Continuing on from part 1, I'll move forward in time to 1982 and a classic Scifi movie in which we have another set of iconic fembots appearing, I refer here to Bladerunner, the robots are in the guise of female replicants, all of the lead 'women' is this movie are robots, and they are all manipulative or deluded, not nice traits.
Pris shown in the clip above is a 'Pleasure Model' replicant, a robotic call girl in a nut shell, both she and Zhora her replicant fembot buddy use their feminine wiles to get what they want, example above when Pris orchestrates the meeting with J.F. Sebastien. Whilst I love the movie Bladerunner, I don't love the way that women are portrayed, again although I like the characters, they aren't good robotic role models for females.
On to 1987 and the Stepford Wives are kind of revisited, with more emphasis put on sex in the movie Cherry 2000. The 80's and 90's were full of similar kinds of movies, one of the ones that sticks out to me is 'Weird Science' where a couple of male nerds use a computer to make the perfect dream woman, after they 'design' what they think is the perfect woman on the computer. They hook the PC up to a 'barbie' type doll via some electrodes, hack in to a government computer system to get more computing power and their efforts create a power surge that creates Lisa, a beautiful and intelligent robotic woman with seemingly endless powers. This one is at least intelligent but oh dear, its really a rather stupid notion!
By the norties things started to improve but I'm still uncomfortable with robots offered by movies like the 2003 movie 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines', I refer to T-X aka Terminatrix a gynoid assassin, on a mission to do what the original Terminator failed to do. This fembot was a cold hearted killer, who is single minded, has no compassion, all she does is follow the directive she's been given, never questioning, never wavering. The 2015 movie Ex Machina gave us Ava, a fembot with artificial intelligence who turns out to be cold, manipulative and murderous to boot, there is a running theme isn't there?
At this point I was feeling a tad down hearted, I want to encourage more females in to the world of robotics, but to do that we need role models that females can proudly identify with. I read an article on the New Statesman website by Laurie Penny "Why do we give robots female names? Because we don't want to consider their feelings" she begins by saying "How we gender robots is not an abstract, academic issue: the link between how we treat "fembots" and human women is real."
I agree, what started out as a simple task for me, turned in to something short of impossible, the running theme is female depictions of robots, are male depictions of female robots and NOT what women want, its hardly surprising that girls don't flock to robotics in droves. Fictional characters aside, we don't celebrate the women of robotics, even the female coders, makers and designers are nameless and faceless and if you try and flag the difference, you're on a feminist crusade! Those in the know, know, those that don't, umm don't. Who is the female counterpart to Bill Gates, there has to be one, but I haven't a clue, is it me being blind or a system that isn't highlighting women in the roles that historically are seen as male?
Penny concludes that "We still have not decided, as a species, that women are sentient – and as more and more fembots appear on our screens and in our stories, we should consider how our technology reflects our expectations of gender. Who are the users, and who gets used? Unless we can recalibrate our tendency to exploit each other, the question may not be whether the human race can survive the machine age – but whether it deserves to."
Pretty sobering stuff, I started out wanting to equally flag masculine and feminine robots and discovered that unless I wanted to show girls a side that I'd sooner they not identify with, I was stumped, I stress that not identifying with those types of fembots I've mentioned above is my personal preference, if a girl wants to identify with a sexbot or an assassin then she can.
I chatted to Simon on the phone a little while ago and I told him what I'd discovered and how down hearted it made me feel. A little later he sent an email with a quote "There's never been a strong female robot in any Star Wars film, J.J. (Abrams) was determined to make BB-8 cute and strong — and female."
What now, wait... BB-8 isn't a male character? BB-8 is female, quick, go back to the second paragraph in part 1 and scratch out BB-8, holy batgirl, I was reeling. How the heck had that nugget escaped me, I went and saw the movie, I have a BB-8 mug, a toy BB-8, and other BB-8 merchandise, but I assumed the character was male! Some men are arguing that she is a he, others saying it should be genderless, hell for once can't we have just 1 cool FEMALE robot!
According to a source from Lucasfilm B-8 is definitely “a she” – and the decision to make BB-8 a she was a deliberate attempt to appeal to the female half of the Star Wars toy market. In making BB-8 female, Lucasfilm want to appeal to girls as much as boys, who have traditionally been the Star Wars fan base.
I mustn't have got that memo, being a female and a fan of Star Wars since 1977 when I first saw 'A New Hope' or 'Star Wars' plain and simple as we knew it then, its never been a boy or girl thing to me, just a case of being a Star Wars fan, which to me is like being a roboteer, its genderless, go figure.
Apparently this 2015 'new hope' in the guise of a female lead robot was "going to be one of the breakout hits of the film.” Hmmm sorry Lucasfilm, great idea but you've kept it a bit quiet, shout a little louder and include more strong female robots to the mix in future. To those saying BB-8 is a male or an it, I see it this way, R2-D2 was the companion to Luke Skywalker, both male, so why can't Rey, a strong female character have a female robot companion, and about bleeping time to?
There have been female robots in movies but to me they don't even have bit parts, they have 8-bit parts, parts which are inconsequential at best. The 2008 movie Wall-E gave us the character EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) who Wall-E got a crush on (pun intended), EVE is a robot probe whose directive is to locate vegetation on Earth and verify habitability. She uses anti-gravity technology to move and is equipped with scanners, specimen storage (handbag) and a "quasar ion cannon" in her arm, so she has sort of cool gadgets, but she's not the star of the movie, but whilst its not perfect, her role is more in line with what I'd like females to identify with than Maria or Pris.
I almost forgot to add Matilda, the Robot Wars house robot, so I now
have 3 examples of female robots for the girls that I can talk about during my
presentation. Using what I've discovered, I'm going to do my bit to help change the way feminine robots are portrayed. To start with one of the things that we'll be doing with the Young Roboteers club is to develop Andrea Android (no shouting, Andrea Gynoid just doesn't sound right, if it did, we would!). Stage one will be getting the head, mouth and eyes to function, eventually she'll have an automated body and will, its hoped, be a tour guide for Derby Silk Mill, each group of Young Roboteers will work on each part of the project. We'll be presenting the first stage at Derby Maker Faire in October 2016.
Big plans include motion sensors, so when someone walks past she'll be able to greet them and ask if they want any help or information. She'll be able to interact and offer a guided tour of the museum adding facts and points of interest. A tall order and it may not work out exactly like we hope, but Andrea Android will be something that we hope will inspire women and girls to make and create. The only way to make changes is to be part of that change, create positive fembots, inspire the next generation and carry the robotic baton, it has to start somewhere, what can you do to shape the change?
If you're curious you can find a list of female robots in film, TV and literature via this link.
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