"Self"-Deconstruction: The cyborgs in Robocop, Blade Runner and Terminator 2

• Main Authors: Chang, Kaiman, 張凱滿
• Other Authors: Wenchi Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 1997
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/71146422294412811707

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.