Mirages Instead of Marriages
Following up on the previous post, on Ex Machina (2014), one remarkable aspect of the film is the ease with which Caleb accepts the possibility, and even desirability, of an amorous relationship with Ava. Even if you've only seen photos, Ava is quite evidently a machine. It's her face with its realistic expressions that is human enough to traverse the uncanny valley and convince Caleb that he is forming a personal connection.1 (I use the personal pronoun "her" out of convenience.)
There's another man-machine relationship in Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). Lando's paramour is L3-37, a vaguely humanoid robot. L3 is quite evidently mechanical, lacking a human face or any apparently human features, but is typed as "female" with wide, mechanically inefficient hips and the adequately feminine voice talents of Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
An interesting contrast is the Twilight Zone episode "The Lonely" (S1E7, 1959) in which a prisoner stranded on an isolated planet is given a robot that appears convincingly as a woman. He develops an attachment to her. In the end, he is able to claim his rightful freedom only by realizing that she is but a simulacrum. The middle of last century was a healthier age, where men could still see that real women were goods in themselves (in their essence) and not merely because they presented a pleasing appearance or satisfied their needs.2
And of course we can trace the faux-women of cinematic science fiction back to Metropolis (1927). But there at least the men who were clambering over each other for fake Maria and her lascivious dance had no way of knowing that she was not a real woman, the transformation of the robot into Maria's likeness having taken place out of their sight. But one wonders in retrospect if knowing that fact would have made a difference to their crazed frenzy.
But all the self-deception these days can hardly be surprising. So many confused men in this age use pornography rather than cultivate relationships with real women. Especially confused men convince themselves that enough hormones and surgeries will make them become women. (Where that leaves the definition of "woman," no one can say apparently.) Ultimately, the fact that so many men in this confused age satisfy themselves with the mere images of women says it all.3 Ours is an age satisfied with falsehoods and lacking the courage to aspire to the high call of truth.
1. It's significant that Caleb's desire is not erotic in the conventional, restricted sense: notice how he eschews relations with another android with a more convincingly human appearance. Rather, his motivation seems to be something in the neighborhood of being the White Knight to the Damsel in Distress. The savior complex of would-be do-gooders is a plausible route for all manner of mischief.
2. I wrote similarly about the latter two films in December 2020.
3. All this self-deception is quite clearly insanity. But perhaps there is a silver lining. Whatever heritable component there is to being satisfied with falsehood and illusion is being strongly selected out like so much wasted seed corn. Perhaps we should look at this crazy moment as a sort of evolutionary gate. As ever, the concern is the vast collateral damage, both human and cultural, in the meantime.
