How Metropolis Limited Perspective
In 1927 Fritz Lang released Metropolis, a film whose scale and scope matched no other when released. The film is seen as a hallmark for science fiction and critiques the fear of mechanization. All the while, the film introduced what is considered to be the first on-screen fembot/gynoid, the Maschinenmensch translated to Machine Human. The robot is created to mimic the appearance of Maria, the film’s love interests. The robot uses Maria’s appearance to start a working-class uprising that destroys their homes and livelihood. The film raises multiple questions such as the discussion of fearing women in power and an overall sense that the film is against a dominant female force unless it is a caregiver. In Metropolis a mad scientist uses the rise of technology to create life, just like the rise of science with Frankenstein. The fear of the uncanny completely vanishes as the comparison between human and robot physically becomes null and void. The mad scientist was able to create a human being in all but soul. The film raises questions about the ongoing concern for advancing technology and how it will be our destructor. However, the actual creation of the robot led us down a path that limited the depiction and reception of female robots within pop culture and has contorted it to live within a male desire for control and servitude. Film, television, and especially video games have multiple examples of female robots that embody the same traits of the robot in Metropolis in all but name. Just as Andreas Huyssen stated in his article about Metropolis, “Woman, nature, the machine had become a mesh of significations which all had one thing in common: otherness; by their very existence they raised fears and threatened male authority and control.” (Huyseen 7) We have continually seen masculine robots take on many different roles and themes, while more feminine robots are placed into troupes that have remained the same since the 1920s with little to no growth. My main concern is that Metropolis and many of these examples raise why it is not good to create robots that replicate humanity. However, we still try to make this every day and remove the fear of the uncanny to create a partner that’s entire world revolves around our desires. The fembot is not being presented as a monster to help demonstrate why this should not happen, but instead is offering different perspectives on how to make it happen while a male force is still in control.
The creation of the robot in Metropolis has changed very little. Angela Watercutter, in her article “Ex Machina, Has a Serious Fembot Problem,” perfectly captures this discussion in her reflections on the film Ex Machina and Eva as a character. “Ex Machina is a smart, beautiful film. But when the only female lead in your movie is one whose function is to turn the male lead on while being in a position to be turned off, that says a lot about what you think of the value of women in films.” (Watercutter) Eva is the best modern adaptation for the robot Maria because it is still on an equal basis of getting rid of the uncanny while also striving for complete and utter control over Ava. As stated by the film’s director Alex Garland in Watercutter’s article, “You're supposed to think it's creepy," he says. "You're not supposed to warm to [Nathan] over that stuff, you're supposed to feel unnerved, and therefore that she needs to be rescued." and as Wattercutter reiterates, this falls somewhat flat when Eva herself primarily succeeds through flirtation, just the same as how the robot in Metropolis was able to manipulate the people of the city “Yet, in the pursuit of that commentary, the movie ends up re-enacting those same patterns. Ava does prove to be the smartest creature on the screen, but the message we're left with at the end of Ex Machina is still that the best way for a miraculously intelligent creature to get what she wants is to flirt manipulatively.” (Wattercutter) A female robot can never outsmart us until they can emotionally manipulate us into believing there is some form of a connection. In this aspect, the films are almost identical, and neither of them critically reflects why making this the focus of the robot’s success the problem. Instead, the film gives the audience another example of the female robot’s primary strength while also providing another gateway to demonstrate how not to make a female robot instead of saying why we should not.
As stated in Symbolic Exchange and Death by Jean Baudrillard, “We must not be folded by ‘figurative’ resemblance. Like God, the automation questions nature (if not the mystery of the soul), the dilemma of being and appearances: what underlies nature; what is within us; what is behind appearances?” (Baudrillard 53) Even though, in terms of the uncanny, we are disturbed by robots that try to imitate us. We continue to pursue to break the uncanny valley and make something unrecognizable from a normal human being. Is the simple answer just to see that we can? Most likely, but do we truly wish to create machines that can provide the same companionship that another human provides only for them to bend to our every desire. Why is it that since the release of Metropolis that our desire for creating robots identical to ourselves has not faltered? Why have robots with feminine features been put into such gender normative extremes where they are represented as figures that are mainly placed into subservient roles. Do we instead not fear the uncanny but have a desire to make it ourselves in order to control.
In terms of real life, this is more of a growing concern when the industry of creating specialized feminine robots (which is a multi-billion dollar industry) seems to be continually reinforced within all pop culture works. The acceptance of a robot that as specifically designed only to be subservient is demonstrated especially in the world of gaming. For decades the model robot from Metropolis has taken on numerous forms that objectify women as an escape into a digital world. From Cortana to Pyra/Myrtha, robots in video games embody minimal character and instead help prioritize above all else support to the player. As stated by Kaitlin Stanz for an article in Bitch Media, “But these computer programs share a lot of traits with successful women in the workplace; they are effective, hard-working, confident, knowledgeable, and self-reliant. Given this, there is still, in most cases, no real middle ground; these AIs are either helpful—following orders as an artificial assistant—or they are cruel and cunning bosses the player must outsmart.” (Stanz) Cortona was an AI partner for Master Chief in their mission to stop the covenant, while Cortona’s appearance drastically became more sexualized with each installment. The female robotic figures in gaming primarily have maintained the limited structure of the robot in Metropolis. The basic desirable characteristics are then elevated to a certain percentage deemed acceptable to only a particular demographic. These examples all objectify women in some way, especially in terms of physical appearance. Especially in gaming, the player is in direct control and the game allows a more significant influence over the fembot one when particular desires are met. The only thing closer would be the real thing.
In terms of our world, an interesting study compared humans of different ethnicities and people’s responses to robots of varying ethnicities. Conducted by Ana C. Sánchez Ramos tested to see if racialization and verbal abuse were said to robots designed to look like specific ethnicities received insult that otherwise would not be told to their flesh counterparts. The results speak for themselves “Consistent with prior research on people’s abuse of robots, the findings show unabashed engagement in the verbal abuse of female-gendered robots. They further indicate that such behavior may be driven, in part, by marginalizing cues in the agents’ appearances.” (Sanchez 228) If there is such little to no consideration for this kind of behavior, how can we expect the robots in pop culture to be treated differently in terms of actually providing non-objectified female characters. Additionally, can we consider this to not only be an excuse for using female robots to reinvoke sexists behaviors? At least in terms of this study, a significant discussion is needed on the production of robots that resemble ourselves, and how we may see robots being used as an excuse to continue racist and sexist behavior when creating a machine that does not have control or a free voice. So the question is less should we humanize robots, but instead should a robot that resembles a human be given an equal or even greater consideration to that of its real counterpart in pop culture.
In Emily C Chou’s great discussion on the fembot, she wrote, “more than anything, the fembot functions as an object of desire. The desire to be loved unconditionally, to be sexually satisfied, to have one’s needs taken care of, to eliminate one’s fears, to conquer the world, to be obeyed, and to be entertained-these are the male desires realized by the creation of fembots.” (Chou 70) I wrote this piece mainly because I wanted to flesh out my thoughts on this topic. The creation of the fembot introduced a possibility to create the “ideal woman,” one where all self needs are filled with little need for growth. They provide an escape that validates a continued hegemonic male society where men are still in control. The advancement of technology should better the world overall. However, in terms of female robotic representation in pop culture, it is used to revitalize gender stereotypes. It creates figures that, at their core, embody a representation of figures that show little to no depth and fill in the hegemonic male desire. The robot figure in Metropolis set forth a standard for representing a female robot compared to its male counterpart. It is a figure that is being manipulated to fit that of a male desire for control. There are no limitations in science fiction, so why is it we were still stuck in 1927 for our female robots?
References
Baudrillard, Jean, and Iain Hamilton Grant. Symbolic Exchange and Death. SAGE Publications Ltd, 1993.
Huyssen, Andreas. “The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis.” New German Critique, no. 24/25, 1981, pp. 221–237.
Stanz, Kaitlin. “In Video Games, Women Are the Voice of Artificial Intelligence.” Bitch Media, 5 Aug. 2014, www.bitchmedia.org/post/in-video-games-women-are-the-voice-of-artificial-intelligence#:~:text=In%20Halo%E2%80%94one%20of%20the,a%20provocative%20robotic%20female%20body.
Watercutter, Angela. “Ex Machina Has a Serious Fembot Problem.” Wired, Conde Nast, 9 Apr. 2015, www.wired.com/2015/04/ex-machina-turing-bechdel-test/.
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