For next week, March 30th, we only have one reading, but I want you to read it carefully:
- Bowler, Alexia L. “eXistenZ and the spectre of gender in the cyber-generation.” New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 5, no. 2 (April 2007): 99-114. (Available on EBSCO – GMU library; also sent via email).
No blog response is due, though if you want extra credit, I will accept thoughtful, analytical responses to this article (and how you see these concepts playing out already in eXistenZ or other films you’ve seen in the past). I will expect substantial in-class conversation when we discuss the film and this article, so please be sure to read it thoroughly.
See the class wiki assignment on producing your group digital ethnographic research project proposals, due March 30th.
Advertisement
Films depict “cinematic representations of cyberspace.” Through these science fiction films we are able leave behind the body and gender. Metropolis was the first film to show what leaving the body would be like, All of the people who lived underground to make sure that everything above ground worked became robots. They moved like robots and were indistinguishable from each other. That is unless we are discussing gender in which case we could tell which gender was which. Wheather “Schwarsenegger declare(s) that he is hetero,” Dorthy wears red lipstick to show her feminine side, or Pat from SNL is unisex doesn’t really matter when one is “mind traveling”. Through the use of internet and these technologies we can be a different gender in our minds (if we chose to). However through film time and time again we are confronted with choices of hyper masculine or hyper feminine.
Cronenberg’s films really have the same consistant theme….technology is part of the body. We really saw this last Monday through his film eXistenZ. I was extremely shocked by the video games appearance of an umbilical cord. It was also a shock that in order to play the game they had to insert something into the body as well as having a chip already implanted there. The idea that the game can’t live without the body and the body without the game is an intense but real thought. When the main character feels like she is going through withdrawal and cant live without playing the game she shows how the body and the mind become attached to the game making it feel like it is dependent upon playing. The analogy that the game needs the body is also true. Without the body playing the game the game does not live on.
Cronenberg said,“[N]ever been pessimistic about technology – this is a mistaken perception (. . .) I think that I look at the situation fairly coldly – in the sense of neutral.
(. . .) It’s part of the essence of being human to create technology (. . .) We’ve
never been satisfied with the world as it is, we’ve messed with it from the
beginning. (. . .) I think that there is as much positive and exciting about it
[technology in eXistenZ] as there is dangerous and negative”
I am unsure of how much I am willing to buy into Bowler’s article, not only because the article agitates me, but because I think there are further explanations and examples to be elaborated on within the ones she presented. I feel Bowler’s first commentary should deal with how technology is created by man, and furthermore play on Cronenberg statement “technology as being an extension of the human body,” (p.104). Bowler lost me as a reader by not doing so because her arguments about gender seem invalid for me in the context she presented them.
Bowler uses examples of movies, the ones I have seen being the Matrix (and sequels) and eXistenZ, as well as casts a general poor descriptive overview of how the female body casts a view of weakness (which would have been enhanced and possibly validated had she used examples from Lupton’s better worded argument). These examples meant nothing to me because you could see how she was picking at gender, and forcing connections, rather than identifying connections and relating them to humans being behind the technology and transferring our feelings about gender and sexuality into movies due to the comfort level of the producer. We cannot deny, as a whole, Americans are not fully comfortable with sexuality in forms different than heterosexuality, these ideas are then transposed into movies, including and not limited to cyber-based movies. Regardless of personal feelings by individuals, movies are geared towards certain populations and if you want to make money and succeed, most times you will stay along the wide path and only dip into the narrow when appropriate. Also, on another tangent, in eXistenZ, yes the main people are a man and a woman, and there is a creepy umbilical cord, but what about at the end when they supposedly come out of the game and the creator was in that parallel reality-a man, Bowler’s previous arguments are then fully undermined. We are never sure of what, if anything, is real within the movie because the movie twists things up and is a very bad nightmare example of what we may find happens if we go to parallel universes (like the old television show where the group continues to parallel worlds-Sliders). Either way, eXistenZ is a movie of interpretation, which is most likely why Bowler chose it, but there needs to be an expansion and development of every part of the movie, as well as to whom the creator is and their views on sexuality, gender, etc.
Overall, this article made me think of how much Lupton’s article (as well as the other authors in that week’s readings) had a much better argument about gender; moreover, I feel Shannon McRae’s article sums up my point. People can be whomever they please in the cyberworld, and we must go into the cyberworld to explore and understand gender changes, rather than look at movies-which are created, just as technology, by man and therefore hold the creator’s feelings in mind and represented in their creations.
This doesn’t really elaborate on eXistenZ movie, which just confused me to no end, but I needed to vent my annoyances with the Bowler article, and say how Bowler’s argument using it wasn’t fully validated.
Judy A
While watching the movie “eXistenZ” one thing kept freaking me out, the pods. They were fleshy and looked “alive”. Then I read the article, and they compared it to an umbilical cord and I realized that was what was freaking me out about the pods. They looked like little animals feeding off of your energy. The director comments in the article that he doesn’t want his work viewed as pessimistic towards technology, but after that symbolism I find it hard not to. I am all for technology but it struck a serious cord inside me when I came to the realization. I do find that technology drains some of our lives and after spending almost a week with no internet or cell phone I realized I didn’t miss it because I was having real meaningful interactions, yes, the same interactions I would be having in the cyberworld if I was able to but I was having these interactions on a different level.
The article goes on to talk about gender issues and the lead male in the movie’s issues with being ported. I clearly saw this, and found that the scenes of him getting ported always turned out vaguely sexually and were also kind of disturbing even from a female point of view. I also enjoyed the fact that the lead female was such a strong character always looking to force the boundaries of what the lead male thought was normal. It was hilarious to me that he just went along with it too. Going back to the article I actually do find that the transition from reality to virtual reality seems to be an easier one from the female perspective.
I saw the end of this movie coming. Plugging in and being fully immersed in another “reality” is too easily mistakable. When we sit at our computers we still have the ambiance of our rooms or offices and so we cannot be so easily lost but what is shown in the movie is full immersion and for me I would remain as confused as the final character and this last line “Are we still in the game?”. And we will never really know.
I agree with the article “Flirting on the internet and the Hickey” when it talks about how the internet is creating “a style of flirting in which “objectified metal and hard-wiring” replaces the messy “wetware” of body fluids”. The internet’s easy use and just as easy creation of digital selves has given us a new outlet for our sexual desires. Where once sat a average looking computer geek in a basement now in the virtual sits a super handsome alpha male with the ability to make women swoon with just a word. Having identified with his new role in the virtual he sets out to find a willing female of generous proportions who can fulfill his every fantasy, and find her he does in a chat room designed for just that kind of thing. They commence their virtual sex act, instant gratification with no thoughts of pregnancy or STD’s and move on to their next task in the wide world of the virtual. It was so simple and for as long as they desire they can carry out their affair never knowing the other’s RL identity and never exchanging “hardware” for “software”.