| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 英美語文學系 === 85 === In this thesis, I examine the figure of cyborgs in three
sciencefiction films: Robocop, Blade Runner and Terminator 2, to
see how cyborgs challenge the traditional notions of humanity
and deconstruct the dualism of humanity and technology, which
the films* narratives work to sustain. In these SF films,
technology and machines are represented as the evil,
dehumanizing forces that threaten human individuality, while, by
contrast, humanity and nature are portrayed as the antidote and
the promise of redemption. Although having touched upon the
complicated issue of the interface between humans and machines
in the post-industrial world, these SF films still uphold a
dichotomy of humanity/technology and a transcendental view of
humanity. Nevertheless, the cyborgs in these films inevitably
result in the deconstruction of such a hierarchical dualism and
shed new light on what it means to be human. As a "cybernetic
organism, a hybrid of machine and organism," the cyborg not only
breaks down the binary distinctions of technology/humanity,
human/non-human, nature/culture, male/female, and many other
similar dualism in Western culture, but also exposes and
denaturalizes the ideologies beyond these differentiations and
distinctions. In Chapter One, I try to demonstrate that
Robocop*s mechanized body not only breaks down the dichotomy of
human/machine but also deconstructs the dualism of gender
identities. With his mechanical armored body, Robocop is highly
masculine, but without his penis, can he still be a "man"? In
fact, Robocop*s masculine mechanical body disrupts what Butler
terms the "heterosexual matrix" and serves as a radical gender
parody to the hegemonic binary structure of sex and gender. In
Chapter Two, I deal with another type of cyborg: replicants
which are virtually identical to humans. Although Blade Runner
seems to deconstruct the boundary between humans and replicants
by representing replicants as humans, it actually sustains a
hierarchical dualism of humanity over technology; after all,
only the "humanized" replicants can survive. In this chapter, I
explore how the human subject is revealed as a construct by the
replicant whose subject is constructed by implanted memories and
fake photographs, and how the replicant, as a perfect simulacrum
of the human, deconstructs the distinction between humans and
non-humans. In Chapter Three, I examine how Terminator 2
represents a futuristic war between humans and machines that
results in the triumph of "humanity" over technology at the
present time. However, it is paradoxical that the triumph of
"humanity" is mediated through the cyborg T-101(played by Arnold
Schwarzenegger) which stands in-between humans and machines. In
addition, the Terminator of humans, the cyborg T-1000 which can
simulate any things should be terminated in order to recuperate
not only humanity but also our sense of reality in the age of
simulation. On the whole, in the age of simulation and post-
mechanical reproduction, authenticity is deconstructed, the self
becomes multiple and fragmented, and the notion of humanity is
denaturalized. Can humans remain "human" in a world where
humans and machines are increasingly integrated into each other
and thus are becoming more and more indistinguishable? Although
the figure of the cyborg suggests the necessity for a
reconsideration of the notion of human, for most people, the
fluid self-reconstruction is unthinkable, and the binary
oppositions of human/machine, culture/natural, and male/female
still prevail and are taken for granted. Therefore, the central
point to keep in mind in the discussion of cyborgs is how to
make the cyborg more radical in its deconstruction of the
traditional notion of human and how to proliferate the cyborg
imagination that can further rupture the stability of
hierarchical dualisms and deconstruct the "nature" of the human
self.
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