Metropolis – Bitch Flicks

‘Metropolis’ and ‘Ex Machina’: Portrayals of Gender, Technology, and Society

‘Metropolis’ and ‘Ex Machina’ are merely the oldest and one of the most recent examples, respectively, in a long line of films (and texts) that associate women with technology in this manner, presenting them as potent and potential threats to societal order and to the men who create and aim to control them.

Guest post written by Deborah Krieger. | Spoilers ahead.

Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film Metropolis and Alex Garland’s 2015 film Ex Machina share many commonalities. While these two sci-fi films come from different countries (Germany and the UK, respectively) and from wildly differing eras, social contexts, and technological standpoints, both films have much in common in terms of their portrayals of gender, as well as the key association of technology with social class divides. They also represent an ascribing of an inhuman machine-influenced identity to those who work with said technology, creating a blurring of the lines between man and machine. I will compare and contrast how these two films, made nearly ninety years apart from one another, represent the male and female genders as well as divergent views on the purposes, users, and creators of technology, highlighting the ways in which Ex Machina is indebted to and reflects its predecessor.

In Metropolis, technology is depicted as necessary for all of society to coexist. Yet it is associated with the working class — particularly the male worker — who must give their blood, sweat, and labor to the “Heart Machine” located underground in the City of the Workers, depicted at the opening of the film. The workers of Metropolis are not only associated with machines and technology through their daily labor, but they are also depicted as extremely robotic, monotonous, and identical in their movements. They are all dressed in the same masculinized dark clothing and live what could be called robotic lifestyles, following the same work schedule day in and day out. Even the workers’ walking is mechanized in the shift change scene. Apart from Maria, the only named members of the working class are male: Grot (Heinrich George), the foreman and Georgy/11811 (Erwin Biswanger), an aspect highlighted by Gabriela Stoicea in her article “Re-Producing the Class and Gender Divide: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis,” in which she discusses Karl Marx’s de-emphasizing of the female worker within the context of labor:

“One of the most striking elements in this sequence is the complete absence of women and children, as male workers return to a seemingly deserted city […] by all rules of logic, the so-called worker’s city in Metropolis should therefore be a space inhabited mostly by women and children. Visually, however, there are next to no traces of their existence […] Additionally, Marx himself refused to acknowledge the importance of women’s domestic labor for the daily reproduction of workers’ labor power since it was not remunerated financially.” (Stoicea, 25)

In stark contrast to the working class, the wealthy class, of which the protagonist Freder (Gustav Fröhlich) belongs, lives far above the city in the “Club of the Sons,” where they are surrounded by lush, ethereal flora of the “Pleasure Gardens” and are free to move about, to run, to dance as they wish to, with highly differentiated forms of dress and body language. When we are first introduced to the “Club of the Sons,” we see young men and women cavorting in a fantastical garden landscape, replete with strange plants and a bubbling fountain. The women — described by Stoicea as “prostitutes” (Stoicea, 32) — wear ornate, highly sexualized dresses, while the men are largely dressed in white — a symbol of luxury in that one must have the resources to clean the material if it gets dirty, which the inhabitants of the “Club of the Sons” clearly do.

While Metropolis assigns technology and machinery to a (masculinized) working class, Ex Machina clearly associates technology, as well as the subsequent dehumanization of its users and makers, with the wealthy upper class and with more pastoral elements (see Figures 3-7 in Appendix A), yet still maintains a highly masculinized atmosphere. Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), the creator of the Google- and Facebook-esque site Bluebook is depicted as incredibly well-off, with an entire underground compound filled with cutting edge software and hardware, hidden away on a massive tract of land (rather than in an urbanized environment). In Metropolis, the most advanced technology is in the Pleasure Garden itself, kept away from the lowly Underground City.

Bluebook is the creation that gained Nathan his fame and fortune; notably, Nathan’s creation of the female robots, Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno) and Ava (Alicia Vikander), is not necessary for his economic survival. These female robots are merely prototypes created for his enjoyment in a variety of ways both servile and sexual; their use connects the technology depicted in Ex Machina with the leisure and privilege of the upper classes, rather than as something necessary for societal order and human survival. While arguably we could consider Bluebook, like Facebook and Google, to be necessary for humanity to some degree, these internet applications are not nearly as integral to the simple mechanical functioning of society in the way that the complex machinery is in Metropolis.

Additionally, while women are also hinted at as existing within a technological/labor-based context in Ex Machina, they are not even remotely important to the plot; in the beginning sequence of the film when Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) learns he has won a prize allowing him to meet Nathan, the reclusive creator of Bluebook, there are various out-of-focus shots of female figures within the context of the Bluebook workplace, as well as text messages on Caleb’s phone from unseen female co-workers. However, it is the female robots, rather than the male humans, who propel the film’s climax and ending.

The archetype of the female robot, or “fembot,” has long been a popular figure in media, be it live-action film, cartoons, comics, novels, and more. Many societies have grappled with this powerful but dangerous figure, giving us works as different in tone and theme as Blade Runner (directed by Ridley Scott, 1982) and Austin Powers (directed by Jay Roach, 1997-2002) from the U.S. as well as Chobits (manga by CLAMP; 2000-2002) and Ghost in the Shell (directed by Mamoru Oshii, 1995) from Japan. Metropolis and Ex Machina are merely the oldest and one of the most recent examples, respectively, in a long line of films (and texts) that associate women with technology in this manner, presenting them as potent and potential threats to societal order and to the men who create and aim to control them.

In Metropolis, the female robot in question is a recreation of the inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge)’s beloved Hel, who married the city’s leader, Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel), and gave birth to Freder. When Joh Fredersen learns of Rotwang’s creation and of Maria (Brigitte Helm), the woman from the Underground City who prophesies the mediation of the two classes, he convinces Rotwang to give the robot Maria’s image, intended be a demagogue, to fool the workers into violently rioting and to lead them to their own destruction. The robot Maria (aka “Maschinenmensch”) goes on to perform an extremely sexualized, hypnotic dance for the wealthy young men of the Club of the Sons, using her body for the purposes of her creator.

Ava and Kyoko in Ex Machina share several common aspects with the robot Maria in Metropolis, but they also differ in some key ways. Ava and Kyoko are both created for sexualized purposes. It is unclear that Kyoko (who writer Zhuojie Chen called “a white man’s plot device“) is actually a machine until late in the film, as Caleb — and the audience by proxy — assumes she is a human woman who does not understand English and thus does not speak. In fact, Kyoko is a robot with whom Nathan engages sexually, and Ava, it is revealed, is also created to respond to intercourse, as Nathan tells Caleb:

“You bet she can fuck […] in between her legs, there’s an opening with a concentration of sensors. If you engage them in the right way, it creates a pleasure response. So if you wanted to screw her, mechanically speaking, you could, and she’d enjoy it.”

Thus the male sexual consumption of the female robot hinted at in Metropolis is taken to its literal extreme in Ex Machina. Later in the film, it is revealed that Caleb was not randomly selected to meet Nathan and perform the Turing test on Ava; his internet searches and pornography preferences were used in constructing Ava’s face and body, thus emphasizing the extreme disconnect between the creation of the robots in Metropolis and Ex Machina. In the former, the robot is created for love and is corrupted to perform evil tasks, whereas Ava was designed and programmed from the start to be able to hurt and manipulate Caleb.

Additionally, the female robots in Metropolis and Ex Machina both make use of the media in which they are represented to complete their seduction of the male characters in a rather self-referential way — and, in the case of Ex Machina, the seduction of the audience through Caleb. Metropolis is a silent film; therefore the robot Maria must use her body in order to establish her power, which she does during her dance sequence. Even if she speaks, the audience cannot hear her — we can only read her words in the intertitles — so her seduction of the audience must be as effective as her seduction of the characters in the text; thus the focus on her scantily-clad physical form. Conversely, Ex Machina has the benefit of being a non-silent film, which allows Ava to seduce both Caleb and the audience with her body language as well as with her voice and personality, revealed in their ongoing conversations. Thus, we see a similarity between the methods of these two female robots, even if their texts differ in technological capabilities.

Both films use dance sequences to create a sense of confusion in a designated male viewer or viewers, controlled by the male masters of the robot in question; Maria dancing for the wealthy men of the city, orchestrated by Joh Fredersen and Rotwang, is echoed in the seemingly randomly-inserted disco sequence in which Kyoko and Nathan perform a routine in unison while Caleb can only watch, horrified and uneasy. Indeed, Ex Machina‘s dance sequence has several visual parallels to that in Metropolis, including the way the dancing female robots are shot: from the front, with circular decorations in the background, and a focus on the sexualized, half-dressed female body in motion (see Figures 1 and 2 in Appendix A). Director Alex Garland said in an interview with Wired that he wanted to avoid making viewers think of Metropolis’s Maria when designing Ava, but it seems that he still owes the earlier film a debt in terms of the narrative weight and significance of their dance scenes and depiction of gender.

While the female robots of Metropolis and Ex Machina are important characters within their respective films, they are far from the main protagonists. In what is perhaps a reference to Freder’s narrative journey from innocence to disenchanted knowledge, Ex Machina’s Caleb undergoes a similar trajectory. Both characters begin the film in one world, only to have their lives changed upon visiting an entirely different world — in both cases, literally an underground world. Freder spends the beginning of Metropolis gallivanting in the Pleasure Gardens without a care in the world, but soon learns of the oppression of the lower class when he visits the Underground City and meets Maria, who prophesies a promise of peace and resolution.

Likewise, Caleb begins in the historical world in a brief prologue, where it is revealed that he has won the fateful contest. As he descends into Nathan’s compound, his optimism and ability to trust are constantly tested by Nathan as well as by Ava, to the point where Caleb becomes unsure of whether he himself is an actual human being. Caleb reaches a turning point after a session with Ava, as well as his discovery of videotapes in which Nathan’s older robot models destroy themselves trying to break free. He begins to doubt his own humanity in the light of Nathan’s cavalier approach to creating and destroying life in his robots, so to speak, and in a particularly gruesome scene, slices open a vein on his forearm to make sure he can bleed. It is also during this sequence that Caleb makes the decision — or so he believes — to betray Nathan and help Ava escape.

One other major difference between these two films is the depiction (or lack thereof) of the robot women’s potential for subjectivity. In Metropolis, only the workers and young men of the Club of the Sons believe that the robot Maria is human; Rotwang and Joh Fredersen know the truth, and their point of view holds sway as they manipulate the robot Maria’s body for their own purposes. As an audience, we are never sure whether the robot Maria has a consciousness or independent will. This issue is touched upon in the film, as Rotwang assures the real Maria:

“Joh Fredersen is looking for an excuse to use violence against the workers […] she will destroy their belief in the Mediator! But she is only a machine — made to obey my will. While my power holds, she will do so […] but already I feel I have lost that power, and I am fearful of the consequences!”

However, the audience never sees Rotwang’s apprehension result in any actions of which Joh Fredersen would not have approved. Conversely, the main thrust of Ex Machina‘s narrative is devoted to Caleb’s exploration about whether Ava has a consciousness, a subjectivity, or is merely programmed to act the way she does. In contrast to Metropolis, which only mentions a loss of control briefly, Ex Machina seems to answer this question in the affirmative, as Ava takes the initiative to turn Kyoko against Nathan, kill him, and abandon Caleb to die. Her actions indicate that Ava has, for all intents and purposes, free will, or at least a desire for self-preservation at all costs, in the light of her and Caleb’s realization that Nathan plans to disassemble her when he builds an upgrade.

Of course, it is also possible that the sadistic Nathan could have given Ava and Kyoko a desire to escape as part of their design (rather than such a desire being evidence of AI), only to torture them by refusing to set them free, which might have led them to self-destruct as earlier models are shown to have done. When Ava and Kyoko turn on Nathan, we see Ava whispering something indecipherable in Kyoko’s ear, which might be what switches Kyoko from acting obedient to seeking retribution. Additionally, it could be argued either way that Kyoko revealing herself as a robot to Caleb is part of Nathan’s programming, or that it represents Kyoko rebelling against her creator, thus hinting at a level of AI capabilities she had not previously demonstrated.

Yet through the changing of the point of view in the last sequences of the film from Caleb, trapped in a room of the compound, to Ava, who leaves the compound in the helicopter and enters the human world, we see that Ava has a consciousness and becomes, for the last few minutes, a de facto co-protagonist of the story. Even if her wants and desires are indeed programmed to a degree, the fact that Ava has such feelings and is able to act upon them is evidence that Nathan cannot ultimately control his creation, while in Metropolis, it is less certain whether Rotwang ever truly loses control.

It’s particularly interesting to think about the way Ava performs humanity within the context of Descartes, whose famous quotation “I think, therefore I am,” complicates how we might think about the difference between a human and a machine. According to Neil Badmington, Descartes does not separate humanity versus machinery by virtue of bodily differences — i.e. flesh-and-blood versus hardware — but rather, through the possession of “reason,” which is “the only thing that makes us men and distinguishes us from the beasts” (Descartes in Badmington, 16). However, Badmington challenges Descartes’s certainty, imagining the following hypothetical:

“If a machine — in keeping with the spirit of his fantastic scenario — were constructed in such a way that it had what might be called ‘an organ for every occasion,’ it would, according to the letter of Descartes’s own argument, no longer be possible to maintain a clear distinction between the human and the inhuman. Given enough organs, a machine would be capable of responding in a manner utterly indistinguishable from that of a human being. Reason, no longer capable of ‘distinguish[ing] us from the beasts,’ would meet its match, its fatal and flawless double.” (Badmington, 18)

There can be little doubt that Ava fulfills this prophecy; over the course of the film, it becomes increasingly clear that she is “capable of responding in a manner utterly indistinguishable from that of a human being” (Badmington, 18), much to Nathan’s and Caleb’s detriment. As Garland’s inspiration for the film came from a conversation with his neuroscientist friend who argued that machines could never have consciousness, this ending serves to make his point that much more strongly.

The endings of Metropolis and Ex Machina differ on the relationship between technology and humankind, and present outcomes at the opposite ends of the spectrum. At the end of Metropolis, Joh Fredersen (the “head”) and the engineer Grot (“the hands”) are joined in solidarity and unity by Freder, the prophesied mediator (the “heart”), ultimately representing a happy ending and a promise of coexistence. In contrast, the ending of Ex Machina nullifies this premise, presenting humanity and technology as forces at cross-purposes (despite Garland’s claim that it’s “a pro-AI movie”): Nathan intends to destroy Ava when he makes a newer model of the AI; in return for this mistreatment, Ava and Kyoko turn on Nathan and Caleb, betraying them, stabbing Nathan, and leaving Caleb to die in the sealed-off compound while Ava, disguised as a human, escapes into the real world. The endings of Metropolis and Ex Machina prove particularly ironic, given that Lang was critical of industrialization, while Garland, who deems Ex Machina “pro-AI” sets machines and humans at odds by the film’s end. As technology and robotics improve within our society, it remains to be seen which film’s view is more accurate: whether these new machines, designed to be so like us, will be friend, foe, or more.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

On Ex Machina, Artificial Intelligence of Color, and How to Become a (White) Woman

Ex Machina: Scavenging for Parts in a Patriarchal World

Ex Machina‘s Failure to Be Radical: Or How Ava Is the Antithesis of a Feminist Cyborg

Ex Machina and Her: Dude, the Internet’s Just Not That Into You

Manic Pixie Revolutionary Awakenings

Literature Cited:

Anders, Charlie Jane. “From Metropolis to Ex Machina: Why Are So Many Robots Female?” io9, April 21, 2015. Web. 1 May 2016.

Badmington, Neil. “Theorizing Posthumanism.” Cultural Critique, No. 53, Posthumanism (Winter, 2003): 10-27. Web. 8 May 2016.

Garland, Alex. “Ex Machina’s Director on Why A.I. is Humanity’s Last Hope.” Interview with Angela Watercutter. Wired, April 7, 2015. Web. 8 May 2016.

Johnson, Kjerstin. “How ‘Ex Machina’ Toys with its Female Characters.” Bitch Media, May 8, 2015. 8 May 2016.

Rose, Steve. “Ex Machina and sci-fi’s obsession with sexy female robots.” The Guardian, January 15, 2015. Web. 1 May 2016.

Stoicea, Gabriela. “Re-Producing the Class and Gender Divide: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.” Women in German Yearbook, Vol. 22 (2006): 21-42. 8 May 2016.

Watercutter, Angela. “Ex Machina Has a Serious Fembot Problem.” Wired, April 9, 2015. Web. 1 May 2016.

Appendix A:

Figure 1. Maria dances in Metropolis.

Figure 2. Kyoko dances in Ex Machina.

Figure 3. The City of the Workers, Metropolis.

Figure 4. The Pleasure Gardens, Metropolis.

Figures 5-7. Stills from Ex Machina of Nathan’s compound.

Deborah Krieger is the curatorial assistant at the Delaware Art Museum as well as an arts and culture writer and Fulbright Austria alumna. She has written for BUST Magazine, PopMatters, Paste Magazine, Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art, The Mary Sue, and The Awl. She also runs her own art blog, I On the Arts, and curates her life in pictures @Debonthearts on Twitter and Instagram.

Manic Pixie Revolutionary Awakenings

Maria essentially makes Freder the chosen one—she inspires him to go underground and gives him his purpose when he awakens to the dystopian system in which he lives. Without her, the story does not proceed and the system continues unopposed.

This guest post by Julia Patt appears as part of our theme week on Dystopias.

Contemporary audiences best know Fritz Lang’s Metropolis for its unlikely restoration after museum workers discovered several missing scenes from the film in Brazil in 2008, 80 years after the film’s 1927 release. An archetypal depiction of the class struggle, Metropolis continues to influence dystopian landscapes, from George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead to The Hunger Games.

In the opening scenes of the film, we learn that the Metropolis is in fact two cities: the wealthy city above and the workers’ city below. Our protagonist is Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), son of the Metropolis’ Master, Joh. Freder differs little from the other men of his class—indulging in meaningless contests in the city’s stadiums, enjoying the comfort of elaborately dressed and painted women in the Eternal Gardens, and completely oblivious to the trials of the working class. It’s only when Freder encounters Maria (Brigitte Helm) that he deviates from the course set for him.

In this first scene, Maria brings a large group of children up to the Eternal Gardens so that they may see the people who live there. “These are your brothers,” she says again and again, perhaps addressing both groups. While the other visitors seem alarmed by the newcomers and move away, Freder stands transfixed, watching Maria.

He then learns of the deplorable conditions in the city, but only because he follows Maria underground. There he sees terrible accidents, men lagging with fatigue at their posts—all the horrors of the industrial world with its vast inequalities. Afterward, he tries to explain the conditions to his father, who is unconcerned, so much so that he casually dismisses one of his own employees to go join the ranks at the machines.

Although he prevents the man’s suicide and saves another from exhaustion, Freder can find no overarching solution or purpose apart from pursuing Maria and at several moments bids these other characters to wait for him. He’ll find answers, he seems sure, when he finds the woman who has so shaken him. He’s not wrong, either. When he later finds Maria—more than 30 minutes after her first appearance—she is delivering a modified sermon about the Tower of Babel, ending with the maxim: the mediator between the head and the hands is the heart.

Joh, Freder’s father, immediately recognizes the danger she presents and turns to the inventor, Rotwang, to help him discredit her. They decide to give Rotwang’s greatest creation, the Machine-Man, Maria’s face. It’s worth noting, however, that the Machine-Man had a female form well before this plan—Rotwang created it to replace the woman he loved. Joh and Rotwang are naturally delighted with the Machine-Man version of Maria, calling it the most perfect and obedient tool. Each believes that the Machine answers only to him, although it is ultimately unclear whether the Machine has motivations of its own. (“Let’s watch the city go to the devil!” it exclaims toward the film’s conclusion with noticeable glee.)

It does, however, fulfill its joint purpose, which is to bring chaos to both the city above and the city below. In the Metropolis’ nightclubs, the Machine dances, driving the upper-class men to violence and delirium. Below, it incites the workers to revolution and encourages them to destroy the machines that keep both cities alive and functioning.

Thanks to the Machine’s efforts, the Metropolis comes close to complete destruction, with the workers’ children trapped in a flooding city below and the wealthy stalled by massive power outages above. Rioting breaks out as the two classes encounter each other on the surface. However, Maria saves the workers’ children—with Freder’s assistance—and later, the mob unwittingly destroys the Machine-Man. After seeing his son nearly die, Joh has a somewhat convenient change of heart and, with Freder’s help, joins hands with the worker’s foreman.

All this comes at the hands of one woman and her doppelganger—equal forces for peace and chaos. But Maria isn’t a character with much agency or screen time. Freder’s pursuit of her dominates our attention throughout the film. And ultimately she is not the mediator, rather only the inspiration for him, the original Trinity to Neo’s Chosen One in The Matrix.

Maria is an unusual character in other respects. It’s unclear what her position or profession is, although it seems likely she might be a teacher or a minder for the children, and she doesn’t quite seem to belong to the working class. Neither does she seem to spend time with other women. Only men come to the meetings she calls; in fact, we see no women workers at all until the film’s final act.

There seems to be a suggestion, then, that only men can overthrow the oppressive society—we see three men clasp hands at the end of the film to show that peace is possible. Aside from the women in the mob of workers, women in Metropolis remain isolated, surrounded by crowds of men. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is no moment of: “These are your sisters.” However, without Maria, revolution seems unlikely. She threatens the status quo by calling her meetings; she inspires Freder to leave the city above and witness the city below. Her image—properly manipulated—is enough to create division within both societies, but she also contributes to the unity.

The Machine-Man, of course, has even less control over its destiny. Its appearance is stolen, an appropriation of Maria’s body for the benefit of the patriarchal upper class. If it loves chaos and seems devious, we should remember that it was designed to behave as it does. It is an ideal tool because it appeals as women as meant to appeal without any desires or notions of its own. But it’s worth noting that the other women of the upper city are also tools of the patriarchy, used for a particular end other than their own determination, however willing their participation in the system might appear.

Ultimately, Metropolis gives us two images of how women function in repressive societies—as revolutionary visionaries and unholy temptresses. However, it falls short on both sides: they can neither overcome nor create the dystopian world as they choose.

We find a similar duality of character in François Truffaut’s adaptation of Fahrenheit 451, based on the novel by Ray Bradbury. The film deals similarly with a male hero of the dominant society awakening to the realities of the world around him: Guy Montag (Oscar Werner). Montag belongs to the enforcement class—he burn books—and lives a comfortable if unhappy life with his wife, Linda (Julie Christie).

Linda is the picture of complacence. She consumes the media her society dictates, wants what her culture tells her to want, and questions little.

We wouldn’t know anything of her unhappiness, save for the fact that in her second appearance in the film, she has apparently overdosed on pills. It’s never settled satisfactorily whether she did this intentionally or by accident. The emergency crew treats it as a routine occurrence, so it seems likely that Linda represents the typical woman of her station—lonely, uneducated, and lacking control over her life in any meaningful way.

Montag is visibly shaken by the episode, but only to a point—he is in the midst of a transformation inspired by Clarisse, a woman he meets on the train. In a deft move by Truffaut, Christie also plays Clarisse, distinguished from Linda only by her short hair.

Although he is not as immediately taken with her as Freder is with Maria in Metropolis, Montag clearly finds himself drawn to Clarisse. (She is often regarded as one of the original manic pixie dream girls.)

He seems happy to see her again and goes so far as to visit the school where she works with her after she’s fired. He particularly seems moved by her emotional response when the children don’t remember her—she cries the tears Linda can’t.

But most importantly, Clarisse puts Montag on the path to his awakening by asking him, “do you ever read any of the books before you burn them?”

Don’t mind me…just here to inspire you to a revolution.

Clarisse, like Maria, is an active participant in a movement to change the way her society works. She warns a man at the beginning of the film that the firefighters are on the way to his house. She doesn’t teach the way she is directed to and she challenges all of Montag’s preconceptions about the world in which he lives. However, as with Metropolis and Maria, Fahrenheit 451 is not Clarisse’s story. And strikingly, the dual casting of her and Linda suggests that the two play complementary roles in Montag’s life. One represents the inadequate if safe life he’s lead and the other the intellectual freedom and curiosity he learns to want. But under slightly different circumstances, Clarisse might have been Linda or vice versa. Their individual desires, while relevant, do not drive the narrative the way Guy’s do. Rather, like Maria and the Machine-Man, they represent the two possibilities in particular dystopian systems—their roles largely determined by the needs of men in those societies, be they revolutionary or otherwise.

Ultimately, what are we to make of these manic pixie dream girls with their unusual ideas? Is there a moment when they might do more than inspire others and take real revolutionary action on their own? And is it possible to tell the story of a woman coming to the same realizations that Freder and Guy do?

Or, does it all come back to the creation of the Machine-Man—the ultimate symbol of society’s desires with no identity of its own?

Recommended Reading: “Reproducing the Class and Gender Divide: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis”

Julia Patt is a writer from Maryland. She also edits 7×20, a journal of twitter literature, and is a regular contributor to VProud.tv and tatestreet.org. Follow her on twitter: https://twitter.com/chidorme

Failed Revolutions in Imaginary Cities

How do you solve a problem like dystopian science fiction? It’s been around for about as long as the film industry and yet, politics and society still won’t stop producing warning signs for the decay of humanity, providing directors, writers, and “artists” with almost inexhaustible opportunities for critiquing the current state of the world community, or showing what the present state of things might turn into if not handled consciously and carefully.

This guest post by Olga Tchepikova appears as part of our theme week on Dystopias.

Many dystopian stories are set in urban environments: early films like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) address the issues of class structures and technological progress in the urban sphere and novels like John Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer (1925) put emphasis on the city as a space inhabited by masses, where anonymity and lack of compassion or interest in community prevails over civic solidarity and consideration. In urban spaces, it is really not that hard at all to be “alone in a crowd” both literally and figuratively. The city as a space for the display of pessimistic future narratives works well because that’s where all types of processes are accelerated, and there is a plethora of productive and destructive forces turning urban existence into an organically evolving chaos—a disease to the city’s body that needs to be cured continuously, by any and all means necessary—and the most subtly pervasive one is surveillance.

There have been a few particularly disastrous examples of state surveillance. Some are a bit dated (the East German Stasi and its many filmic representations) while others are fairly recent. So is it, in fact, a dystopian future we are talking about when it comes to spying on citizens? Not really. We have kind of embraced it in “western” urban culture and now are encouraged to accept its humoristic potential (I’m talking about the “Smile, you’re on CCTV” – smileyface stickers everywhere). At the same time, it comes at us in disguise, as a communicative necessity for the progressive human that wants to be harder, better, faster, stronger. Yet, here we are, on camera in public spaces and feeding the world wide web (and feasting on it, too).

If you can’t beat them, join them, right?

… said no film hero/ine ever. If anything, do it for the purpose of infiltrating authority, like Queen propose. If you can’t (and you shouldn’t “can”) join them, beat them. That’s what hero/ine/s do, and by watching them we are reminded that we too often don’t, although we should. They connect the dots and look back on the ones voyeuristically observing them. They resist and are sometimes punished for it—just like in the real world. Take for example Brazil (1985), straight out of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, where protagonist Sam Lowry tries to escape the imperative of bureaucratic regulation of his environment and ultimately is lobotomized for his efforts. Here, punishment of disobedience is an almost accepted, public ritual, while disobedience itself is both overt and covert—there are terrorists in the city, but also underground freedom fighters (Tuttle).

Slightly different, but similar enough to include here is Dark City (1998), with a seemingly more happy ending, showing how John Murdoch battles an alien species, the Strangers, who are in complete control of the temporal flow of the artificially created environment, constantly change the geography and impose identities on individuals without their knowledge, all for the “good” cause of filtering out the humanity in the human. Here, no one is who they “really” are and no one (except the hero Murdoch, the traitor Dr. Schreber and the crazy person Walenski) cares because they don’t know (a friendly nod to Last Thursdayism).

Scary, right?

In Brazil, the opening sequence is most illustrative of the scattered condition of society or the discrepancy between ideal and reality: floating above the clouds, we find ourselves “somewhere in the 20^th century”—a noplace (not in to utopia-etymology sense) and everyplace of the past 100 years. This type of insistence on universality is a prime example for cinematically mediated ideology as it kills any slightest bit of hope for change no matter whether the circumstances are positive or negative. Besides, speaking of ideology, Triumph of the Will opens with a very similar cloud sequence. Coincidence? Do I need to answer that? But actually, it’s just Lowry’s dream, the one where he’s a hero and saves the girl, which means procreation, which means return to nature, which means return to the Garden, which means happiness. It’s a good thing. But it’s not real. The idyllic heavens change into a shop window full of TVs showing an advertisement—because this is the reality of the 20^th century: it is simulated on screens now—and a few seconds later…

In your face, media propaganda, capitalism and consumer culture!

Before we meet Lowry roughly 10 minutes into the story, we see the Ministry of Information violently arresting the wrong guy (Buttle the generic citizen instead of Tuttle the infiltrator), and the only difference between the aftermaths of the exploding shop window and the destruction accompanying the Ministry actions is that the latter procedure has a piece of paper authorizing it. Because processed information is power, and the lack thereof makes you an easy target, or victim. Or, actually, maybe just a normal human being living your life, as is the case in Dark City.

Everything quiet on the neo-noir scifi front — Everything quiet on the neo-noir sci-fi front

In a similar way as Brazil, Dark City is set in a temporally patchworked environment. The mise-en-scène completely lacks coherence in its references to historical space and time—there are too many of them at once. As Mr. Hand explains, “We fashioned this city on stolen memories: different eras, different pasts, all rolled into one.” They have the whole world in their hands, if you know what I mean. The Strangers’ invisible puppeteering activities result in our perception of the narrative as dystopian only via, again, the power of knowledge. In Murdoch’s camp, however, knowledge means to reflect, to detect inconsistencies, and to suspect. Suspicion causes paranoia and paranoia ultimately leads to “real” power, at least in his case. Contrary to Brazil, where the productivity of suspicion is actively promoted by the same authority that benefits from it, and therefore, prevents any actual change.

Dark City ends with Murdoch’s victory over the Strangers and his rebuilding of the city on his own, seemingly “freer” terms. Does he end autocracy? Yes. Does he bring about liberation? If this is about humanity and idiosyncrasy and “everyone needs to be who they really are”… the answer is no, not really. Murdoch dislikes processes no one else appeared to suffer from and makes the world better for only himself. Murdoch wanted Shell Beach; he got Shell Beach. In the process, he may have played around with the parameters of the formula and put it to sleep, but he did not bother sharing knowledge (and thus, power). They’ll just have to live a lie forever. But it’s only a lie if you know there is truth, right?

Guess it didn’t happen then.

While we’re at it, let’s talk about truth some more. Truth is like gender—there is an essentialist take on it, relying on facts, things that actually exist in the world (things that you can touch… like genitals for example), and then there is ideology: things invented but holding the same authority as the essentialist prove (similar to the assumption that these genitals you can touch magically make you desire certain things and hate others). With gender, it’s complicated. With truth it’s the same, unless someone forces it to be simple. For example, in Brazil, ink holds more “truth” and authority than interpersonal communication. Information printed on paper is more than just power as an ideological concept—it is the physical manifestation of power, like your genitals.

Where there’s truth, the “human” aspect of interaction becomes irrelevant—no other physical authority as such is needed to maintain law and order. Indeed, surveillance “somewhere in the 20^th century” is not an overt action taken out by identifiable people (they just reinforce the authority of the paper print) but, rather, emerges in forms of indoctrinations mingling in the environment, promoting a tautological and unquestioned acceptance of bureaucracy. All over the city, there are posters reminding the citizens to “Be safe – be suspicious,” or “Don’t suspect a friend, report him” and finally, that…

One might say that the organization of the depicted society relies on a form of decentralized panopticism. Panopticism is the unverifiable threat of surveillance turned into self-surveillance—it used to be a prison thing but now we have, you know, cameras in our laptop screens and are you sure it’s not broadcasting just because the light is not on? Is it paranoid to think it might? In Brazil, the decentralization of surveillance means that the possibly watching body is not only the state authority but also, people just like you. Somewhere in the 21^st century, the decentralization of surveillance means that the possibly watching body is not even a body anymore. So, this demands an even more rigid need for self-discipline—in order for everyone to be a suspect, everyone needs to suspect.

Now it appears that these two films could not be farther apart in the presentation of their citizens—in Brazil, everyone suspects everything; in Dark City no one suspects anything. However, both are built on the same conditions: individualism, transparency of authoritative activities, and the privacy of citizens are sacrificed for a harmonious communal existence where the illusion of egalitarianism depends on the withdrawal of authority from direct visibility. By explicitly encouraging paranoia but not presenting the population with these messages in a spectacular manner, the Ministry of Information creates a paradoxical community that is bound by mutual distrust, and therefore, establishes a structure where the public does not aim to overthrow authority because everyone is too busy suspecting each other. With a similar effect, the Strangers in Dark City look down on their lab-rat citizens without permanently appearing in the continuity of their world. Both cases are a witch hunt: if hero/ine/s drown, they’re innocent; if they survive, they’re guilty and die anyway.

Unless they evolve.

Lab rats outsmarting their “owners” is always a moment of pleasure, but is their personal victory over authority solely driven by their position as heroic victims, or did they have to become more evil than the evil in order to prevail over evil? This is something I was toying with during Ex Machina, and also the aspect that made Dark City a lot darker than it might seem in the first place. Sometimes we forget that every hero/ine drags along a body count, too. But at the same time, some change in the dystopian routine of the film is better than no change, or the wrong side’s victory.

That’s why Brazil is so soul-crushing. Lowry is irreversibly kicked out of reality into a non-existent, eternal, utopian dream—he got the Garden, the girl, the happiness. But he didn’t win. There are other films that thrive on this idea, and most of them also don’t have a happy end.

Attempts at improving the “situation” through distraction are very close to our reality that significantly lacks a routine of epic, heroic gestures. Could it be, though, that it’s mainly because there are too many causes worth fighting for and it hurts to prioritize? You wanna make a donation for homeless puppies, children, or grown men? Or would you rather watch Hobo with a Shotgun?

What we cease to see is how that off-screen world of ours sugar-coats outrage with sensationalism and throws it back at us in the form of film, so we can at least be entertained by the sad realities we live in while reality itself becomes secondary, invisible, almost unreal. Do we simply not start revolutions because most of the successful ones are fictional, or do we not feel entitled to actually complain and be outraged because this reality is not that bad? We are not ignorant but aware—after all, we share on Facebook and hashtag on Twitter. Only those spaces are the Garden, not the reality. But since we are not lobotomized yet, we could still evolve.

Olga Tchepikova has lived, studied, and worked in various places in Europe and just left the US after finishing her MA there. Her mind in free time, as well as in research, is mainly occupied with films about and critical theory on various sub-cultural spheres, sex, porn, horror, violence, death and their ramifications.