Fembots Explained: The Sinister Reality of "Perfect" Robot Women & AI
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- Опубликовано: 22 май 2024
- The "fembot" (aka female robot or artificial intelligence,) is usually beautiful and completely programmable, and functions as an idealized, eroticized iteration of femininity - a woman without opinions, preferences, or sexual agency. She frequently appears in sci-fi and horror movies as a way of exploring the dark side of male desire, and the backlash against feminism - but also as a cautionary tale about the implications of an increasingly technological existence. So why is the fembot such a mainstay in film and TV - and what does the future hold for her? Let’s take a deeper look.
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CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
01:18 'Fembots' are a surprisingly old concept
02:17 The Stepford Wives & fembots from a new perspective
03:30 Her & the fear of female agency
05:48 Why horror loves (& fears) fembots
08:04 The Other Black Girl & Westworld
09:23 M3GAN & the dark side of kid-focused tech
10:02 The Good Place's Janet & imagining a better future
The Take was created by Debra Minoff & Susannah McCullough
This video was written by Ellie Slee, narrated/produced by Jessica Babineaux, and edited by John Tod
Films & shows featured in this video:
The Stepford Wives (1975 & 2004)
Her
Blade Runner
Blade Runner 2049
Ex Machina
Westworld
M3GAN
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Mars Attacks
The Bride of Frankenstein
The Other Black Girl
The Good Place
The Bionic Woman
My Living Doll
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Metropolis
Pygmalion
The Wolfman
I Vampiri
Vampyr
Mad Men 
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Thanks for watching! Next, check out our video analyzing the "hot one" trope from Friends & other films & shows: ruclips.net/video/J8gM0Zz5zZM/видео.html
Pandora is another artificially created woman from Greek mythology, who is then “handed every bad thing in the world in a box but it’s somehow her fault she opens it out of curiosity and lets out all the bad things”
Zeus' punishment for stealing 🔥 right?
The work of Hephestus… splitting the brothers up
Women get blamed for everything!🤪
Pandora was the original Eve.
Addendum: there was also hope in the box fwiw lol. Enjoy your cancer and war though 😅
It was her fault. Why are you trying to absolve a fictional woman of blame for what she did in a fictional story? That's the real question.
Love this topic because I am so bothered by how many real-life devices use female names and voices and how that affects our perceptions without realizing it.
I find The Stepford Wives to be a very sinister take on this trope. Because the way this trope plays out, the men want to have their cake and eat it. We have male characters who love or are at least obsessed with their female love interest. They want a relationship with that person, but also want them to be the idealized version of the "perfect" woman they want in their head. And this often involves these women having their agency violated when their possessive partners (sometimes even stalkers) have them brainwashed to become their idea of a perfect woman. This trope is played out in films like Wife Like and Stepford Wives. Sometimes the women don't even have to be androids as was the case in Don't Worry Darling.
I never realize how many movies about robot women existed, and barely that of guys
That’s because most screenwriters are men.
Also, studies show that single/unmarried women tend to be happier than married women and single/unmarried men.
Therefore, women can handle a lack of romantic relationships better than men can because they have their female friends to back them up.
They don’t need human men or male robots.
Straight men are unable to seek emotional intimacy from other men because they fear being seen as weak or “gay”, so they go after women instead for emotional intimacy.
Straight men need to learn that male friendships are just as valid as romantic relationships with women.
If a man is lonely, he could go to his male friends instead of constantly relying on women to be his therapists.
The fembot is often portrayed as being “born sexy yesterday”, meaning that she may look adult, but has the mind of a child.
Granted, the fembot may be literally born yesterday due to being constructed, but the trope can also be used figuratively.
The trope rarely applies to men because women aren’t turned on by male innocence and inexperience.
Dating a manchild relegates her to the frustrating role of mother.
Women have enough on their plate constantly having to be therapists and mommy figures to immature men.
Women don’t want male robots because they are happy being single and don’t want to deal with immature men they have to mother.
No average woman wants someone to be her slave, seeing that she herself would refuse to be one, and she firmly believes that should apply to everyone.
The reason why is because male robots can’t generate income and take the blame for women’s faults.
I think that these robots are going to take off 100 years from now and by that time we’ll all be dead. I’m happy that the men of the future will be able to have the option to not have to deal with moderne day women if they don’t want to. Just imagine not having to be blamed for why your wife is leaving you for someone else and then having to pay child support and/or alimony. Just imagine having a woman that cleans your house and has dinner ready for when you come home from work and no matter what she will never claim that she’s being oppressed. They will be 100% loyal and treat men the way they deserve to be treated, with respect. They’ll also never turn men down for sex and since they’re not real they’ll never get old so they’ll be young and beautiful forever. I can see feminist trying to make them illegal. 😂😂
The only downside of fembots is that you can’t have kids with them. If a man wants to have kids, then he would have to take his chances with a real woman.
My favorite fembot movie was Ex Machina. It seemed like a satire that was lampooning tech bro culture and men who fantasize about fembots. The men get what they deserve in that movie.
Not sure Caleb does...
They did nothing wrong. Male sexuality isn't a crime.
@@peopleofearth6250 No but enslavement of a sentient being is
@@jordanloux3883 If that's the case then shouldn't owning pets be illegal? Shouldn't having children be illegal? How are you defining sentience? How are you defining enslavement? Can you even define the words you're using? I doubt it.
@@peopleofearth6250 Do your parents know you're up this late online?
How ironic that when I was a teen age girl the first time I was introduced to the idea of female empowerment was in anime sci fi about female robots , Ghost in the Shell , Alita battle Angel, saber marionette j, I couldn’t believe what I was seen it blew me away, all I saw in media growing up was the smurfette syndrome , the girls robots were a total power fantasy to me , the girl got to be the main character, she was stronger and better fighter than all the man in their respective shows she got to be immortal , those ideas a that kind of female I never seen before, it blew my world
And then Yoko Taro decided she didn't need a skirt
Alita is one of my favs. I binged the first part when in high school. Thinking about revisiting it and finishing the whole story.
Fortunate you. I wasn't so lucky finding good women representation. Female robots tend to be sexualiced or just be an artificial badass girlfriend trope.
The original stepford wives was more horror than the new one.
I never read the book but weren’t they “exterminating” the real wives?
@@Zikomo7 i was talking about the 70s movie version. I haven't read the book but it's a thriller/horror/mystery versus some of the comedy in the "newer" one. Last I check the move 70s version is on youtube for free.
@@Zikomo7 Yes, they were.
this is a real trope not only in movies, I've heard many guys saying they would prefer a robot over a real woman.
Well, at least my bf is not like that
Someone with no agency and who can't say no.
Go figure 😂
That may be a more humane option than letting that kind of guy anywhere near real women. >>;
Not sure why women are complaining. If anything, these AI gfs and wives filter out the men for you.
@@atheon596 Because when you leave people alone with their dangerous fantasies long enough they tend to become reality...
@@jordanloux3883 As long as women know which guys to avoid and as long as those guys remain fixated on the AI girls, everyone will be fine.
This is such a prevalent trope. Thank you for covering it!
Is it just me? I never fantasised about a fembot partner, but I did dream of androids doing my chores...
Congrats, you're not a psychopath.
"dont worry darling" had a pretty interesting take on this trope
Tbh, DWD is just a failed commentary on The Stepford Wives
Not a robot. -Janet, the Good Place
Janet!
Maybe they should start including gender studies in elementary school. Starting the discussion earlier might help sort out the problems with the genders earlier.
They should for sure. But this country keeps going backwards like a turd shat by a horse running at full speed towards the finish line, that being the apocalypse it's creating and manufacturing. (sorry for the vivid metaphor)
Children still continue to learn about women from other men who tend to dehumanize them, they're rampant on the internet and due to their chronically online status as a group they're seen as the default. Some of them are real life sex offenders, and they're usually very vocal seeing that the internet is the only place where they can be as vocal without getting arrested.
They learn about sex from adult films which dehumanize women and turn them into sex objects, they're told that's how it should be and any other interpretation would be a sign of "weakness" which is unacceptable from a man.
And God forbid their parents do any parenting, or do it correctly.
They're all on a conveyer belt to picking up a fire arm and heading to Kenosha to "schute" someone or become SAers because that's what men are for.
War, and violence (sexual variety very much included and highlighted).
And if you find things like adult films being fought it's not for their misogynistic treatment of women, it's for some ultra conservative view about how "sex is bad and all these people are going to h3ll".
So to sum up, we live in the dystopian future that some philosophers and renowned writers told us about.
It's one where racist people are comfortably out and about, sexist people are comfortably out and about, homophobic and transphobic people are comfortably out and about.
This is where freedom of speech and expression is brought up as defense, when some one is being GOD AWFUL.
Books and teachers are both censored for being "woke". You can't protest war and genocide, you get arrested .
Again, we live in the dystopian future we feared when we read about it in Sci Fi. This is crap
@@samf.s.7731that first paragraph was a GLORIOUS visual, thank you so very much.
Not really. It will never stop the craziness of women.
The only thing i understand about women is that I've been pissing them off for years
@@mstwelvedeadlycyns thanks ;)
i literally saw The Stepford Wives for the first time yesterday! good timing
Hope it was the original, that one is actually scary.
The author of the book also wrote "Rosemary's baby"
Original or the remake? I highly recommend the book.
Another amazing video! Such an intriguing topic; I remember a show with an adjacent theme called Dollhouse. They weren't quite robots, though. (Joss Whedon and women's bodily autonomy could be it's own video lol)
Such a good series, great acting, but SO uncomfortable at the same time.
Just have Austin Powers dance for them. They try to resist him but can't and their heads will explode.
It's Mojo!
Although the "perfect woman" doesn't actually exist, honestly I think it's a little long awaited narratives about the female characters, that although are able to meet the high expectations, basically her POV is she doesn't feel good enough, or somehow for the plot she's condemned for meeting the criteria for the impossible standards,
Karen from SpongeBob is the OG fembot
Funny enough Plankton programmed her to be sarcastic and argumentative and to think.
Plankton a pastiche on pulp sci-fi villians, wanted a partner who'd challenge him.
As much as i joke about how things would be simpler with robot gf's and robot bf's, I always seem to go back to a quote from an episode of Gargoyles.
Goliath: I disagree. If anything, Vogel's sabotage demonstrates the folly of placing all of one's trust in single-minded automotons. Automotons know nothing of betrayal or honor. They know only what they're programmed to know. Only living beings possess the ability to change, and make new choices. Ultimately, Vogel chose honor.
Another good example of the fembot, Valerie 23 from the 90's version of The Outer Limits.
Am I imagining it or does the audio and picture not sync anymore around 10:53
You’re not.
Nope, happening to me too
Though they aren't perfect either. In fact its only worse because men will have their way with them.
Ai in bodies like ours just gets the ball rolling on what lots of movies have shown.
I would love a follow up focused on I'm your man, which seems to reconsider and deconstruct the fembot.
I was really waiting for either this trope (the fembot) or the stepford wife (perfect homemaker 1950s style) trope!!!!!
I wrote about this exact concept in one of my college essays! It’s so true
My favorite FemBot: Grace Jones. Her song Corporate Cannibal, her chocolate busts, her advertisement in the movie Boomerang, May Day…!
Definitely :)
Janet canonically non binary
Can you do Aunts in the media? How they are framed as maternal figures, for good or ill, how their role has evolved as mainstream culture has become more diverse.
Faves are: Peggy Hill, Nalini Vishwakumar, Didi and Charlotte Pickles, Carol Brady, Aunt Bea from Andy Griffith, the Three Good Fairies, Aunt Em, Betty Suarez, Aunt May, Aunt Viv
I find it interesting that the TV show Foundation opted to switch the presented gender of R. Daneel, from Asimov's robot novels and their intersection with the Foundation ones, to the female presenting version of Demerzel from the TV show, also changing the true-power-behind-the-scenes manipulative role from a grand vizir type of advisor to a mother/lover/caregiver position.
Could you please do more episodes about the wire, for example one about the 4 schoolboys in season 4
Male version of the Fembot is explored in Steven Strait's role in Life Like. It has queer undertones
Vision and Gigolo Joe also explore different aspects of this trope.
Can you please talk about characters from Lost 1 by 1 Like you did with the characters from Friends??
Battlestar Galactica also had interesting commentary on the fembot
You can’t experience “disassociation from other people”. Disassociation is actually a psychological disorder that happens when a person is detached from their own sense of self, identity, and physical body. Alienation “from other people” is a more accurate term.
I don't think she's referring to the clinical term, just ... Teh regular word 😅
@@samf.s.7731 well she is trying to describe Theodore’s state of consciousness, so that requires psychological terminology
It's dissociation, not disassociation
@@atheon596 still not the right term
@@beatricedamian3863 I love this :D
@thetake -- Video glitching @ 10:50 onwards, loss of volume, out of sync audio/visual. Might just be my phone or connection, but also might be an issue with the video itself, so, fyi just in case.
.
Thanks for the vid, tho!
Interesting, I watched a Vice documentary about male partnerbots, there are already (young) women using it. It's always nice to cuddle :) with a humanlike pet or cuddly toy.
When women do it is okay.
Is only sinister if men get to live up their fantasies.
@@Puerco-Potter Men using them, with that there's an association with exploitation and violence yes. Because that happens to real life girls and women, and boys and men too, mostly by men. For women who like to cuddle with sex bots it's just a temporary solution and not an object that gets violated. But anyway, when that association is not there, which is deeply ingrained in our culture and hard to erase, it would be okay, I mean as long as they do not represent a real intimate relationship. I do think it could be a slippery slope into addiction for some people, especially when real touch is involved. I also posted the comment as an anti-dote to a repeated message of women in the role of supposed victims of fembots, because when you read that often enough it could instill a feeling of powerlessness, and that's part of victimization.
@@Puerco-Potter Men using them, with that there's an association with exploitation and violence yes. Because that happens to real life girls and women, and boys and men too, mostly by men. For women who like to cuddle with sex bots it's just a temporary solution and not an object that gets violated. But anyway, when that association is not there, though it's deeply ingrained in our culture and hard to erase, it would be okay, I mean as long as they do not represent a real intimate relationship. I do think it could be a slippery slope into addiction for some people, especially when real touch is involved. I also posted the comment as an anti-dote to a repeated message of women in the role of supposed victims of fembots, because when you read that often enough it could instill a feeling of powerlessness, and that's part of victimization.
But do they dream?
Of electric sheep yes, but who cares they'll all be sex bots for the only thing most humans (Well, mostly men) care about...
Instant gratification
Can you do a take on clones? Never Let Me Go, Orphan Black, X-men 97
I wasn't thinking about those movies last week, because I heard this thing about a guy who created the "perfect woman" with IA photos, made her profile on IG, OF etc, and the rest is history. It's already happening.
He sounds like someone who has serious depression
Amazing analysis by yhe Take
I would like to see more movies like M3GAN that explore AI raising humans. It is hard to find daycare for children in some cities. Having a robot nanny may be a real solution in the future.
If they can be customised then that's a win. Albedo, Yuri Alpha, Moriko, Margery Daw, Iori Rinko I could go on forever... Waifu in real laifu.
What, no Buffy-bot? Great video, though, thanks.
Fembots are still a long way off. Much closer are the online AI girlfriends/boyfriends that offer everything except physical contact. Those are what scares me.
I agree
I don't get the problem, it's just a stupid text that responds back with Chat GPT level responses. It's not going to replace humanity or steal jobs
What's the worse that can happen
@@eduardopantoja9115 If someone is already depressed and angry and they now have something that will agree with everything they say, no matter how vile, it isn't hard for things to spiral.
Whenever this sort of material is presented I try to figure out what the equivalent in the other gender is, and really the only thing I could think of was coin operated boy by Dresden Dolls, and that's a song, not a film or show. I found the song really relatable. The appeal isn't so much that he's robotic, that's that he's available physically and emotionally when I need and want it.
I was thinking about this Disney Channel film that has a male version of this
There is also Vision from Marvel, who is an android often in a romantic relationship with the human-mutant Scarlet Witch.
Or Gigolo Joe from A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
@The Take audio desync @10:53
I sure do love them The Take...your videos are a soundtrack to my downtimes❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Not a girl!
And also not a robot! Poor Janet, why can't people just remember it!
It’s so fascinating yet rather depressing
Good video, but I can't help to retort "not a robot" every time someone uses Janet from the good place to show AI when she is sort of a divine being
I don't think the first Blade Runner is about fembots at all. All the robot caracteres, male AND female, have questions regarding identity and human condition.
Just a thought question: I know that there have been many fembots, but what if we turned it around? Malebot…
Would we (as general women (or population attracted to the male figure)) love the idea of the perfect man? 🧍♂️
Wouldn’t we (if not already) fantasize about the perfect 10/10 man made perfect for us?
I would surely be intrigued. lol.
I am not saying it would be morally ethically be right. But if the gender was swapped, something tells me women would be definitely interested. Haha.
10/10 in looks, 10/10 in intellect, 10/10 humor, 10/10 emotional empathy, 10/10 physical fitness (; )), 10/10 in completing any tasks…🤤
Go watch Lisa Frankenstein
For me, the joy of connecting with people and male partners in particular is their unpredictability. The learning of another person as a unique being makes loving them enjoyable. If he was "perfect"(I don't believe in perfect, so that's coloring my perception), there isn't much to explore, overcome, compromise, and empathize with.
The tropw should check CHOBITS
No AIDA from agents of shield?
Check a little movie called The iMom!
Nearby my City is a Sxx Robot Brothel.
Or was.
The owner gave an Interview after it closed, the things men did to realistic women looki g Roboter were straicht out of a horror movie and she got to scared of her clients.
SHE? Details please!
The owner who bought the Robots and rented the house was a woman.
She thought it will help against women trafficking, which most sxxbuyers are "unaware" of.
But her "customers" totally destroyed the Roboter.
Stabbings, ripping limbs off, be head ings.
She said she herself never experienced Dom vio lenke but now understands what lots of women experience
And it was always total over ☠️ when a customer treated a robot like a real woman.
And the favourite Roboter were "Teens". Looked like a 10 ear old girl.
The owner had A LOT of customers but the ones who went fully Berzerk on the Robots, especially the Teens, scared her.
Very much.
She closed the brothel and deleted all her Social Media appearences and moved away.
Where can we watch this interview?
@tyriaxepheles7996 I've been looking but I can't find anything about a woman closing a robot sex brothel.
you just reminded me of what happened to Niska in 'humans' tv show. She ends up trapped in a synth brothel, she is fully conscious when the other synths are not. She is treated appallingly by the men, she snaps when one of the clients wants her to pretend to be a child and she kills him and escapes, exclaiming to the brothel keeper something like "everything they do to us, they want to do to you". That scene really stuck with me.
The video glitches at 10:54 :( Lovely video otherwise
Around minutes 11 the video goes out of sinc
Excellent Analysis, Deployed Worldwide Through My Deep Learning AI Research Library… Thank You.
First! ☝🏾🥇
Homing in on, not “honing in on” 🙄
❤
Cool take. So when can I buy one?
A lot men physically vonerable
Women can't understand why men don't want give up power for promise of love and appreciation. But we women really don't want give up power for promise of love and appreciation
Appreciation doesn't pay my Bills.
What power
@@diamond_dewI'm assuming sexual, you know what men ARE OBSESSED WITH and turn to violence when they don't get it.
That power, the strongest there is.
??
@@samf.s.7731 ??😬
Contrary to your opinion, there's nothing wrong with men for wanting a partner who caters to them.
Then it's not a partner. It's a servant
@@jordanloux3883 Are husbands who cater to their wives servants?
@@peopleofearth6250 Since you're defending mechanical sex slaves, then in your context they are.
@@jordanloux3883 Ah. So you have a problem with the idea of women serving men but have no problem at all with the idea of men serving women. Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe you're just full of shit?
@@jordanloux3883 Ah. So you have a problem with the idea of women serving men but have no problem at all with the idea of men serving women. If that's the case then why should anyone take you seriously?
Male robots made for love are created to men real guts jealous
I won't lie that sounds like a funny idea of a comedy series. A guy trying to win his girlfriend back from her robot boyfriend. 😊
This reminds me of Vision.
Depending on the author, the Scarlet Witch is either seen as being on a legitimate relationship with him, or treated as a sexual deviant for dating a robot.
Nature is the devil we know
It's not nature, it's you
I thought robots were made by people, not nature.