Technology: The Rise and Fall of Cultural Fear
As Isaac Asimov tells us, 'modern
science fiction
is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature
of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible
solution.' Most definitions of sci fi reflect this notion: a
hypothesized prediction of our future, based on what we have already
done or learned in science.
Societal Fear
The Terminator films rely on two major themes: advanced technology
and societal fear. These themes compliment and rely on one other.
Perhaps the most obvious fear that can be seen in
Terminator II
is the connection with the historical context within the plot of the
film. When the vicious computers became powerful enough to take over
the world, the historical content within the plot of the film. When the
vicious computers become powerful enough to take over the world, they
do not simply emerge and start attacking; rather, Skynet launches a
strategic military attach on the former Soviet Union, starting a chain
reason in which they predictably fire nuclear weapons back at the United
States, starting a third world war that is chemical, fatal, and the end
of humankind as it has been known. (The most obvious connection here
is to the cold war).
Another major fear of 1990s society is the fast paced movement of
technology that we have all felt and arguably still feel now to varying
degrees. We all feel it in some way or another.
Science Fiction,
like distopian literature, is littered with such fears and moral
dilemmas. Is it our dependence upon the machine, the computer, the
advanced mechanical world essentially, that makes us vulnerable to such a
valid fear? We depend upon so much computer technology for our every
day existence, that perhaps we are afraid of the consequences when we
may someday go too far. Thus, the very idea of films such as
Terminator 1 & 2,
The Stepford Wives,
Blade Runner,
Total Recall,
Demon Seed and the like. They play upon our fears and our dependency of/with technology.
Technology / Creation VS Creator
There is an existing debate over whether so much technology, computer
and otherwise is good or bad. Few could argue that the creation of the
atomic bomb is bad, just as the creation of carious computer aided
medical equipment is good. However, there is an entire area of grey (of
which we have already started to discuss elsewhere in forums) and which
is much larger and much harder to define as simply good or bad. Yet no
matter how sceptical, we are still fascinated, intrigued , and
interested in technology. However, the moral responsibilities of
science or the scientist to both their creation and to society is still a
remaining (and frequently asked) question. As we will see later in the
Course, Mary Shelley and others have illustrated this in works such as
Frankenstein;
the idea of the scientist, obsessed with the notion of new direction,
advancing technology, etc., creating new things without regard for the
moral consequences of their actions. This is precisely what happens in
the Terminator movies. As Sobchack points out:
Terminator II refuses to accept the unsettling consequences of the
cyborg in the name of instrumental domination in the realm of technology.
Thus we arrive again at the popular motif/ real fear of the creation
surpassing its creator. Consequently, the voice over at the beginning
of
Terminator II states: 'three billion human lives ended on
August 27, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the was
Judgement Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare - the war
against the machines' (
Terminator II, opening scene).
Technology is moving toward creating machines that will surpass us in
strength, agility, and even intelligence. When this happens will we
still be able to control it? Karla Jennings discusses the creation
turning on its creator in
The Devouring Fungus:
From the moment the German Metropolis unveiled the first gleaming cyborg, it has had a place in fiction as a creation both beautiful
and evil. Made more perfect than the most flawless human, it's an
avenging angel bent on murder and almost impervious to be destruction.
It reached its gory glory in The Terminator, where Arnold Schwarzenneger is as skilled at massacring humans as doing home eye surgery.(200)
Jennings points out that the word '
robot'
was invented by Karel Capek, who took it from the Czechoslovakian word
for servitude or forced labour. She argues that we view the computer
and its evolving technology as a 'growing' but 'unnerving' machine,
adding that 'The computer isn't to blame for reflecting our fears, we
are' (20).
Sherry Turkle also addresses the notions of creator and creation: She
explains how a learning programme played checkers according to built in
rules, and a built in programme which taught it to modify these rules
based on experience. Eventually it played against the best in the world
and won. However, as Turkle points out, 'the dramatic moment in this
programme's life was not the day it bear a champion, but the day it bear
its creator. The programme became good enough to bear Arthur Samuel
(its creator) at his own game.' (278). Consequently, Norbert Wiener
suggests that the implications borders on the theological: 'Can God play
a significant game with this own creature? Can any creator,. Even a
limited one, play a significant game with his own creature?' (279).
Turkle then argues that for Wiener, 'the working of the Samuel programme
started to feel like overstepping an ancient taboo: the taboo of
speaking of 'living beings and machines in the same breath' (280). Why
is it taboo to use such terms together? Turkle argues that it is not
surprising:
The vehemence of response and expresses our stake in maintaining
the line between the natural and the artificial, between human and the
mechanical. Discussion about computers becomes charged with feeling
about what is special about people: their creativity, their sensuality,
their pain and pleasure.
And how do we feel when the
cyborg
is faster than us, stronger than us, more advanced than us? We fear
that it will usurp our power-perhaps the most valuable thing we pride
ourselves in having.
Indeed, we have seen much movement towards human vs the human like machine-the
cyborg.
Yet there still remains a belief that there is something special about
humans that could never be replicated into a machine. Turkle says
that,
The connection between artificial intelligence and the 'meta-physical computer' is apparent. As soon as you take seriously the idea of creating an artificial intelligence,
you face questions such as whether we have any more than sentimental
reasons to believe that there is something about people that makes it
impossible to capture our intelligence in machines. Can an intelligence
without a living body, without sexuality, even really understand human
beings?
(19-20)
The relationship between human and
cyborg
is a complicated one. The paradox which exists is one that where human
rejects machine, they also yearn for its advantages, and vice versa.
In
science fiction, the inventions of
cyborgs,
artificial intelligence,
computers and the like, may be rooted in the science, but they work in
the fiction because of our ideas about the future of such technologies.
We need not know the particulars of
A.I.
advances, or the complicated reasons why certain technologies do not as
of yet work. Rather, all we need know are our 'ideas' about such
things.
Turkle explores what happens to people when they come to think of
their mind as a programme and in turn as themselves as machines. This
sort of investigation is a common one amongst many
science fiction
stories: the human and the machine: separate, yet inseparable. In our
vast moving world of technology, the distinguished line between human
and machine has become blurred and thus frightening. As we have already
seen in Haraway, there is
a leaky distinction is between animal-human (organism) and machine.
[earlier] machines were not self-moving, self-designing - they could
not achieve man's dream, only mock it. They were not man an author to
himself, but only a caricature of that masculine reproductive dream. To
think they were otherwise was paranoid. Not we are not so sure. Late
twentieth century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference
between natural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and
externally designed - our machines are disturbingly lively, and we
ourselves frighteningly inert. (Haraway 579)
The
cyborg in
Terminator I,
is innately arguably evil and inhuman. He is a machine who is called
upon to perform a task; he is programmed to kill Sarah Connor and stops
at nothing to achieve this. However, in the second film, this same
machine learns human qualities. Although programmed to protect rather
than stalk, the
cyborg deviates from his specified task and learns the value of laughter, speech and finally, of human life. Like
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Data, he wants to be more human. He wants to fit in with the humans he
has come to seemingly 'care' about and understand their feelings, etc.
Envious of man's unique qualities, the T101 adopts human
characteristics. But, 'the T101's, humanity' is at once superficial and
artificial - a layering of organic material over a 'heart' of metal and
circuitry' (Sobchack 7). Consequently despite the terminator's will
for human qualities, it is this machinery at the core of the
cyborg
that determines the fate of its existence. As Sobchack notes: 'The
Terminator is unable to shake free the machine at the heart of him'
although he develops the semblance of a personality. At the end of the
film he is still radically differentiated from the human: crying 'is
something he can never do' (8). A similar argument can be made for the
humans in the film. Although frightened by the possibility of 'being
controlled', humankind in
Terminator II, not unlike our own
world, is obsessed with creating bigger and better machines. Further,
some characters themselves not only become obsessed with the power
uniquely attributed to the machine, but adopt machine-like qualities.
Sarah Connor is obsessed with the machines of the future. She is committed to Pesatgero, an asylum for the mentally insane, because of her obsession and irrational fears of the machine (she tries to blow up cyberdom). She not only becomes addicted to her thoughts of the machine, but in fact, becomes addicted to her own fear. She is frightened of the future, dreaming of burning bodies, etc., yet she is obsessed with and cannot reject the idea of the machine. Sarah Connor learns to ignore her human nature, showing compulsive behaviour as she teaches herself and her young son military tactics. She eagerly builds a fortress of weapons and killing equipment to protect herself against the evil machines of the future. Indeed, she seems *programmed* with a task in the same way that the cyborgs do. She stops at nothing to prepare herself and her son, even continuing to fight for her freedom while incarcerated.
Connor begins to disregard all other aspects of her life, and instead
turns to thoughts of the future. In the film, John explains that her
last boyfriend was a green beret who ran guns, and that she 'would shack
up with anyone she could learn from so that she could teach him how to
be this great military leader' (
Terminator II). Skynet is her
only thought as she arms and prepares herself. She cannot stop herself
from her addiction. She becomes cold and
emotionally
distanced from her former human compassion. Lost in her obsession, she
eventually believes she can kill as coldly and mechanically as the
Terminator itself.
Connor's obsession can be most powerfully attributed to her
fear (and thus society's own fear), of being mastered. Historically it
is man or humankind who has mastered and controller lesser creatures.
However, the computer is in most instances seen as an equal or superior
'creature'. Turkle argues that it is this concept of mastery that
fascinates or addicts the hacker to the computer:
Hackers use their mastery over the machine to build a
culture
of prowess that defines itself in terms of winning over even more
complex systems. And it talking to personal computer owners I heard
echoes of the search identity. I found that for them the computer is
important not just for what it does but for how it makes you feel. It
is described as a machine that lets you see yourself differently, as in
control, as 'smart enough to do science', as more fully participant in
the future.
(20)
In fact this is a significance in plot for both
Terminator
films and hackers, searching to break down the system of the
undefeatable Terminators. In Terminator I, Sarah and Reese strive to
outsmart the programmed
cyborg and defeat him rather than be defeated. In
Terminator II, they strive to outsmart and master the machine
culture of Skynet as a whole. Their goal is to
reprogramme the future so that the
culture
of machines will never exist in the first place, thus regaining control
and becoming master over their own destiny. They fear the exact
opposite; that the computer
culture
of Skynet will master the human race to the point of extinction
(through execution). It is their fear of the more powerful machine, as
well as the notion of losing control, that urges them on to conquer.
Similarly, as Sobchack points out, John Connor discovers that he is
superior to the T101
cyborg in
Terminator II,
when he discovers that he has control over him. 'Cool', says John 'my
own terminator'. This control is crucial for John and all humans in the
struggle to master the machine: 'this modernist logic in
Terminator II
has as its correlative the demand for 'instrumental' control of
technology, and that it further accepts the impassibility of clearly
distinguishing between humans and machines' (qtd. In Sobchack 11).
Sobchack argues that the film operators through as dichotomy of the
controlled/uncontrolled, as it moves from the present in which the
machines are controlled by humans, to a 'dystopic future' which
threatens not only its audience but its characters. She says that
'opening sequences portray a future in which machines dominate a
landscape littered by human remains: It is under this logic that the
T-1000 becomes so threatening' its continually taking on of new shapes
allows it to elude human control (the T-1000 repeatedly escapes
confinement, for example, by 'pouring' itself through small gaps)
(Sobchack 9).
Consider the following questions:
- What is it that makes Blade Runner and the Terminator
films scary? Do you find the lack of emotion in the replicants and the
T100 and T800 cyborgs to be frightening? If so, why? If not, why? In
our current cultural climate, what is it (if anything) about technology
itself that is frightening in these films?
- Blade Runner addresses significant issues of morality,
emotionality, and the concept of truth. Which of these do you find to
be more difficult to 'settle' in your mind? Indeed, can they even be
seperated? What parallels do you see with The Terminator or Terminator II: Judgement Day?
You may take these as rhetorical questions to ponder yourself as you
make your way through the material, or, if you wish, you may make an
entry in your General Journal or The Gendered
Cyborg
Forum. Keep in mind that all contributions to questions such as these
are preparatory for your final essay. In other words, the more hard
thinking you do throughout the Course, the more prepared and the more
material you will have when it comes time to do your final assessment.
References
Beeler, Stan W.
The Invisible College: A Study of the Three Original Rosicrucian Texts, (New York: AMS, 1991).
Gokce, Neyir. 'Definitions of
Science Fiction' from
http://www.panix.com/~gokce/sf_defn.html (last accessed March 12 2005).
D. Haraway, 'A Manifesto for
Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s' in Gill Kirkup, Linda Janes, et al. (eds),
The gendered Cyborg. (London: Routledge 1984).
Jennings, Karla.
The Devouring Fungus: Tales of the Computer Age, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1990).
Sobchack, Vivian.
The Carnage of Identity: Cyborgs and Women in Science Fiction and Horror Film, from
http://vioelt.berkeley.edu%7Erollins/cyborg.html (Feb 10 2005).
Turkle, Sherry.
The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).
“Remember
Remember the Fifth of November…” November 5 in Great
Britain is notorious for being Guy Fawkes’ night. Fawkes
was a “terrorist”, an English Roman Catholic who tried
to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the so-called Gunpowder
Plot in 1605. The now yearly fireworks that are held across the
country are a somewhat mocking “tribute” to his failed
attempts. 
So
the story is set in ca. 2038, when Britain is ruled by a totalitarian
regime called Norsefire. It follows Evey (pronounced “E-V”)
Hammond, a young woman who, at the start of the film, is rescued
from the state police by a masked vigilante, who introduces himself
as V and then sets out his “mission statement”: “Voilà !
In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both
victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no
mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant,
vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation
stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent
vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious
and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance;
a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity
of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let
me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you
may call me V.” To which Evey replies: “Are you like
a crazy person?” V: “They will say that.” 
Within
V’s liberation agenda, Fate then throws Evey, who works
at the BTN and who the authorities believe is V’s comrade-in-arms,
in the role of his accomplice. As Fate would have it, her parents
were considered to be terrorists too. For the police, it is clear
why she is doing it; as to V, and who he is, that is a major mystery.
They are unable to comprehend that V is a human being; they depict
him as if he has no human emotions. Still, “part of him
is human”. It underlines how at the first, the police are
totally unable to comprehend what motivates V; they see a man
who breaks the law and nothing more. The police also search for
a connection between V and Evey, but there is none. As to why
V does what he does, this is only a slow realisation that the
police make as his campaign progresses, before finally discovering
that they should indeed be on his side. Meanwhile, BTN News makes
it look as if the terrorist V was killed in a “heroic”
raid that ended V’s siege of the BTN Tower – in reality,
V escapes, and takes Evey with him. 
The
year-long campaign that V has set out is a killing spree, a personal
vendetta, whereby each murder has to be explained away by the
authorities, but whereby each murder helps the police paint the
truth: that V is doing this spree as it is his personal vendetta.
A
key sequence is when Evey thinks that she is captured by the police,
incarcerated and tortured for days, finding solace only in the
notes left by another prisoner named Valerie, who was imprisoned
and persecuted for being a lesbian. Evey is told that she will
be executed unless she reveals V's whereabouts. An exhausted Evey
finally says she would rather die, and, surprisingly, is then
released. Evey discovers that she has been in V's lair all along,
and that her imprisonment was staged by V. By forcing Evey to
experience what he had gone through long ago, V hoped that Evey
would understand that our integrity, "the very last inch
of us", can be more important than our lives. She is now
rid of fear, not afraid of dying; she is truly liberated; she
has, like V, become “superhuman”. At this point, V
reveals that Valerie was the spark of his rebellion and hatred
of the government. V tells her that she hates him now for what
he has done to her, but “then something happened, it happened
to me, just like it happened to you.” V created a lie, but
because she believed it, she found something true about herself.
“This is the most important moment of your life. Commit
to it.” It is here that there is a graphic representation
of her rebirth: she receives a baptism of water (rain), interspersed
with flashbacks to V's rebirth, when a victim in a cruel pharmaceutical
experiment liberated himself, and via a baptism of fire, was reborn
as V, heralding a twenty year long vendetta, which is supposed
to lead to a new world. 
V
the man, however, is mortally wounded in the fight, but returns
to Evey, thanks her, professes his love for her, and dies. His
body is placed upon the train with the explosives, his funeral
barge, which Evey, with the consent of the chief inspector, sends
towards the Houses of Parliament. Meanwhile, thousands of Londoners,
all wearing Guy Fawkes’ masks, march on Parliament to watch
the event. Because Creedy and the Chancellor are dead, the military
receives no orders from superiors and, as a result, stands down
in the face of these riots, preventing bloodshed. 
As Louis Giannetti says in Understanding Movies,
"Ideology is usually defined as a body of ideas reflecting the social
needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, or culture. The
term is generally associated with politics and party platforms, but it
can also mean a given set of values that are implicit in any human
enterprise -- including filmmaking.” In other words, pointing more
towards film, ideology can be known mainly as “assumptions.” It can be
imagined as a way of looking at things or simply, as a "comprehensive
vision." Ideology pushes against already
existing conformity by presenting a possible transformation in society.
This is done during a regulartory process of abstract thoughts. As in the Wall-e picture to the right used in K-Punk's blog called
