Why is “It” Gendered – Constructing Gender in Alex Garland’s Ex-Machina (2015)
Why is “It” Gendered – Constructing Gender in Alex Garland’s Ex-Machina (2015)

Summary/Abstract: Through the analysis of Alex Garland’s movie Ex-Machina (2015), the paper questions the cyborg’s possibility of representing a gender beyond the body and of embodying an entity beyond the human. Drawing inspiration from Donna Haraway, Judith But- ler, and Roger Andre Sørra, this paper wants to position the cyborg’s body as an object of manipulation and control, as well as question the following presumptions: primari- ly, that the body of the cyborg is always gendered, despite the many technological pos- sibilities of its (re)construction, and secondarily, that male and female cyborgs share a completely different storyline where the latter are positioned almost exclusively as sexual objects and/or love interests, and are coded as heterosexual. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to illustrate how, instead of offering a progressive take on gender, Ex-Machina reinforces stereotypes by positioning gender as an instrument of male control, be it for the purpose of achieving the illusion of the human, for sexual gratifi- cation, or for the simple pleasure of asserting dominance.

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