ROBOTS and the Sexual Division of Labor
Many of you who have seen Robots probably came away feeling as if an hour and a half had been well spent watching the latest in animation technology. Undoubtedly the film had its pluses - exciting animated action sequences and funny interventions by the characters. However, to someone grounded in theory as I am this film also addressed a lot of class and gender equations. For one, Robots is about Rodney Copperbottom a second hand Robot from a small town who wants to go to Bigweld Industries and be a famous inventor. In this Robots challenges the providential view of life and upholds the American dream. Even a bot hailing from a lower middle class family can make it big through innovation and sheer determination and an ability to rise to the occasion. So far, so good!
What is troubling about Robots is the following:
1. The division of machines into male and female species
2. The sexual division of labor between male and female bots.
3. The imposition of the structure of family on machines
It seems humans are incapable of conceiving of an alternative world where divisions between male and female, the home and the world do not exist. Rodney's mother stays at home while his father is a dishwashing bot. In the big city, Rodney meets Fender a funny bot whose sister Piper is kept out of the uprising against the evil usurper of Bigweld Industries (Greg Kinnear). There is also the female executive, Cappy (Halle Berry) who is the sex object in the film. Even though she is a bot with abilities, she has a soft corner for Rodney as does Piper (Amanda Pynes). Both these metallic machine-like 'women' bots are typecast as women who can ACT in times of crisis but still need to run into the arms of a male bot.
In which case, are women in every species man thinks of, destined to be subordinate. Is it always men who will call the shots? Can we not stop and treat machines as machines and refrain from attributing sex and the weaknesses attached with being a woman to machine-beings? Or is the impulse to power so strong in man that we CANNOT even in a fantasy world conceive of equal sexes - in strength, articulation and power?
What is troubling about Robots is the following:
1. The division of machines into male and female species
2. The sexual division of labor between male and female bots.
3. The imposition of the structure of family on machines
It seems humans are incapable of conceiving of an alternative world where divisions between male and female, the home and the world do not exist. Rodney's mother stays at home while his father is a dishwashing bot. In the big city, Rodney meets Fender a funny bot whose sister Piper is kept out of the uprising against the evil usurper of Bigweld Industries (Greg Kinnear). There is also the female executive, Cappy (Halle Berry) who is the sex object in the film. Even though she is a bot with abilities, she has a soft corner for Rodney as does Piper (Amanda Pynes). Both these metallic machine-like 'women' bots are typecast as women who can ACT in times of crisis but still need to run into the arms of a male bot.
In which case, are women in every species man thinks of, destined to be subordinate. Is it always men who will call the shots? Can we not stop and treat machines as machines and refrain from attributing sex and the weaknesses attached with being a woman to machine-beings? Or is the impulse to power so strong in man that we CANNOT even in a fantasy world conceive of equal sexes - in strength, articulation and power?
posted by Vasundhara at 9:13 PM
2 Comments:
hey...
i havnt seen Robots yet, will see it when i am back at home in the summers...so i just checked out its reviews in IMDB.
I appreciate your line of thinking...but i feel that sometimes movies are just meant to be a source of entertainment, without any preachings on the latest moral issues, or a mirror to social tensions...
From what I understand of the plot and the review, i guess that its the 'same old story' in a new book...which i am sure is entertaining and amusing to look at.
"Can we not stop and treat machines as machines and refrain from attributing sex and the weaknesses attached with being a woman to machine-beings?"
The only machines i seem to work with is my car, my cell, the dishwasher, the washing machine etc etc, and i am sure i look at them in a pretty sexless way. I treat machines not only as machines, but also as useful inventions, without which life would become a 'tad' difficult. The need to attribute sex to the robots in the movie, i guess was to make it more interesting to watch...
"Or is the impulse to power so strong in man that we CANNOT even in a fantasy world conceive of equal sexes - in strength, articulation and power?"
About the equality of sexes, each sex has been blessed with some complimentary qualities which are exclusive to them. Its the cooperations between the two sexes and the complimentary qualities that makes mankind ( humanity, if u wish ) survive and progress...
If there was equality in sexes there would be no sexes, rather its the inequality in the sexes which makes life as it is. Its just the unjustified use of power, strength by some men, which make women feel weak and unsecure, but man by design is not meant to be like that. On a similar note, its not just the man, which makes unjust use of his powers...
in essense, man is man, and women are better off being women. I dont understand what women dont like about the current situation, and try to be like men. I want to say much much more on this issue, but will not...
all i would say about line like "power so strong in man that we CANNOT even in a fantasy world conceive of equal sexes - in strength, articulation and power?" is ...."GROW UP".
bandy.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Post a Comment
<< Home