Hyper-Masculinity In Science Fiction

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Science fiction, as Samuel R. Delany writes, is a 'significant distortion of the present' (1984, p.177). In an age where our social and political discourse are constructed by the images of the media, from the way we think about issues such as the 9/11 attacks to even those that concern gender; where then do we draw the line between the realities of the present and the fantasies and magic science fiction has manufactured for its viewers (Gamsom, Croteau, Hoynes & Sasson, 1992, p.374)? How can we then apply this to the discussions of gender, especially when the female presence in the media still takes on traditional roles despite today's more progressive gender relations? Science fiction has been instrumental in perpetuating the hegemony of …show more content…

In an age where gender hierarchies have weakened and gender relations have progressed, it is natural that science fiction narratives have also seen heroines in their narratives. Patriarchy, however, in all its depictions, continues to rear its ugly head in these narratives, manifesting in a form of hyper-masculinity that is divorced from sex or gender and embodied by these heroines. In my essay, I argue that the benchmark for heroism, in the context of science fiction, is still inherently male, perpetuating our society's already gender-biased expectations and ideas of power, dominance and leadership. Science fiction heroines may have their visibility heightened on the stage but this does little to further their cause for gender equality and equity. A novel interpretation of hyper-masculinity instead has been imposed onto these characters, creating heroines who are muscular, possess great physical force, dominant and violent, pointing not to a more gender equal display in science fiction but a reinvention of patriarchy in face to changing gender relations of our time, distorting the realities of gender to venerate the male's role as the power-bearer of our time. Through …show more content…

The bag of drugs, CPH4, was forcibly sewn into her abdomen. In captivity, when one of her captors kicks her, the drugs enter her system. She becomes a machine through a process that was purely out of control. The re-masculinization of the machine was brought about by society's acceptance of technology and the benefits it brings. Machinery has helped humans performs tasks they could not before, 'override obstacles' without the complications of emotions, conscience or personal ethics (Varney, 2002, p.159). The weaponization of Lucy as a machine panders to the comfort we take in the wonderful service machines have done for us and the fantasies of the male-machine link. At the end of the movie, when she metamorphoses into the supercomputer, she is dehumanized in the most unconventional manner. Noting that in events that follow her weaponization, she is portrayed as an emotionless piece of technology and later turns into a component of a larger process of containing all knowledge of the universe, we notice the limitations of her 'heroism'. Her performance as the weapon in Lucy mimics those of heroic men in other science fiction narratives. It, however, also perpetuates the idea that roles in science and technology that should be attributed to masculinity and the male-machine link. Lucy's ascension to the heroine of Lucy was the direct result of her weaponization, erasing her emotions, which dehumanized her in every aspect,

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