This dissertation examines the creation of five monstrous masculine figures discussed over the course of five chapters. These are: man becoming mutant, cyborg, monstrous villain, alien and transcendent posthuman. The chapters are organised in chronological order as regards their popularity in mainstream science fiction cinema. It begins, then, with an analysis of the mutants of early 1980s body horror, before moving on to the cyborg —an enduring icon that came to prominence in the mid-1980s and early 1990s and has persisted to the present day. The third chapter deals with the
2 I use mainstream cinema to denote high-grossing, widely-viewed films in the English language with a widespread distribution in North America and Europe in particular.
coming of age story represented in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005) which follows a young boy growing into manhood, undergoing a transformation which will eventually turn him into a monstrous cyborg villain. Chapter four explores man becoming alien through an in-depth analysis of the film District 9 (2009), part of a canon of films that represent the idea of alien invasion and becoming Other. Finally, the fifth chapter is dedicated to the depictions of transcendent posthumanism that have proliferated in recent years in films such as Lucy (2014), Transcendence (2014) and Limitless (2011). A chronological approach reveals an evolution in the portrayal of masculine monstrosity, which, as I will elucidate throughout this work, reflects the socio-cultural and historical context of the films’ production and reception.
In Chapter One, a close-reading of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) provides the basis for an exploration of the recurrent theme of the visually graphic representation of men undergoing mutation in those films of the 1980s in which science fiction intersects with the body horror genre. Videodrome is the perfect text for this chapter because it not only features the graphic mutation of the male body, but also deals with contemporary issues affecting masculine identity in North America, like visual media, changing gender roles, and the postmodern condition. An analysis of the portrayal of gendered subjectivity in this film reveals how gender —both femininity and masculinity— is presented as a construction, and is fractured and deconstructed by invasive technology. This technology, in turn, provokes an uncontrollable mutation in the body and mind of the male protagonist, causing multiple boundary slippages — male/female, human/inhuman and reality/illusion to name but a few— in the corporeal realm. Videodrome is representative of male mutation in the period in question in that it calls into question the binary constructions mentioned above as well as the Cartesian
separation of mind and body, tying human experience to embodiment and reducing human existence to the corporeal.
Chapter Two, to an extent, breaks with the chronological structure of the dissertation as whole, in that it compares and contrasts two films: the original RoboCop (1987) and its remake RoboCop (2014). A side-by-side reading of these movies exposes the evolution of the cyborg sub-genre and its representation of masculinity. There appears an increased emphasis on fatherhood as a key feature of an idealised masculine identity, a pattern mirrored in Terminator (1983) and its sequel Terminator 2:
Judgement Day (1991). Furthermore, whereas in the original RoboCop the Cartesian Dualism is quite consistently undermined, in the remake the film’s narrative tends toward the upholding of binaries and the elevation of the mind as it relates to (male) human subjectivity. This chapter also examines how the cyborg genre in general draws on Frankenstein’s monster to depict a monstrous masculine body built from disparate parts, undermining in the process the concept of a unique and fixed subjective identity.
It is also important to highlight that questions of agency and power are central to these films and their representation of monstrous masculinity as one which lacks the ability to control its own body, actions and behaviours.
Chapter Three, in its exploration of the coming-of-age story presented across the saga composed of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), engages with the the influence and effects of the hegemonic masculine ideal of a boy on the path to manhood. The expectations and demands of patriarchal society on boys and young men are seen to place enormous stress on the central masculine protagonist, whose subjective identity becomes confused and ultimately is torn by the competing prerogatives of his own desires, as well as his superhuman powers, and the
desires of a socially restrictive society, ultimately creating a monstrous villain. This villain, Darth Vader, is a monstrous cyborgian meld of human and machine elements, frighteningly powerful and yet subjugated by an authoritative regime. Along with a depiction of blurred boundaries within the human body and psyche as monstrous, this saga suggests the thirst for excessive power and control to be an important element in the construction of the villain as monster.
Chapter Four explores those films in which human contact with aliens engenders a transformation which threatens to dissolve subjective identity as a fixed essence, converting the subject into the marginalised alien Other to the normative human Self.
The central text selected for in-depth analysis is District 9 (2009), as its visual portrayal of the deconstruction and reconfiguration of the male body is revealing with regard to the representation of gender, race and class as they relate to monstrosity. The film engages with the specificity of its South African setting, depicting a fractured society in which marginalised Others —most notably the refugee aliens who have become stranded en masse in the city— are forced to reside in slum-like camps, similar to Apartheid townships, outside the body of the city itself. A reading of the destructive transformation of the male body of the protagonist thus finds itself inevitably intertwined with that of the city, as the authorities struggle to uphold the literal borders they have established to separate the inhabitants into categorisable groups. The central theme becomes that of the fear of contamination and the resulting perceived loss of integrity, whether of subjective or collective identity. The metamorphosis of the protagonist, and his eventual acceptance of his non-normative physiology as something other than human, will be considered as both a comment on male anxieties surrounding the changing nature of masculinity and as a postulation of a model of posthuman masculinity.
Chapter Five, exceptionally, will consider representations of both femininity and masculinity as regards the portrayal of the transformation into transcendent posthuman, taking as its core texts Lucy (2014) and Transcendence (2014). These films form part of an emergent sub-genre of science fiction that portrays human subjects leaving their bodies behind to pursue a disembodied, digital existence, perhaps the ultimate realisation of the Cartesian dream of achieving the ascendency of the mind over the corporeal. This comparison reveals not only how depictions of posthumanity remain clearly gendered —and sexed— despite the lack of biological body, but also how the construction of monstrous masculinity differs greatly from that of the monstrous feminine. Although these films tend toward the action thriller as it intersects with science fiction, there persists a sense of dread and horror in their rendering of metamorphosing humans and the dissolution of binaries. ,As the final chapter featuring the most recent cinematic texts discussed in this thesis, it will offer a perspective on the question of whether the representation of masculine identity and its attendant anxieties has evolved over time in the context of mainstream science fiction cinema.
Furthermore, the analysis of Lucy reveals the key role reproduction and mothering continue to play in the construction of woman as monster.