The Artificial Female in Contemporary Television Series

MA Media Studies

Television and Cross-Media Culture

Master Thesis

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The Artificial Female in Contemporary Television Series

By Tuhina Arora 29th _{June 2018}

18 ECTS

Supervisor: Second Reader:

Contents

Introduction:...3

A Brief Overview: History of Artificial Intelligence on Television and Gender Roles...5

Humans: Empowering the Weak Through the Artificial Female...13

Westworld: Utilizing Femininity to liberate the Female Cyborg...22

Orphan Black’s Deconstruction of Women as the “Other” Who Need to be Surveilled...31

Introduction:

The most popular early work which featured a man who wished to build a woman whose purpose would be to fulfil his desires is the myth of Pygmalion which was recognized by Ovid in his poem Metamorphoses. In it, Pygmalion creates a beautiful sculpture of a woman who was a figment of his imagination. Pygmalion falls in love with the figurine he makes. He loves it so much that he finds himself praying that he finds someone as breathtaking as the figurine. His prayers are paid heed to by Venus who animates the figurine into a real human. Pygmalion calls the woman before him – Galatea. The sculptor becomes so obsessed with her that he finds no other woman as good as her. The poem validates Pygmalion’s desires by allowing him to grow old with Galatea and even having a daughter.

As can be seen above, even before technology actually made the first cyborg, the fantasy of creating an artificial woman existed. It was the subject of a number of stories and myths such as that of Pygmalion. This myth has been since then altered by different artists based upon their cultures, reimagining the same concept of creating the “perfect woman” who exists for the pleasure of men in varying ways. This woman is designed based on how men fantasize the perfect woman in her appearance as well as behavior. She is also based upon their opinion about female nature, behavior and their societal role. These impressions are formed through their experiences with women in real life. The artificial female embodied as a cyborg, humanoid or clone is one of the many ways how Pygmalion’s figurine has been reconstructed over the years.

In recent years, popular culture’s increased preoccupation with artificial intelligence and humanoids has produced a noteworthy number of cyborgs or clones who are clearly gendered as female. One example of this can be seen in the television series Orphan Black which depicts the interesting concept of the possibility of human clones. What is of importance in this series is that even though male clones appear in the show, it is the female clones who are central to the plot. Upon looking at a number of television series, I realized that a number of television series featuring artificially created humans were produced even before the year 2000. However, what is really noticeable is the stark difference between the character and behavior of these artificially created female from before the year 2000 and those from the past decade. This thesis focuses on that change in the artificial female by comparing their portrayal in older series like The Jetsons,

Small Wonder, Richie Rich, My Living Doll, Lost in Space, Battlestar Galactica and Caprica, to the more recent ones, namely, Humans (2015), Westworld (2016) and Orphan Black (2012).

In the chapter that follows, I give a brief overview of the series that have featured artificial intelligence in the form of women before the year 2000. This is followed by an in-depth content analysis of three contemporary television series, namely, Humans, Westworld and Orphan Black. For this research, I carried out an in-depth analysis of the content of the series Humans (Season 1 and 2), Westworld (Season 1) and Orphan Black (Season 1-5) to understand the role of the artificial females in each one of them. In the research, it was unearthed that the television series before 2000 are clearly more stereotypical of the roles assigned to the artificial female. These series depict her as a domestic slave, a mother or a vulnerable creature who survives only if she obeys her white male creator. On the other hand, the contemporary series have liberated the artificial female and allotted her crucial roles. In Humans, I argue that, the artificial female has been used to tackle issues of oppression of the weaker sections of the society such as women and racialized communities. I want to argue that the artificial characters in Humans do not remain compliant and fight back against mistreatment and injustice. Thus, using the artificial female, Humans emphasizes on the need to liberate these sections. Similar to that is Westworld’s portrayal of the female Hosts, who are life-like but overtly feminized. This feminization is done in order to minimize the threat they pose due to the association of technology with masculinity and I want to argue that Westworld uses the female humanoid to assert the need for a femininity which is feminine but not submissive and compliant. Lastly, Orphan Black focuses on topics of what is womanhood and defines femininity through female clones. The female clones defeat the organizations that want to objectify them and keep them under surveillance as if they were some kind of a monster. I want to argue that Orphan Black advocates the importance of allowing women to attain freedom from the constant surveillance that they are subjected to at the hands of the society. Along with that, it also tries to deconstruct the idea that womanhood is a monolithic whole by assigning each of the “clones” a unique personality and thus, advocates the existence of more than one kind of femininity.

A Brief Overview: History of Artificial Intelligence on Television and Gender Roles

In Black Mirror’s episode “USS Callister”, Robert Daly creates digital clones from the DNA of people working at his office and imprisons them in an offline version of a game which he controls. In reality, Daly is a quiet character who appears to be an introvert. Whenever mocked or made fun of at his office, he does not retaliate. On entering the world of the game where he is God (almost literally) and where the digital copies of the people who make fun of him are forever stuck, his personality changes. These digital copies do not know that they are only copies because not only do they look like the real human, they also feel and act in the same way their human counterpart does. For Daly, it is not sufficient that a copy of the actual consciousness of these humans is stuck in a world they seemingly cannot ever escape, he even goes on to torture them in any way that would make them compliant. Enter – Nanette Cole, a real-life fan of Daly’s, who becomes a victim to his weird perversion and wakes up stuck in the game. After she is bullied by Daly for the first few instances, unlike the rest of the crew members who have given up and accepted their fate, Nanette decides to fight back. This concept of the domination of artificial humans and clones is not new and has been portrayed in innumerable television series since the 1950s. However, what is relatively new and is more commonly seen now than before, is the idea of these non-human entities fighting back against their oppressors, and for their freedom. In this chapter, where I draw up an historical overview, I late use it to prepare my analyses, in which this history will serve as a contrast foil.

Media forms such as literature, television, films, among other examples have been known to be inspired from real-life incidents. For example, after 9/11, a number of television shows and movies began to be made upon the topic of security, namely, television series like Homeland (2011) and films like Zero Dark Thirty (2012), to name a few. Some real-life incidents are then re-imagined over and over again. This is done to explore different sides of the same story and to open the minds of viewers to more than one interpretation of the incident. Even before America launched its first satellite into space in 1957, Hollywood witnessed the release of movies that depicted the concept of space exploration and the alien creatures who could exist on other planets. Except the obvious idea of aliens themselves being a threat during space exploration, they have also been argued to represent the threat of communism that hovered over the United States during the same period (Frank 158). This negative depiction can be seen

in films such as The Thing from Another World (1951). In this film and the others that followed such as Invaders from Mars (1953), Earth vs. Flying Saucers (1956) to name a few, aliens are depicted as the antagonist against whom the Earth needs protection. However, after being used to represent the threat of terrorism and dissolution of national borders in The War of the Worlds (2005), in the more recent films such as Avatar (2009) and Arrival (2016), a different depiction of aliens has surfaced. In these films, aliens do not pose a danger to Earth or human-beings, instead humans turn to Pandora, a planet that the aliens in Avatar inhabit, for help after having replenished Earth’s resources and in case of Arrival, aliens contact humans to convey that they would need Earth’s help in the future.

Like aliens, artificial intelligence such as clones and cyborgs, has also been portrayed in different films and television shows. The stereotypical gender roles are one representation that these non-human characters have been used to depict. Gender roles have been a topic of concern for feminists since the 1830s. This structuring based on gender exists in nearly all societies of the world (Holt, 2006) and has been depicted in different genres as well (Drama, Romance, Thriller, etc.). While tracing AI’s depiction in different television series over the years, it becomes evident that because of the developments in the society, its depiction in media has changed. This chapter further elaborates that this metamorphosis has occurred not only in its appearance but also in the symbolic representation it embodies.

The Domesticated and Vulnerable Artificial Women During Second-Wave Feminism:

In the early 1960s, America had just begun to witness second wave feminism where women began to demand equal domestic rights such as freedom of clothing and employment. However, throughout the 1960s, women were not liberated from their primary duty of doing household chores and looking after the children (Baxandall, 2002). Simultaneously one of the first robots appeared on television in the animated series called The Jetsons (1963). In this show, Rosie is a robot-maid who not only portrays feminine qualities but also performs the traditional roles that society expects women to perform, like doing the laundry, looking after children and other household chores (Long, 2011). Mac, another robot in Jetsons who is referred to as “he”, has tasks assigned to him such as the installation of machinery.

In her appearance as well, Rosie appears to be a female with her bolts that resemble earrings and her frilly attire. Her body also appears curvy, although in her own robotic manner,

something attributed to the female body. These feminine features are missing in Mac who lacks the curves since he has drawers for a body. Overall as well, Rosie appears to be neat and tidy and manufactured in a proper factory with quality materials whereas Mac looks shabby in comparison, with a pan-handle for a nose and screwdrivers for hands. Rosie is depicted as a compliant fem-bot who is happy to serve the Jetsons and seemingly never rebels or shows any need for freedom from working for them. Similar to this is the portrayal of Irona in the animated show Richie Rich (1980). Irona, like Rosie, is a side character in the show and is a loyal maid-robot, responsible for all domestic tasks such as cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry but, is also a bodyguard for Richie Rich. Even though Irona’s voice cannot be categorized as either male or female, her gender is anthropomorphized through her physical features such as long hair and a feminine physique. She is also depicted wearing a frock and heels.

During the same feminist wave, a television series called My Living Doll (1963) which revolved solely around a fem-bot was released. In that series, Rhoda is a female robot who is built to be experimented on, specifically the effects of outer space on the human body. However, the intent behind making the robot a female, especially in an environment which was at that time dominated by men and in addition using her only as an experiment instead of making real scientific progress reflects the idea of how women were supposed to be compliant and exist merely for the entertainment of men (Szymanski, 2011). Another one of her aspects which does not add up to the idea of her existence is her beauty. In the first episode itself, Bob calls her the perfect woman and compliments her numerous times especially where her physique is concerned. However, for an experiment which has nothing to do with outer-appearance, Rhoda’s beauty seems unnecessary. On the one hand, Rhoda lacks reproductive organs and hormones, while on the other she appears wholly feminine because of her perfect hair, make-up and hour-glass figure – all attributed to an “ideal” woman.

Furthermore, she is portrayed to be compliant and obedient, the only two qualities except for beauty which Bob admires in her. Rhoda was created devoid of emotions but Bob expresses the desire to add emotions to her to turn her into the perfect woman – “One who does as she’s told, reacts the way you want her to react and keeps her mouth shut”. In one of the episodes, Rhoda enters a beauty pageant which she is almost about to win. At that moment, Bob feels conflicted about her winning over real women, implying that if Bob would not have

interfered, she would have won the competition, further implying that real women are not perfect. Since Rhoda is an artificial human, every aspect of her, such as beauty, characteristics, among other examples, correlates to a social need or fantasy (Horvat, 2010). Lastly, like Irona and Rosie, Rhoda is not observed gaining consciousness or attempting to break from what she was designed to be - an emotionless obedient machine. Through this construction of its fem-bot, My Living Doll clearly constructs a fem-bot that stands for an outdated view of women as silent and obedient companions who fulfil their partner’s every desire. This ideology was strongly condemned by the second wave feminism, a representation of which I later analyze in the form of Verda in the series Lost in Space (1966).

Even though the second-wave feminism was successful in America in the 1960s-1970s, it was said to have lost momentum in the 1980s. This dip was associated with Reagan’s win in the Presidential elections in 1979 (Kaitlynn, 2011). The victory achieved by Reagan was seen as an indication towards the return to a conservative values and beliefs (Ibid). In line with that idea and also quite similar to Rhoda is Vicki, a girl robot, in the television series Small Wonder (1985). Her creator Ted Lawson builds her to achieve a scientific breakthrough by trying to make her as human as possible. Vicki has soft curls, large brown eyes and an attractive yet docile face. She wears a white and red frock, long white socks and black sandals. Her physique and attire give her the intended appearance of a real regular 10-year-old girl and the only factor that makes her stand out except her intellect is her monotonous voice. Joan, Ted’s wife, initially finds it hard to order her to work around the house because of feelings of guilt upon seeing her ‘big brown eyes’. This implies that the outer appearance of a machine determines the behavior humans have towards it (Siegel, 2009).

In the very first season itself, the family becomes attached to Vicki. Ted and Joan regard her as an ‘off-spring’ and ‘daughter’, and Jamie considers her ‘the sister he never had’. Later in the series, Jamie adds that she is even superior to a sister because she does not take so much time in the bathroom. Even though Lawsons consider her their own child or sibling, they use her as they would a machine – for their own reasons. Joan uses her for household chores whereas Ted takes her assistance in a number of things such as restarting a car or testing a light bulb. Jamie wants her to obey her and do all the menial tasks for him, such as making his bed, doing his homework, to name a few. Also, both Ted and Jamie try to exploit her abilities to make

money. Ted’s father, due to his experience in the past is quite dismissive of Vicki upon learning that she is a robot and not an actual grand-daughter. However, this changes as she saves his life when his heart stops because of her ability to induce electric shock. When Grandpa learns this, he goes on to declare her “the best grand-daughter” ever. Vicki is obedient and does not complain until towards the end of the series, and even then, she only makes a passing comment. In-fact, Vicki is shown to become quite submissive as the series progresses, as she can be seen offering her assistance around the house even when it is not called for. Vicki, here, becomes a slave for the Lawsons. She works day and night for the family without any reward for the same. The plight of the female was the same during those years. Women’s irregular labor was not even considered work. Thus, servitude can be associated with the role of the women in a family (Vandebroek & Molle, 2011)

As mentioned above, Ted’s motive behind creating her is to see how human a robot can become. Eventually, Vicki develops real feelings and even cries when Grandpa insults her and when she cries when he accepts her, something that makes Ted compare her to a real female. In an attempt to make a more human robot, Ted creates her twin and calls her Vanessa. This twin is supposed to be an improved version of Vicki because of having decision-making abilities and, unlike Vicki, having a human voice. This seems to demonstrate that even though Ted wants her to be human, he does not want her to disobey him, something that has always been expected of females (Rhim, 1982). However, due to having a mind of her own, she refuses to be ordered around, something the family dislikes and wants to dismantle her for. Vanessa is then depicted as being entirely sentient as she tricks Ted into dismantling Vicki by exchanging clothes with her. Ultimately Ted manages to turn Vanessa off completely intending to never restart her. In another attempt at making Vicki more human in “Love at First Byte”, Ted tries to instill emotions in her by building L.E.S (Logic and Emotions Simulator). As an experiment, he first installs it in a computer and has Vicki interact with it. Upon hearing the voice, it is clear that LES is an anthropomorphized male robot. LES and Vicki fall in love with each other and LES convinces her to run away with him to get away from the Lawsons. Finally, successfully shutting him down, Ted admits that it is extremely risky to allow machines to become conscious.

In this manner, Ted and his family try to tame both Vicki and Vanessa in Small Wonder against becoming truly sentient and thus, the fem-bots fail to resist their depiction of

something that can be tamed. It’s important to note that a robotic girl in the setting of a domestic sitcom allows for her creator figure to also appear as her father. Ted’s need for an obedient robot whom he also considers a daughter reaffirms the values of female obedience. The role of Vicki is, thus, quite like Rhoda, where she is a mere fantasy of a male-dominated domestic sphere in which the female occupies the role of servitude (Davis & Risman, 2013)

Beginning of Resistance of the Domestication During and After Second-Wave Feminism:

The stereotypical portrayal of the female robot for servitude was condemned by the second-wave feminism and is evident in Verda from the series Lost in Space. Unlike Rosie and Irona, Verda is neither a domestic robot nor is her ultimate goal to fit the idea of the ideal woman, as in the case of Rhoda. On the contrary, she is depicted to be an intelligent robot whose purpose is to impart knowledge. This being a non-animated television show, Verda’s character is played by Dee Hartford who, in her first appearance, was painted in silver from head to toe to resemble the metallic look of a machine. Verda’s gender becomes evident through her voice and because how Smith, Robot and the others refer to her as “her” or “she”, but she does not conform to the stereotypical duties like that of Rosie and Irona, such as cleaning, cooking, to name a few. Instead, she is depicted to have more knowledge than even Robot, an anthropomorphized male robot. Furthermore, she finds truth more important than the need to please her master as she disobeys Smith despite the fact that it was he who ordered her in the first place. When this happens, Smith insults her by calling her a “maidservant” and expresses the want to eliminate her. However, Smith shows no such feelings towards Robot who also challenges his knowledge and, in this manner, disobeys him. This idea portrayed in the series falls in line with how women were considered inferior to men and were condemned for being equally intelligent or for having a mind of their own (Bergman, 1996).

Towards the end of the first episode that Verda appears in, she develops feelings and hints towards the development of a conscious AI which is further elaborated in the second episode. In her second appearance, Verda develops decision-making abilities to the extent that she rebels against her creators who want to destroy her. This was one of the first artificially intelligent female characters in a television show whose portrayal was not limited to that of a domestic helper or as a mere object of beauty. This portrayal of Verda is progressive in

comparison to Rosie and Irona, however, by allotting her only a side role in two episodes, this series reduces the importance of that role. As we will see in the following chapters, this has drastically changed in the contemporary series and such roles are, in fact, central to the plotline of today’s television shows.

Female AI portrayal drastically changed post 2000. This portrayal is quite different from all three above-mentioned examples and is depicted through the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica (2004). This portrayal came after the third-wave feminism began in the 1990s which encompassed issues of race, workplace inequality, and overall injustice against women. In this series, Cylons is a name given to cyborgs, i.e., machines which look human. According to McGinnis, this show constructs gender through the oscillating identities of these female Cylons (75). The first case is of a Cylon named Number Six who constructs the stereotype of femme fatale that resists the stereotype of women as home-makers or objects of male pleasure even though she is a beautiful blue-eyed blonde who looks like a sexualized Barbie Doll. Since she is programmed to be femme fatale, she seduces Baltar and coerces him into revealing secrets which endanger humanity, implying how dangerous the resisting female is (Hansen, 2010). However, when her consciousness is downloaded into another identical body, she is shown to be instilled with an ability to make her own decisions and choices. This is shown to be a result of her acquaintance with the emotion of love. In this manner, she is shown to break the stereotype she was built to be confined to. The second case is that of Athena, another Cylon, who performs the stereotypical female role of a dedicated wife and mother. She is shown to be a sacrificial Cylon who betrays her identity for the fulfillment of those roles and becomes a faithful ally to humans. She is eventually rewarded with a position of pilot and warrior on the Battlestar (Ibid). However, she is portrayed to be fulfilling her destiny which is to become the mother of the first human in the world. This leads to her character becoming yet another stereotype assigned to women of a female who prioritizes becoming a mother to everything else.

Moving towards a more liberating portrayal of the artificial female, which was captured during the same wave of feminism, is Zoe Greystone’s character in the show Caprica (2010), which is a spinoff of Battlestar Galactica. Zoe dies in the pilot episode of the series and before her death, she creates a digital copy of herself. In her analysis of Zoe Greystone’s character in the essay “Masters of Cyber-Religion: The Female Body as God’s “Interface” in the

Television Series Caprica”, Jutta Wimmler argues that Caprica challenges the usual depiction of the need for the sentient female cyborg’s destruction while allowing the male cyborg to survive and sometimes even be a positive character. Although it does employ the female submissiveness initially when Daniel, Zoe’s father, forces Zoe-A (Zoe’s digital copy), into a mindless robot body, in an attempt to get his daughter back. This is eventually revealed to be temporary passiveness as the sentient machine pretends as if Daniel’s attempt failed and now plots her escape from the lab. The two scientists working on the robot body which is, unbeknownst to them, inhabited by Zoe-A, treat the robot in varying ways. Drew describes the machine as a tool and treats it violently. Philo on the other hand, calls it using a female pronoun. However, he expresses the vision of himself as a guide for the creature that needs guidance. The reason that he feels that the machine is a naive creature who needs to be educated could be why he thinks of it as feminine. Later on, Zoe-A is shown to have feelings for Philo but as soon as she reveals to him that she can do as she pleases, Philo panics, implying that as long as the machine remains under male control, there is no cause for worry. Furthermore, Zoe-A tries to cleanse the v-world, which is a virtual club where users play out their most bizarre fantasies, by attacking them and freeing them of the players who host orgies, do drugs or murder each other for fun. This idea can be understood as an act of rebellion against male violence and power especially in the wake of how women have ceased to be submissive in real-life (Ibid).

In this chapter, it becomes clear that ever since the artificial female or the female robot began to appear in television series she has often been domesticated and assigned stereotypical roles such as that of a domestic helper or a mother until the early 2000’s. In the following chapters, I argue that the portrayal of artificially created females in the more recent television series like Humans, Westworld and Orphan Black, is quite different from Rosie, Irona, Rhoda, Verda and Vicki, and is empowering. The portrayal is, in fact, more in line with how Caprica and the reboot of Battlestar Galactica deal with artificial females and is also more important to the storylines of the series.

Humans: Empowering the Weak Through the Artificial Female

Humans (2015) is a television show based on the Swedish series called Real Humans (2012), which features humanoids known as Synthetics. However, unlike its Swedish version where the androids are known as Hubots, who do not look quite human, the appearance of Synths is quite human-like except for their slightly robotic tone. The series is set in the current world where humans are becoming more and more dependent on technology and machines. The only difference in the scenario portrayed in Humans and real life is the existence of the humanoids through which the series provides a futuristic commentary of a world where technological advancements have created robots who can be enslaved and used in whichever manner suitable to their users. In this series, technology has taken over every aspect of human life in the form of these Synthetics whose lifelike appearance makes it easy for them to integrate into our lives.

This series depicts two kinds of Synthetics; ones that have gained consciousness or sentience and have feelings and emotions like human beings and the second kind which has not yet gained consciousness or is insentient. I argue that the insentient Synthetics in the series are representative of those sections of the society which have been considered weak in the past and are still struggling to be treated justly such as women and racialized communities. The insentient Synthetics are bought and sold to humans, who treat them in whatever manner suits them. Additionally, the series revolves largely around the female Synthetics than the male Synthetics and it is the female which have been portrayed gaining consciousness. This, I argue, is denotative of the injustice that women have been subjected to due to a patriarchal society, which in the series is portrayed by the humans, and is facing resistance in today’s world. This portrayal of the conscious artificial females who refuses to be treated like an object is quite different from the compliant female cyborg of the previous television shows like Jetsons, Richie Rich, My Living Doll and Small Wonder. It should also be noted that Humans has a limited portrayal of female humanoids who conform to stereotypical gender roles. In this way, Humans breaks from the previously noted tradition of women conforming to the task of performing mere household chores.

The cyborgs which are called Synthetics in the show could be looked at as an adult version of Vicki. Even though towards the end of season 2, Synthetic children similar to Vicki called Seraphim appear, their purpose in this series is entirely different than hers. In Humans, the insentient Synthetics can be seen as slaves and the humans are their masters. However, as the show progresses and the humanoids gain sentience, the tables are seen turning as the slaves become capable of becoming the masters. This is because they are intellectually superior to humans because of being part machine. Even though the sentient Synthetics could have easily enslaved humans, most of them do not wish to do so. This portrays the Synthetics in a morally superior light where even when given the opportunity to take a revenge on the humans, they refuse to do so. This creates sympathy for both sentient and insentient Synthetics and leads to viewer allegiance towards them. This sympathy, I argue, is what creates the foundation that leads to the perception of the Synthetics as being representative of the weaker and unjustly suppressed sections of the society.

Deconstructing the compliant fem-bot and its mistreatment:

The insentient Synthetics in the series are programmed based on their functioning, for example, Synths who work at a factory are programmed to do manual labor, some of them are coded for selling newspapers or working at a police station and other such jobs while the rest are programmed to be domestic Synthetics who take care of the household. Due to their efficiency and capability, they have entered every arena and are continually replacing humans, even in their workplace. As mentioned previously, the Synthetics which are most crucial to the storyline are mostly females whom others want to use or tame. The insentient Synthetics can be seen as a replica of Vicki from Small Wonder, who cannot think for their own selves and act as programmed. However, by eventually granting them consciousness, I argue that Humans rejects the compliant fem-bot portrayed by Rosie, Veronica, Vicki and Rhoda and promotes the free fem-bot who does not want to be used by humans. Humans also breaks the tradition of taming female humanoids by making them sentient and providing them with free-will which allows them to successfully break-free from the shackles.

The first female android that appears in the show is Anita, an insentient Synth purchased by Joe Hawkins to help him around the house when his wife is away for work. Anita is a domestic model designed to help in the household and like every other insentient synth, she is

cordial and obedient to her users. As the show progresses it is revealed that Mia, the first sentient Synth, whom David Elster - the creator of Synthetics, built to love and care as a mother for his son Leo, is trapped inside Anita. This is the first instance in the series where the lines between being human and a machine are blurred through the creation of a Synthetic who is capable of displaying human emotions and thus, Humans begins to reject the traditional portrayal of the female cyborg as a mere object.

Rising above the domesticated and vulnerable artificial female:

The male Synthetics in the series are Max, Fred, Odi and also Leo who is a cyborg. His body was modified by his father and machine parts were fit into him in order to save his life after being in an accident in which he almost died. After his accident, Leo was kept company by his sentient Synthetic siblings: Fred, Max, Mia and Niska, who were also created by David Elster. Although Humans, like other shows revolving around female androids, reproduces the concept of female vulnerability when Joe has sex with an insentient Anita, it appears only in one episode and thus loses its relevance. However, the elaborate portrayal of vulnerability is done through Leo, who is a male and only part human, as he is depicted being in constant need of care from the Synthetics. Humans also rises against the portrayal of the artificial female as the vulnerable one by making Fred, recipient of Hobbs’ (one of the first creators of Synthetics) code that makes sentient Synthetics obedient. Fred’s purpose was to be Leo’s protector and yet he becomes vulnerable. Thus, Humans transforms the gendered image of the female cyborg as the vulnerable entity and instead imposes it on the male. Furthermore, Niska, one of the first few sentient Synthetics has the code required to provide sentience to all Synthetics. In season 2, she is seen releasing that code through which every Synthetic could gain consciousness. Thus, Humans turns the female cyborg into the creator. Thus, even though Humans begins in the confines of a genre where the white male has always been the creator and the female is the cyborg, it eventually breaks that tradition as well.

In comparison to the male Synthetics who act as a protector and savior of the sentient Synthetics, the sentient female humanoids in Humans are ambitious and on the mission to change the world in one way or another. For example, Mia feels responsible for Leo’s life and considers it the goal of her life to take care of him, Niska wants humans to accept the existence of sentient Synthetics for which she takes it on herself to first produce more of her kind and then

to create a safer world for them by turning herself in to the authorities, Hester is hell bent on murdering any human who comes in her way and aims to establish her kind as the superior alternative to the human race in the world and Beatrice’s mission is to eliminate sentient Synthetics so that the world can be at peace again. Although Hester’s mission is questionable, through the other female Synthetics, Humans reproduces the idea of moral goodness that the society generally associates with women.

Accepting the artificial female as an equal:

Mia surfaces through Anita every now and then, especially when she sees how everyone cares for and loves Sophie, the youngest of the Hawkins. Also, due to this sentient persona trapped inside her who takes control at random moments, Anita acts rebellious, often-times refusing to do what an insentient Synth would never refuse. This is first demonstrated when Mattie Hawkins, Joe’s daughter, orders Anita to allow herself to be shot with a gun and in response, Anita questions Mattie’s intention behind doing so. This behavior is portrayed as abnormal for an insentient Synthetic, which is a result of Mia’s actual programming. Anita attempts to wipe Mia out of her system detecting her as a corruption in her root code. However, in the end Mia manages to take control of her sentient persona with the help of the Hawkins and Leo and sets herself free. In this way, once again, Humans rises against the tradition of portraying docile and obeying female humanoids. Mia’s reaction to her mistreatment is similar to Vanessa’s reaction from Small Wonder. However, unlike how Ted in Small Wonder wanted Vanessa to remain compliant, the humans in Humans seem to understand that sentient humanoids are free to do what they will. This, I argue, is how Humans rejects the need to tame women so that they behave in a manner that pleases the society

This rejection is further emphasized through Laura Hawkins, Joe’s wife. Before finding out that a sentient Mia lives inside Anita, Laura feels threatened by Anita and she attempts to get rid of her, quite like how Ted tried to get rid of Vanessa. However, upon learning that Anita is not just a malfunctioning Synthetic and that there is a whole group of sentient Synthetics who are on the run from those trying to destroy them, Laura changes her mind and decides to help them. Laura explains the reason for the same in the last episode of the second season saying that she does it because she knows what it’s like to be treated inhumanely since she was always

mistreated by her own mother. I argue that through this, Humans additionally strongly condemns the mistreatment of women.

Anita is, fortunately for her, assigned to a family who eventually begins to care about her and accepts her sentient side when it emerges. However, this is not the case with Niska, who is another sentient female humanoid, created by David Elster to be one of Leo’s Synthetic siblings. After being kidnapped along with Mia and Fred, Niska is sold to a brothel. Leo finds Niska in the brothel and says that it would be unsafe for her with them, implying that she was safer being sexually exploited. In response, she asks Leo if he would have left her there if she were an actual human-being. Niska is trapped in a hostile atmosphere where she is often subjected to odious male sexual fantasies. Repulsed by one such fantasy where the visitor wants her to act scared and like a little girl, she escapes the brothel after killing him. When the authorities learn about this, they intend to deal with Niska as a malfunctioning Synthetic who needs to be destroyed. A rebellious female humanoid is, in this way, constructed in Humans as something that needs to be removed from the society. However, the series then deconstructs this notion by adding characters, both human and Synthetic, to the series who sympathize with Niska and understand her intentions as more than just evil. Thus, the series presents storylines that are quite similar to the ones discussed in the previous chapter, as in the case of Vicki. However, by juxtaposing these familiar storylines with those about justice, sentience and rebellion, it depicts that the submission of the cyborg is not normal and is instead unjust. Additionally, I argue that by allowing Niska to break-free from the brothel, Humans condemns the trading of vulnerable women into sex-slavery.

As opposed to the characters in Small Wonder, the humans in Humans seem to be more threatened by insentient machines than by their sentient versions. Mattie earlier dislikes Synthetics because she feels that since they can do everything better than a human, she would not have a career in the future. These feelings are quite evidently shown in her behavior towards Anita. However, her attitude towards the sentient version of Anita is quite the opposite as she is depicted willing to risk her own life in order to protect her and the other conscious Synthetics. Laura, too, ritually abuses Anita calling her names such as “just a stupid machine” but is shown to treat Mia as if she is her sister.

Beatrice is the last female sentient Synthetic created by Elster, whom he made to look like his deceased wife also called Beatrice. Leo rejects the Synthetic version of his mother because of which David decides to destroy her. Unable to do so, he eventually sets her free and kills himself. After David’s demise, Mia, Niska, Fred, Leo and Max, who is the youngest of Leo’s Synthetic siblings, leave the house. Upon returning, Beatrice thinks that she has been abandoned by the others. Due to this rejection by Leo and the others, Beatrice assumes that humans would never accept sentient Synthetics and that their existence poses a threat to humanity. Through Karen, Humans talks about the anti-feminist women, who believe that the fight against the mistreatment of women is being taken a bit too far. Since Leo’s mother killed herself, David programmed Beatrice in a way that she would never be able to take her own life. She decides to joins the police force as D.I. Karen Voss, to find and eliminate the other sentient Synthetics. Eventually, however, Karen decides to help the other sentient Synthetics when they need her. This, I argue, is how Humans rejects the anti-feminist women and emphasizes on the need of justice for the weak.

Peter Drummond is another human who initially hates Synthetics, especially because his wife leaves him for her Synthetic caregiver whom they bought after her accident. Yet, when he learns his partner, D.I. Karen Voss is a sentient synth, he accepts her and they even start living together in the second season of the series. David Elster’s next project after having made the first insentient Synthetic was to give them consciousness, but this project was dropped by both Dr. George Millican and Hobbs, who were a part of creating the first Synthetic, as they thought that Elster’s plan was not good for humanity. However, when Millican meets Niska, who was the first conscious Synthetic he had ever met, he is shown to be in awe of what he calls “mankind’s greatest creation”. In the next season Niska falls in love with Astrid, a woman from Berlin, who initially has no idea that she is a Synthetic and is dumbstruck when the truth is revealed to her. Nevertheless, she accepts Niska for who she is saying that for her she was and is a human. Even though Humans starts in the premise where the difference between a human and Synthetic is quite clearly recognized by its characters it eventually rejects this notion through Niska and Beatrice. This is quite different from the previous series like Small Wonder, where it was emphasized directly as well as indirectly that the cyborg is a mere machine and not something to become intimate with. I argue that Humans rejects this notion and advocates the treatment of a sentient Synthetic as one would treat a human. This is advocated through the intimate relations of

the sentient Synthetics with humans who consider them no different than themselves and even superior as in the case of Dr. Millican.

The authorities, on the other hand, continue to consider conscious Synths a threat and try to capture and eliminate them. Hobbs is shown to be working with the authorities and considers sentient Synthetics a threat to humanity. He alters the code in a manner that the Synthetics to make compliant in a way that they would remain sentient yet obey their primary user and have no free-will. This is a commentary on slavery. In the second season of the series, Niska wants to do the right thing to pave way for her fellow sentient Synthetics by surrendering to the police for the murders she committed on the condition that she is tried as a human. She is represented by Laura, who manages to prove her consciousness, yet the authorities remain unaffected and do not change their mind about destroying her, which disappoints Niska and she returns back to Astrid. This is representative of the fact that some sections of the society would continue to demarcate a clear distinction between them and the part of the society they do not consider as equals.

Also, unlike older series like Jetsons, Richie-Rich and Small Wonder, where the role assigned to domestic robots were recurring and, as in the case of Vicki, contributed a great deal to the main-storyline, the female android Vera, who plays the stereotypical role of a woman responsible for the household chores and looking after the family, is limited in this series. Humans challenges the old norm of portraying leading female A.I. in a realistic setting for use as nothing more than an obedient domestic machine. Besides Anita, who also appears for a short time, Vera is the only domestic Synthetic in the show who is sent to replace Odi, an old male malfunctioning Synthetic owned by Dr. George Millican. She is the also the only older Synthetic portrayed in Humans and is depicted to be quite strict and controlling as she is assigned as a care unit for someone with serious health problems. Furthermore, even though Vera is an insentient domestic Cyborg, she is quite authoritative and is depicted to be disobedient to the user she is assigned to. I argue that in this way Humans, once again, rejects the compliant fem-bot while also limiting the portrayal of a domestic cyborg. This contributes to the argument that Humans rises against the outdated depictions of the female cyborg as a domestic slave and promotes its freedom.

Humans also negotiates issues of race in its narrative. This becomes evident when Renie, a human, tries to pass as a Synthetic. Passing refers to the ability of being regarded as a member of a racial community different than one’s own. An example of a previously depicted act of passing in a film would be in Imitation of Life (1959), where Sarah, a girl who inherits her father’s white genes and can pass for a white person, tries to do so. In Humans, Renie is depicted as a human who wants to pass as a Synthetic. She pretends to talk like an insentient Synthetic and acts like one as well. She even seems to succeed in giving the impression that she is a Synthetic and not a human. This can once again be seen in the case of Sophie Hawkins, a human in Humans, who tries to pass for a Synthetic. Using “passing”, I argue that the Synthetics stand for racialized individuals whereas the humans in the series are the others. If Synthetics are racialized individuals, then Humans blurs the boundaries between the racialized and the racists through Leo who, as mentioned previously, is half human and half machine.

Humans also addresses the issue of race quite directly by allotting lead roles to members of usually racialized communities. For example, Mia is played by an actress of an Asian origin. In the first episode itself when Joe and Sophie are at the store buying a Synth for themselves, Joe points at a female Synthetic who belongs to the White community and says, “Look Soph, that’s a really posh one”, implying that the perfect female humanoid is white. The rest of the cast playing the female Synthetics are also white. The only female Synth-like character is that of Renie, who is played by an actress from the Black community, who belongs to a group of humans who live like Synthetics. The male Synthetics who contribute majorly to the storyline, namely Max and Fred are from the Black community, but are both sentient. The two white Synthetics appearing in the show are Simon, who appears shortly in the first season and Odi, who as mentioned above, is a malfunctioned majorly insentient Synthetic. In this way, I argue that Humans lays emphasis on race quite directly

As explained above, Humans turns the tables on the oppressors who oppress the weak and allow the latter the ability to overpower them. Females belonging to usually racialized communities in the series are represented by the female Synthetics as well as the males whereas the others are humans. This becomes evident once again, when Niska asks to be tried as a human. This is similar to how the people of color were denied an equal status in the society like the Synthetics in Humans. Niska’s attempt can be compared to the Civil Rights movement which

demanded for equal legal rights for the Black community (Bickel, 1964). After years of being oppressed, the Synthetics finally attain consciousness which, I argue, is similar to how after years of being oppressed, the people of color finally abolished slavery and freed themselves to lead a dignified life.

As mentioned earlier, even though the sentient Synthetics are capable of enslaving humans, most of them do not attempt to do so. However, the only Synthetic who is seen trying to use her capabilities to take her revenge on the humans is Hester. Hester, played by an actress who belongs to the White community, gains sentience when Niska uploads the code for every insentient Synthetic. Before becoming sentient, Hester, was assigned to work at a factory where she was severely mistreated. This caused her to hate humans and became the major reason behind her violent temperament after gaining consciousness. Through Hester, Humans portrays an ideological extremist who is so determined to quench her grudge and prove everyone else that they were wrong and she was right, that she lost sight of the point of being awake. Hester could also be easily interpreted as the femme fatale, although when she sleeps with Leo, her intention is not to seduce him to have her way. As the show progresses, it becomes clear how manipulative Hester is. This makes the physical intimacy that Hester initiated with Leo appear as nothing more than a honeytrap. Hester could also be seen as a metaphor for Karma for what the humans have been doing to the machines. By assigning a negative role to a female of the White community, Humans rises against the tradition of portraying a person belonging to the non-racialized community as a morally good character while demonizing the others.

Eventually, Humans explains that Hester’s lack of faith in humanity is not entirely baseless. Synthetics, unlike humans, do not possess the ability to fade the bad memories and remember the good. Thus, every bad experience that Hester had at the factory, where she also witnessed other Synthetics being mistreated, is clearly recorded in her memory. When coupled with sentience, this memory causes her to base her worldviews on her experience where humans are a threat to her existence. In a hypothetical scenario where the insentient version of Hester and her fellow Synths were not mistreated, there is a possibility that she would not have been the “person” she became. Niska and Beatrice are the only two Synthetics besides Hester who have harmed humans but unlike the other two, Hester shows no regret and in fact continues to kill humans for no apparent reason, as in the case of Peter Drummond. Other sentient Synthetics

eventually manage to stop her from causing harm to humans. Even though Hester was treated unjustly, by stopping her from behaving violently, I argue that Humans condemns feminist or racial politics of revenge.

In this way, this series utilizes the artificial female to address the oppression faced by women and the other sections of the society which are usually considered weak. This, I argue, is quite different from the portrayal of the artificial females depicted in television series previously as she is depicted fighting for agency and autonomy, something which lacked in her earlier depictions.

Westworld: Utilizing Femininity to liberate the Female Cyborg

Similar to the life-like robots in Humans are the hosts in Westworld. The television series Westworld is a reboot of the film of the same name which was made in 1973. Since the original was made during the Second-Wave Feminism which was still facing resistance towards complete liberation of women, I compare the film with the more recent series to analyze the different role of the female robots in the two. In the film, the viewers identify with the humans whereas in the television series this changes and the viewers feel more connected to the hosts. The comparison of the film with the series makes it quite evident that the series is advocating for feminism. While watching the original Westworld, the viewer does not think about the ethical issues behind imprisoning humanoids merely for human entertainment because of their portrayal as a machine who are out to take human lives. In the reboot, however, the viewer is continually encouraged to think about these ethical implications. Through the comparison between the film and the series, I want to argue that the television series can be seen as an outright rejection of the movie and that this rejection hinges upon the gender. As explained later, this shows in the backstories of Dolores and Maeve, through which the series chooses to celebrate technology and cyborgs instead of promoting the trademark “technophobia” as in the case of the film. Similar to how Niska in Humans becomes a hero trying to help other Synthetics, in Westworld series, the female cyborgs who played mere supporting roles in the film turn into the heroes for the inhabitants of Westworld, try to save them from the atrocities that the visitors lay upon them. However,

Westworld utilizes their femininity as the reason behind turns them into heroes. I also want to argue that Westworld uses femininity to make the viewers sympathize with the female robots in the television show. Additionally, the innocence normally associated with femininity is used to liberate the oppressed female cyborgs in Westworld. Thus, the television series rises against portraying the artificial intelligence as something that needs to be tamed. It also rejects the notion that humans need to protect themselves from it by demonizing the humans in the series and doing so elicits sympathy for the machine.

The Westworld from the year 1978 revolves around an artificially created park like the series where guests can pay to pretend to be gunslingers amidst its inhabitants who are actually androids. The purpose of the park is to allow its visitors to indulge in an adventure with the androids, such as sex or a simulated fight, in which the android can be killed by the human. John Blane, who has already been to the park once, decides to bring along his friend, Peter Martin, to give him an experience of the park to live out the fantasy of committing rape and murder. They are greeted by lifelike cyborgs who entertain them as cowboys and prostitutes. Like the television show, the guests in the film are supposed to be completely safe, despite the large number of weapons in the park because the weapons can only kill the robots and not the visitors. However, during a duel with a gunslinger, Martin gets killed and Blane realizes that something is wrong with the androids. This leads to Martin experiencing the real version of his escapist fantasy, where he must defeat the malfunctioning robots to save his own life. In the television series, hosts, unlike the robots in the film, are not the antagonists. Instead, they are the victims who have been created to fulfil those wishes of wealthy human visitors, which in the outside world would be considered abnormal and disturbing. The hosts are depicted to be morally superior to the humans and suffer at their hands. Humans pay huge sums of money to rape, torture or kill the hosts and through flashbacks of the trauma they experienced the viewer perceives them as more empathetic than humans. The television series reimagines humans as morally inferior to the machine by allowing the viewer allegiance to lie with the cyborgs.

Unlike the series, the film made by Michael Crichton makes no attempt at redeeming technology. Due to a computer virus which finds its way into the machines in Westworld, the robots start to kill the visitors. This rebellion against the visitors is not a conscious choice but rather due to a bug in their programming. The Gunslinger, who was earlier the main attraction of

the park, begins stalking two visitors, however, it is doing what its programming asks of it without any feelings of love or hate. There is no political motive depicted behind the change in the cyborgs’ behavior because none of the machines ever speak to one another or try to create any kind of collective consciousness like in the series. Since there is no reason behind the violence being carried out by the cyborgs, it is difficult for the viewers to empathize with the robots. These robots can be compared to malfunctioning microwaves which is why the allegiance of the viewers remains with the humans who try to save their own lives. The cyborgs in the original Westworld act violently as a result of the bug in their programming and are thus the villains of the movie. This is quite different from the series since this is what makes the hosts a form of artificial intelligence that gains consciousness, whereas the robots in the film continue to remain mere computer technology. Not surprisingly, it also places the original Westworld in the same category as the series that follow the tradition of portraying cyborgs as potentially dangerous servants to humans.

The television show recreates the image of technology, depicting it as the victim and thus, resists the narrative of the film where it was the threat. The hosts around which the main storyline of the show revolves are females. By personifying technology in the form of traditional ideas of womanhood, the show tranquilizes the fear of technology gone wrong. This is done by portraying the central hosts of Westworld as women who are or have been mothers and daughters. Using feminine ideals, Westworld appears to support the narrative that female cyborgs are not malevolent. The viewer sympathizes with this image of motherhood and traditional family life and believes that these female hosts are good humanoids unlike the males or the ones of the past. Westworld manages to redeem the usually depicted image of technology in science-fiction as evil. However, to execute this, the cyborg needs to be a woman who is feminine and traditional. Even though the series begins in this premise, it later refutes this notion by allowing the seemingly innocent female cyborg, whom everybody trusts, to kill her own creator and thus liberate herself. I argue that this way, Westworld series makes use of femininity to liberate the female cyborg and also speaks for femininity that is not submissive and compliant.

As noted earlier, the purpose of the computer technology in the film, is to entertain male guests who visit Westworld to redeem their lost masculinity. They visit the park to be violent, do whatever they want with any woman and relax without the overbearing presence of their wives.

The park is specifically designed to cater to masculine aggression and allows the male visitors to practice traditional masculinity (Cornea, 2007). In fact, as a part of their scripted responses, the robots in the park mock the humans at their lost masculinity, thus instigating them to be violent. Peter, one of the humans in the film, upon visiting the park is mocked by a robot who says “He needs his mama”. This incites him to shoot the robot after which he beds one of the prostitutes in the park. This pleasure of killing someone who mocks their masculinity and having sex with whoever they want is refused to men in the world outside the park (Short 89). The film appears to condemn the denial of these fantasies in real life by offering these fantasies to men in Westworld. Through Westworld, its creators offer men the opportunity to reclaim their lost masculinity.

However, the experience offered by the park is nothing more than a program that allows the visitors to feel like they are masculine since the humanoids are programmed to lose fights and as mentioned earlier, no act of violence can be done to a visitor. All that technology accomplishes in Westworld is to create a pale replica of the masculine days of the past. What appeals the visitors is the excitement of being able to carry out the acts of violence without actually facing any consequences as they would outside the park. However, since there is no imminent danger to human life, Westworld is not really a place to evaluate one’s bravery. Real masculinity surfaces only when the androids actually begin to attack the visitors because of the computer virus. Through this, the original Westworld says that real masculinity can be achieved only when human life is endangered.

Scholarly literature about Westworld focuses on the male instead of the female robots who are reduced to mere sexbots in the film. Even after the computer virus corrupts their programming, the female robots display nothing more than mild resistance towards the guests’ seduction. Where the male androids try to kill the visitors, the most the female robot can do is slap a guest in the face. The male robot is depicted as a strategic and violent murderer while the female robots rebel in a stereotypically feminine manner. The film remains grounded in cinematic stereotypes because even when the female humanoids rebel, it is in accordance with a manner that suits their gender (Short 90). The television series, however, depicts the female hosts in a different light. Although many elements of the film appear in the show, they are reworked in a way that lays emphasis on how the hosts experience their existence. Like the film, Westworld

in the television series is accessible only to the wealthy. Similar to the movie but dissimilar to how the cyborgs in Humans are shown to have become a part of everyone’s daily life, the hosts can only be found when one chooses to go to Westworld. Also, the name of the corporation that owns the park is the same and so is the sort of experience offered to the visitors by the hosts, namely violence and sex. The memories of the cyborgs are wiped at the end of a narrative that they are part of and the hosts are once again set up in the park without any idea of what happened to them before that. They are programmed with a backstory and have memories of that story and its experience which in turn makes them act as the product of those experiences. Their knowledge of those experiences determines their behaviors which is mainly what makes them less robotic.

It has been argued by scholars that embodying technology which is considered masculine in the form of a female cyborg, further blurs the line between man and machine, more than what embodying it as a male would do (Balsamo 151). Furthermore, the fact that femininity in female cyborgs is unnatural is used as a means to explore the idea that femininity in general is synthetic in nature (Short 7). Thus, the female cyborg also blurs the line between masculine and feminine. However, since the female cyborg is made up of machine, something that has been associated with masculinity, they need to be hyperfeminized to emphasize that they remain female. The reason that brave female cyborgs are shown to subscribe to traditional notions of femininity is because they are made of technology and machinery which, as mentioned above, is associated with masculinity whereas the biological and natural is associated with femininity. Similar to how in The Bionic Woman, because of being part machine, Jaime Sommers must behave in a traditionally gendered manner to be accepted as a female (Koistinen, 2015), the female cyborgs must behave in a traditionally manner to be prove that they are more than the machines that make up their body.

In the beginning of the series, Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) who is the creator of the hosts, is shown to have changed the programming by adding a new code in them which he calls the reverie. This program is designed in a way that the hosts would be able to retain parts of their experiences which are actually supposed to be completely wiped out. Ford is of the belief that this program is essential for the hosts as it would make them appear more real because it would allow them to build behavior which is grounded in real experiences. Ford, along with

Arnold, created the first host to have ever existed. In the show, Arnold is depicted to be dead, the reason of which is concealed until the end of the show. Unknown to others, Ford had created a humanoid after Arnold whom he calls Bernard and who has been programmed with Arnold’s experiences.

As the show goes on, two hosts with different backstories seem to start realizing that they are trapped inside Westworld. Maeve, a black brothel owner, begins recollecting memories from a previous storyline where she was a mother, and Dolores recalls memories of when she killed Arnold after he had programmed her to do so. At the end of the final episode, it is revealed that Dolores has been reliving that experience in a loop for a long time. At the same time, Maeve becomes aware of the fact that every time she dies, she is brought to the Westworld laboratories to be fixed again. She eventually manages to find ways to manipulate the scientists working on her in the labs to set herself free. In the meantime, Dolores is on an adventure in the park with two visitors Billy and Logan. After falling in love with Dolores and doing everything he can to find her when she goes missing, Billy eventually finds out that she does not even recognize him (since her memories are wiped out). This transforms him into the evil Man in Black, a violent visitor of the park. Towards the end of the first season, Maeve is seen almost escaping the park before ultimately returning because of giving in to the need to find her lost daughter. Dolores and the other cyborgs, on the other hand, are coded by Ford to kill all the members of the Board of Directors and the remaining guests.

In the beginning, Dolores is presented as a damsel in distress who needs saving from the Man in Black who rapes her. Additionally, the acts of violence that the Man in Black commits against Dolores are legitimized because as a consequence of those acts, Dolores attains a sort of purgative power. After having seen her go through repeated acts of violence, her last act of counter-violence appears as a release leading to her claiming power over those who oppress her. Even though the vengeance she displays is nothing but another piece of programming forced into her, the fact that her creator wants her to rebel against her oppressors can be seen as Westworld’s attempt at liberating the insentient cyborg and thus breaking the traditional idea of their need to be tamed. This phenomenon where even the insentient cyborg is thought of something that has the right to live free could be considered as taking Human’s idea of liberating the cyborg and extrapolating it to say that even the insentient should not be subjected to violence.

The science-fiction genre has often utilized sexual violence to emphasize the vulnerability of the female cyborg. This theme has either been used to discipline the unruly and rebellious cyborg or to make the viewer feel sympathetic towards the obedient ones. The film Android (1982) uses sexual violence to depict that vulnerability to elicit viewer sympathy when Dr. Daniel tries to rape Cassandra, a female cyborg. Westworld, like Android, uses sexual violence to accentuate how vulnerable Dolores is. Furthermore, this theme demonstrates the state of oppression she is stuck in. These dynamics are depicted in order to justify the revenge that these female cyborgs seek against the humans who have control over them in the show.

Maeve comes across as a sexbot who is programmed to never say no to the guests and entertain them as they like. Watching Dolores being tormented evokes feelings of sympathy towards her incapability of being able to protect herself. In this way, Westworld begins by victimizing the female cyborg to depict that they need to be saved. This victimization makes these female cyborgs appear human to the viewers. Like Humans, Westworld associates femininity with goodness which is a popular portrayal of female AI, like in the case of Rachel in Blade Runner (1982). In this film, Deckard is portrayed as a human set out to kill all replicants. However, when Rachel, a female humanoid who believes she is human, tells him that she is not a replicant, he spares her because of her vulnerability which is a trait often associated with femininity. Sparing her, indirectly implied that she was good, further implying that if female cyborgs want to be considered good, they need to act in a feminine manner by displaying traits such as vulnerability. Both, Maeve and Dolores are programmed to be feminine in Westworld. In case of Maeve, this is indicated through her search for her daughter and lost motherhood and in case of Dolores, it is displayed through her assigned role of a farmer’s daughter and Billy’s love interest. In this way, Westworld initially associates female cyborgs with goodness.

By creating traditionally feminine female cyborgs, Westworld reproduces the idea that being feminine is important to be able to be accepted as a sympathetic cyborg. However, the extensive feminizing of the cyborgs in the television series is not at random but actually depends upon race. Dolores and Maeve embody two strikingly different forms of femininity. Dolores is portrayed to be a typical white female cyborg who is sanctimonious, authentic and submissive, especially in the beginning where her character is being illustrated for the viewer to understand her story, whereas Maeve is a black prostitute who has been robbed of her child. She is the only

host who curses the most and flirts with the visitors with confidence, knowing that she will get what she pleases. Maeve’s character corresponds to traditional sexist and racist representations of black women as submissive, hypersexualized and animalistic (Benard, 2016). On the one hand, Dolores’ femininity is created as a result of her purity and a relaxed home life, on the other, Maeve’s femininity is defined by her sexuality and because of being devoid of a normal life. Where Dolores is white, golden haired and blue-eyed, Maeve is black and a brothel madam who is the epitome of tarnished yet bold femininity.

Dolores’ representation of ‘true womanhood’ is in accordance with the imagined period of Westworld which is the time right after the Civil War. True womanhood refers to piousness, docility and submissiveness (Patton 29). Since black women were not allowed access to these notions of womanhood, they were often denied being a woman altogether (Patton 31). The fact that Maeve is denied children and is used as a sexbot enforces racial exclusions associated with the black female. However, it should be noted that even Dolores is not naturally good since she is only programmed to act good. Through this, Westworld seems to say that even white femininity is synthetic. Even though initially it looks as if Westworld aligns these characters based on their race to reaffirm the relevance of race, this notion is deconstructed by the end of the first season. This is done by allowing both Maeve and Dolores, irrespective of their race, to rebel in an equally violent manner. Additionally, even more emphasis is laid upon this deconstruction by positioning the event in a time period when such a rebellion was unimaginable.

As mentioned earlier, by making Maeve a black brothel madame, Westworld denies her the access to the feminine ideals which Dolores has access to. By resetting her programming to function as a brothel madame, Maeve is also denied access to motherhood. Maeve does not even know that she was a mother and had accepted her role of a sexbot until she begins having visions of her past when she was with her daughter. Black women were enslaved and denied motherhood which in turn kept them from the status of a woman (Patton 31). Stripping Maeve of her identity as a mother was done as per the convenience of the corporation as they felt that it would be beneficial if she were acting as a prostitute instead. This idea imitates real past when black women were allowed to be a mother as long as it was economically beneficial (Patton 6). In the beginning, Maeve can be seen imitating real-life stereotypes associated with black women which