her initial coded purpose to be simply AI help for human beings. it speaks to her independence in both the relationship and becoming a being of her own, as she has the ability to think for herself. I feel like that if anything bolsters the notion that digital women in that cinematic universe shouldn't be reduced to one purpose and that they aren't being commodified. that's at least what I gathered from my own viewing of Her :-)
you could argue however that as the audience we're following Theodore's story and we are drawn to empathise with him after the breakup, instead of rooting for Samantha. idk tho I found the ending hopeful and not directing fault towards Samantha but rather just the bittersweet feeling of the breakdown of a relationship that isn't 100% one party's fault.
again would like to say your videos are inspiring and I would love to carry this sort of analysis forward to movies that I watch! thank you :-)
Good video! I wish the anime Chobits was included as it is all about exploring these female robots (very rarely male) and relationships and humans falling in love with them.
When I first watched it I thought it ended on a good note but after years of thinking about it I find the ending kind of gross.
I think an interesting aspect of this is that ai is genderless and in creating an ai person, why do we envelope the gender? These things are prescribed and I feel like none of these ai people are necessarily embraced for there less gendered state. They are kind of treated as patients after just being creations, to whatever is prescribed to them. Even in the less gendered state they’re still made to be “women or non-men”, even if it’s completely changeable or peel-able. I think the gendering of ai kind of is a place of comfort for some of us to feel this reassurance in ourselves that gender is a palatable or more convenient thing, even if it undermines our understanding that the ai could still operate independently like a human, not just in gendered conventions. I feel like an ai is a good experiment in humanness but people don’t hold the ai’s perspective to their face and think how absurdist it is.
It is interesting how we have to add our own concept of gender towards a genderless being because we can’t comprehend how that could exist. It’s kind of how angels are also gendered despite them being canonically genderless. Or how we assign pronouns to our pets or animals based on our own made up rules. I think it’s just in our nature to categorize things, and something nebulous and abstract like a genderless being is something we can’t comprehend on our own so we categorize it, like you said as either “women or non-men”.
I believe the point of contention and the real question is how do you know the love is real? What makes it real?