The Enduring Pathalogical Feminine Machine

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Excerpt from an article I have written called:  Pathological Machine

Sean Redmond[1] distinguishes between a humanist and a pathological cyborg.  Redmond argues that the humanist cyborg works in collaboration with human beings and longs to understand the emotional complexity of humanity, yet never seems to quite achieve unity of “the corporeal to the technological.”[2]  Star Trek’s Data may be thought of as the exemplary humanist cyborg.  Conversely, the pathological cyborg is relentless in its “will to power…The pathological cyborg wants nothing more than the complete genocide of the human race.”[3]  Pathological seems to best describe the dominant representation of the female cyborg on film and in television, most often characterized as hypersexual, dangerous, and disruptive.[4]  

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[1] Sean Redmond, ed., Liquid Metal (London: Wallflower Press, 2004).

[2] Ibid., 156.

[3] Ibid.

[4]  Fritz Lang, "Metropolis,"  (Paramount Picture, 1927); Ridley Scott, "Bladerunner,"  (Warner Brothers, 1982); Duncan Gibbons, "Eve of Destruction,"  (Orion Pictures, 1991); James Cameron, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,"  (Warner Brothers, 2003).