Irreversible: This Won’t Help Alex

Warning: Spoilers

Irreversible is a film known for its controversial scenes depicting brutal violence and rape. The film is done in reverse chronological order, showing the revenge before the reason for it. It opens with the two male leads Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre leaving a gay club, unsubtly named Rectum; Marcus has a broken arm and both are being arrested as men around them shout homophobic insults, telling them they will be raped in prison – a place that men incorrectly assume is the only place they might be raped and also perhaps the only time they fear it. We are then shown the reason for their arrest, they were trying to find a man named Le Tenia and they find a man they assume might be him and after he prepares to rape Marcus – an apparently go to response – his friend Pierre takes a fire extinguisher and brutally beats his head to a pulp. The film very clearly shows this violence, which is in contrast to previous scenes where the camera refused to really focus on anything in particular.

Then the film keeps going backwards, showing them being racist to a taxi driver and abusive to prostitutes in their effort to find the club and the subject of their revenge. As the film goes further backwards we see the two men stood, just having been questioned by the police, looking shocked and horrified; they are approached by two men who tell them they can find the man who hurt their friend and that they will help them find and hurt him. The revenge is framed as something they would not get if the man is simply arrested, which implies that revenge is needed full stop. One of the men says that prison is not enough because he will be fed and clothed yet actually it is unlikely the man who did it would actually go to prison. Rape is a crime that very often does not result in conviction, most times it isn’t even reported due to the pervasive, very much not mythical, rape culture that exists in patriarchal societies.

Next we meet Monica Bellucci’s character Alex and we see her choose to go through an underpass rather than cross France’s roads – which can be hard to cross due to many parallel roads and little traffic lights or places to cross. As she is walking through the tunnel she sees a man beat a transwoman, who we have met earlier as a prostitute. The man then turns on Alex, stopping her from leaving and he quickly takes out a knife. He forces her to the ground and then anally rapes her for a scene that lasts for nine notorious minutes. During this scene the camera is sat on the floor, never moving from looking at Alex’s face during what is a brutal, disgusting scene. I agree with a reviewer on the BBC who described it as being indefensible. In researching this film I did find many men saying that they watched the film for this scene, and that yes it was to masturbate to.

Moreover, many reviews of this film have described the violence of this scene as making it akin to pornography; that alone is a very, unfortunately apt, description of the sexual violence that a vast majority of pornography is – though many will attempt to tell you that that’s not true (they’re lying). It is very worrying that these male reviewers first response to seeing a brutal rape depicted, however, is for them to compare it to what I assume is the pornography they have watched. It is a long scene, it is harrowing to watch, and there is no way in the world that a rape victim/survivor should ever watch this scene; it is the definition of why the phrase trigger warning exists. I definitely think there are misogynistic men out there who will happily watch and masturbate to that scene and I also think that they will not stop having an erection when he kicks her repeatedly in the face or when her face is smashed into the concrete floor but that those men would keep on masturbating.

It is this equation with violence and porn, entwined with what is more perversion than sex, is what causes many problems for women. After the rape we see Alex dancing, moments before she leaves and is attacked, with some friends at a party. She is dancing sensuously against her female friends and it would not surprise me that those same misogynistic men would sit and glare at the way that she is dancing; that every move of her hips would be used against her – used as evidence that she caused her own rape. Even Roger Ebert, along with other reviewers, described her clothing when she was raped; he made sure to explain he understands that women should be able to wear whatever they want but that her dress was ‘unwise’.

Yet the man who raped Alex was gay. This is not I feel, as some has said, homophobic but accurate; not that all gay men rape women but some do – in the same way that straight men rape men. This is because rape is nothing at all to do with sexual attraction but instead with entitlement, with power and with violence. After he has raped her the man goes on, whilst kicking her, about how she is entitled, how she thinks she is beautiful and therefore above him; yet he knows nothing about her, has never met her before and she barely said more than ‘let me go’. This is because he does not care about her, he does not care about women but instead he hates them, and has an idea in his head of how they are. He thinks she is there to be used and abused and it is important to note that misogyny, whilst entangled with sexual objectification and violence, is not only for those men who find women sexually attractive.

The irony that a man who felt entitled to her body thinks that she is entitled herself is not lost on the film; neither is the irony that violence just begets more violence and that it doesn’t solve a damn thing. However, many reviewers, and I feel the director himself, are simply happy to quote the film – Time destroys everything- and think that that is that. That the rape itself is predestined, that it is an inevitable aspect of life and particularly of women’s lives and I think that is simply not true; I like to think that men are capable of a bit more than that. But at the moment men don’t seem to think they are and I think Vincent Cassel was right in an interview where he said that the reason for this film is to show that men are animals, that they are the ones who destroy women, and that they need to stop.

The film gives us a spectrum of male entitlement and male violence and I feel that it is exactly that spectrum that ends in rape, and props up a world where rape is seen as an inevitable potential event in women’s lives. Marcus is Alex’s current boyfriend whilst Pierre is her ex and both throughout the film treat her like an object that they own; their revenge is done because her rape hurt them – one man who promises to help them find them even says ‘you think it will never happen to you’ even though it didn’t happen to them but to her.

They touch her body constantly and this is especially creepy when it is Pierre doing the touching; his hands are on her face repeatedly, stroking her, and he even says that he simply wants to watch her dance. It is said by Marcus that Pierre hasn’t been sexual in a while and then is perhaps implied that is because he is still in love with Alex – further reinforced by the fact that despite trying to be a calming influence on Marcus’ drug fuelled revenge he is the one who actually murders who he thinks had raped her. We also see a scene where they are all boarding a train and are discussing sex, and largely sex with her. Pierre repeatedly tries to coax the couple into talking about their sex life and even continues to do so when they are all in front of other passengers on the train. At one point during the conversation Alex seems to stop wanting to talk and closes her eyes, Cassel’s arm round her neck in what is meant to be an affectionate gesture; this is then followed by Pierre talking over her when she tries to tell him that he needs to focus more on his own pleasure in bed. Pierre seems to take this as an affront, perhaps trying to say that this is what men are told they are meant to do – put women first, and focus on giving them pleasure; yet this simply results in a stressed out partner who is too in their own head. A commenter on this film described her as ‘coldly’ saying this to Pierre and said that this made her an unsympathetic character and that it made them hard to care about the fact she was raped. The film uses her talking about sex, her being naked in an intimate setting, and even her showering to show that she is a sexual being and misogynistic men, as I have said, will use this all as things that caused her to be raped; which is of course illogical and ridiculous because her rape was caused when the man decided to rape her and that is it.

The film shows the horror first and then gives you an hour to think about it and how it impacts her life. We see her discovering that she is pregnant, a baby we assume she has lost after the rape due to its violence, and it is tainted by the fact we know that her life is now changed by her rape. It implies that her happy life, her partying with her friends, and her intimate moments in the shower are now gone because of the horror that we have seen her experience. I feel that this is true for many rape victims – that their lives are changed in a long lasting way due to their experiences, and I think it is something that many depictions of rape gloss over. I very much disagree that rape should be shown on film and TV, that it is often gratuitous and, as it is partly in this film, that often the focus of the rape is on the men in the women’s life and not her; but to a degree this film does show the impact that rape has on people’s lives – past and present.

However due to the spectrum of male violence this film displays we know that the racist, homophobic, quite sexist, drug taking boyfriend who, as Alex says, can be good (aren’t all racist, homophobic, sexists *sigh*) will not be able to even remotely be there for her after her traumatic event. Marcus and Pierre will be in prison for murder and that is that. They will presumably be there for a long time, it was an event with lots of witnesses and in a world that cares so little about women the fact it was done in the name of protecting a rape victim will not matter at all and nor should it.

So now Alex will, hopefully, wake up out of her coma to find her body brutally broken and her support network in prison. She will have to heal, physically and mentally and emotionally, as much as possible with no boyfriend or best friend; I hope that this fictional character has other friends, meets better men, and has a loving family who will not blame her for her own rape like many sadly and ignorantly do. She even has to recover from losing a child she had barely known existed without the father due to his own violent actions. For violence is pointless, revenge is pointless, and it is all as unsatisfying as the fact that in the end they murdered the wrong man.

TV: Real Humans: What It Means To Be a Woman

Real Humans (Äkta människor) is a cult Swedish science fiction show that has had two seasons and hangs in TV purgatory with a third season written with no indication as to whether that season will get made. I watched it after watching the first episode of its UK/US remake Humans, which I have reviewed here. However, I feel that this show has used hubots, the shows AI robots, to discuss many different avenues of female oppression and male entitlement that I had to take a break from reviewing films to review the TV show. It has so many characters and facets that deal with many feminist issues, though perhaps not always perfectly, I will be discussing different themes and characters to truly do the show justice.

Objectification, Sexual Exploitation, and Hubots

Real Humans is set in Sweden, a place known for its gender equality, oxymoron though that is, and yet it is still a place that is full of misogynistic people; those who are happy to use others for their personal gain, as Inger said “We clone them, we dehumanise them so we can exploit them”. It is written by mostly men, and directed mostly by them too, and whilst it is full to the brim with misogyny it does at least, I feel, do so in a way that makes it clear that that behaviour is not okay, that it’s gross, and that it has consequences.

The Hubots are used to show the ways in which we dehumanise people, they are treated in a way which Inger points out is very similar to racism. One of the most common interactions however between hubots and people, or should I say men, is that of objectification in all of its forms. Many men are very happy to openly molest hubots, comparing their body parts to human women’s, they are very ready to use gendered insult against them, and a range of men seem very quick to rape and sexually assault them. Though as I point out in my review of Humans it is framed as being an issue that primarily affects the Hubots yet would indeed still be an issue that women face as objectification is about power and control over those deemed lesser rather than about sex or sexual pleasure.

There are a number of female hubots that experience sexual assault and it is painted as a very common occurrence. Anita, our hubot protagonist, is sexually assaulted by a group of teenage boys when walking through an underpass; the boys film them touching her body inappropriately, joking about touching her and her not caring or objecting before pushing her on the ground and opening her top to reveal her breasts. It is only stopped when one of the boys, Kevin, is spotted by his neighbour Tobbe, one of the members of the show’s main family. Tobias in response beats Kevin with a bat due to his feelings for Anita which results in no real consequences for either boy’s actions so both teenagers don’t suffer. Anita is clearly embarrassed and hurt, trying to hide the fact it happened so as not to cause problems for anyone; when the family finally find out they are shocked and want to go to the police.

This situation leads me on to another aspect of the show that deals with sexuality and the hubots. As a world that loves labelling everything would there are names for those who sympathise with hubots – hubbies – there are names for those who like to hang out with, or even dress as, hubots – transhumans, and also there are those who are sexually attracted to hubots – transhuman sexuals or THS. After inappropriately groping a silent Anita, after shyly interacting with her and struggling to comes to terms with how he feels about her we find out that Tobias is a THS. He breaks down to his father, ashamed and disgusted with his sexual desire as teenage boys often can be; despite his mother wanting his father to discuss sex and sex with hubots – as that is not what Anita is for – with Tobbe his Dad, Hans, struggled and fumbled through doing so. After discovering there was a name for what Tobbe is feeling they take him to see a therapist, hoping to help him feel comfortable with how he is. It is unclear whether he feels this way about all hubots or just about Anita; it is also unclear if is more of a matter of having trouble socialising and interacting romantically and sexually with human women as one character suggests which would fit with a sexual encounter he had where he insulted the girl after.

Though on the darker side of THS is that it is arguably no different from how men treat other forms of sexual attraction – they can’t all be as arguably innocent as fumbling, curious Tobias. We are shown a brothel which is full of female hubots and it is gawdy, neon, and looks rather seedy; the man behind the counter is wearing a disgustingly misogynistic top of a female hubot giving oral to a male human, as is evidenced by the cogs in her head. On top of that the man wearing the top is very open and proud to show off his top to the character Leo – as it is not necessarily like men to be shy in their objectification. Leo needs a place to stay to heal, and – spoilers – charge and so he makes a deal to modify hubots.

The first hubot he modifies is one I mentioned in the review for Humans; she is a half-naked large breasted hubot who is clearly used for sex, and her ‘owner’ asks Leo to make her feel pain. He asks that she gets hurt when he gets rough with her and that she acts scared too – in their world no hubot feels pain unless they are programmed to. It is not necessarily presented as being an all too shocking request though it is unique enough for them to show. Leo’s disgust and horror at being asked to hurt hubots, nay women, in this way is evident later as we see her standing over the body of her dead ‘owner’s body. This is also where we meet the first objectified male hubot in this show, Rick.

Two female characters in this show have male hubots as boyfriends, though they didn’t necessarily start out as that. Theresa, who is with Rick – her personal fitness model – has brought him to Leo to make him better in the bedroom. Leo does this but Theresa does not realise that it has unforeseen consequences, which I will discuss later. I will however mention that immediately after this storyline there is also one about how Theresa and her friend are at a club and their hubots are denied access; this then leads to them attempting to sue the club for discrimination which would have potentially given their partners legal human rights. So even the male hubots that are objectified are simultaneously humanised.

Finally, there are a number of attempted rapes and sexual assaults. One of those sexual assaults happens to Beatrice, a man finds her lying and broken and after charging her, discussing her breasts jokingly to her friend he immediately tells her to open her mouth and pushes her head towards his penis. However there is an immediate consequence for this action as Bea bites the end of his penis off. His action is clearly framed as a wrong one and that she is not there to for men to force themselves upon.

Anita

Anita deals with many issues that come with being a female hubot, as I have previously discussed; I also feel there might be room to discuss the fetishisation of Asian women with Anita though I feel that as a white feminist I am perhaps not the best person to address this. However, with Anita I feel it is her relationships with men that are worth discussing. As we learn she initially had a romantic relationship with Leo, despite once being his nanny, and she says to him “You were the child and I was the adult, and then you were the adult and I was the child”; this line perhaps reflects her role shifting from nurturing to learning about a more romantic intimacy. This relationship is then reflected with Tobias as she learns to recognise and embrace her growing and complicated feelings for him; perhaps put off by his young age but also being aware the problem with assuming that someone is not mature enough to understand something.

Anita is a very complicated character, who has a long journey to learn about both her present self and her past history. Even her name for instance, as we find out, is not really Anita but Mimi (last episode of season two aside). She is calm, kind and whilst she perhaps doesn’t fit in with the family straight away when she does she is there to stay. Even the father who later struggles to accept hubots is someone she can turn to in a time of need. It is great to have more shows with female protagonists and brilliant to have women of colour in lead roles too. Moreover Lisette Pagler, a stage actress, does an incredible job of playing a robotic character with a complexity that is to be admired.

Inger, and Mathilda

Inger is the mother of the main family, she is very different from her Humans counterpart Laura played by Katherine Parkinson. It takes only an episode or two for her to warm to Anita and when she does she takes her shopping for a new headband after realising, despite being a hubot, likes to change it. She is a lawyer who eventually, after demanding it, gets bigger and more high profile cases. She is competent, kind, and brilliant but also has her flaws and struggles being a mother, daughter and wife. She is a complicated and full character and she was a joy to watch.

Mathilda is very different too from the daughter in the remake; she is not rebellious, she barely has much of a disagreement about Anita or hubots in general, and she is actually a good friend to Anita. She admittedly does not have many storylines to herself as the show handles many characters both human and hubot alike. One of her storylines in season two is a relationship with a woman called Betty who introduces us to those transhumans who like to dress up as hubots, with colourful hair and eyelashes.

Vera

I can’t do Vera justice without first pointing out that in the Swedish version Vera looks like this:

She is a model designed to look after the elderly, she comes equipped with a knowledge of first aid which is essential later. She is there to look after Lennart, Inger’s father – in fact she is the reason that their family have Anita as she came free with Vera who was bought to replace the adorable but malfunctioning Odi. Lennart sees her as fussy and annoying, always trying to get him to be healthy. Though whilst Lennart, and the remake, might not accept the show generally accepts that Vera is there to look out for Lennart’s best interests. As the show goes on she arguably has more of a character than she is given credit for; despite being a standard hubot her responses generally have an air of ‘well I’m not happy about it but if I must’. She also becomes, due to later circumstances, a reprogrammed robot that is designed to protect children in combat and the actress gives a stellar performance shouting “Where is my child?” which I promise you is quite funny coming from Vera who is looking simply for a plastic doll.

Rick and Theresa

The place where Vera ends up & is reprogrammed is a human versus hubot paintball place called Hubot Battle Land; it is manned by criminal Silas, Roger, and innocent hubot Odi who I dare you not to fall in love with. It is also where we meet the inevitable conclusion of Rick’s modification. As I have mentioned earlier Rick was Theresa’s boyfriend who changed after he was modified. He started off as innocent and kind but as he was changed to be more sexual his masculinity was increased. Now feminists understand where toxic masculinity ends up. I can’t say I was surprised to see Rick become more controlling, more aggressive, and more willing to hit on other women. In fact Rick’s masculinity overdrive lead him to attempt to sexually assault and perhaps rape a woman he meets in the mall, though luckily his batteries die before he gets very far. It is this behaviour that leads Theresa to get rid of him and replace him with a more docile model.

After he is sold we later meet him when he is resold again due to his problematic behaviour. He very quickly becomes a problem in Hubot land as he turns against Roger. Roger is Theresa’s abusive ex who the show perhaps was too kind to; when he became involved with a very violent man he in turn became the sane one when in fact violent men who befriend other violent men usually end up both confirming each other’s toxic beliefs about violence – that it is in fact the answer to their problems. Though I think ultimately Roger is a character who is more pathetic than anything else, struggling to be an employee, a father, and a partner. It is Roger’s behaviour that makes Rick nickname all humans Roger (pronounced Roh-gger in a gravelly voice from Rick). Rick’s downward spiral is one of the most interesting parts of the show – though he remains a morally complicated character, one second defending a female hubot from rape, questioning if the man has heard of the Geneva Convention whilst the next second threatening to hang a woman – though I think it is one the remake won’t touch as fully because it does not quite perhaps fit the tone they are going for.

Beatrice, Niska and Marylyn

Beatrice & Niska are both female hubots and they are also both violent; I find it a shame that one of the key distinctions that makes hubots more human like is murder. Both have a mission and they are ruthless in their pursuit of it. I have spoken before in other pieces about women and violence; it is a difficult subject though I do think that if we are truly to move forward in this world and to separate ourselves from men women should strive to stay away from violence and murder and other such cruelties. Men commit the vast majority of all violence crime and sexual crimes against women, and yes men and children too, and the propensity to commit such crimes is not a way in which women would like to be equal to men.

Marylyn is a curious character. For the entire first season, unless I am mistaken, I am sure she did not talk the entire time. I was not sure as to why, whether it was something about her design or her role but I think perhaps, I could be mistaken, that it was more a part on the writers that they forgot to give her a storyline, or emotions, or dialogue. It’s worth mentioning, unfortunately that Marylyn is a black hubot. Her only time to speak and her only storyline is at the start of season two where she realises her eyes are too green and so changes them at a machine that infects her with a virus which quickly leads to her demise. It was a sadly short end for a character we never really got to explore and I hope there was a reason that she never got lines or a storyline beyond the fact that she was a black, female hubot.

Eva and Åsa

In season one as the liberated hubots – Niska and co – are hiding out in a church they meet the female priest Åsa. She is very understanding about the hubots meaning no harm, she is quick to defend them, and to try and accommodate them in her church attic; she even helps Gordon, a hubot, find God through the bible and discussion. She is met however with distaste from the next character I will discuss, Flash (yes Flash and Gordon are related hubots). Åsa is married to Eva, someone who is not quite as understanding and trustful of Hubots; this distrust is confirmed after Flash calls her a ‘homo freak’ – it is a sad statement, quickly pointed out as wrong, from a hubot who simply sees women as made to be mothers. Åsa tries to help her see how she should not judge, just as she does not judge her. There may even be more to Åsa if a later statement in season two was meant to mean that she is a hubot too – which would explain her ease with other hubots. It is always great to see lesbians on television, and I feel they were represented in a real, non-sexualised manner as complex women; though unfortunately they do not stay together due to differences in their beliefs about hubots. I fervently hope that these two characters arrive in the remake, and it will be unacceptable if they are completely erased as this happens to lesbians in all sorts of media on an ashamedly regularly basis.

Flash

Flash (ah-ah), later Florentine, is a female hubot played by a former Miss Sweden. We later learn that her model is an imported one not available in Sweden, and that she is designed to be a nanny; whilst she was liberated – set free from her programming by code – I feel that need to look after children still remains. Her first storyline is that she wants to be a mother and a wife, she wants to marry a human and live happily ever after. She is not happy being told what to do by Niska and though it means leaving her brother Gordon she leaves on her own. She hides that she is a hubot and finds a way to attend parties for well to do men to find her a husband. There she meets a man who after struggling initially with eventually learning she is a hubot marries her. This marriage is fraught with issues over should a human be able to marry a hubot, can a hubot really love, and in the end Åsa the lesbian priest is the one who marries them. She is very disproving of a woman she met before she got married, questioning why she poisons herself with drugs whilst she has a baby to look after, and she later gets involved in a custody battle to be the mother of that child (it’s a whole thing). But what is most important about Flash as time goes on is that she gets what the liberate hubots truly wanted: to be free. She, along with Anita, is granted the rights of citizenship that being human entails – though it ultimately leads to her losing custody of a child she loved but tried to buy. Flash was a character who never saw herself as a hubot and whilst many of her actions where questionable her love was real and her desire to be seen as human is one that even many humans to this day feel.

The Difference Between Man and Woman

It is a point I won’t stop making that, under patriarchy, men and women are conditioned and socialised to be different. We are taught to be different things, to want different things, and to be certain things despite what we actually feel and are. It is not surprising in a world that has a strict gender hierarchy that we wouldn’t enforce that same gender onto ultimately gender and sexless robots. It is also not surprising that in a world with this gender hierarchy still existing that these female hubots would be subject to the same sexual violence, other violence, objectification, denigration, and general exploitation that women currently face. Whilst I disagree that it is one that belongs in science fiction – where we can create any future we please, and that it is limiting to female characters to always give them storylines that focus on their status as woman I am least glad that the writers understand the things women suffer through. Though it was not done perfectly I hope it at least helped some women and men who are watching understand issues they were perhaps naïve on; television can be a great teaching tool that is not always used to the extent that it should be but Real Humans is a very good start. It can be used to help teenage boys understand sexuality and how not to treat women, as well as teaching grown men not to abuse women and that violence has very real and unwelcome consequences. It is a great show and one I hope that the remake does not continue to ruin, it has many subtleties and issues that television would be smart to handle well.

Real Humans is a show I have thoroughly enjoyed watching, and whilst it can be exhausting to watch, even well intentioned, depictions of a wide range of misogyny and toxic masculinity and male entitlement, I definitely recommend that people watch this show and enjoy the wide range of diverse characters and some truly great, and surprisingly original, science fiction.

TV: Humans: Not So Real Humans.

TV: Humans Versus Real Humans

Having watched the first episode of the new UK/US made drama Humans I was rather disappointed; it was full of what has now become a rather cliché for any medium that involves female AI robots. It was full of objectification, all unexamined and unmentioned, and I was frustrated that we were getting something with so much potential that seemed it was going to squander it. So I decided to watch the original Swedish version to hope against hopes that a place which has been doing well in becoming a country that treats women well could do this concept justice. It wasn’t the most ‘feminist friendly’, as a friend described it, show in the world but I have yet to find one that is. It was much more self-aware, it might not have said the words ‘male violence’ or ‘objectification’ is bad but it certainly, I feel, presented the various ways in which men are violent and entitled with an understanding of the impact that it has on women. Since the UK/US show Humans has only had two episodes versus the Swedish show Real Humans having two whole seasons, a total twenty episodes, I have decided to review them as separate beings but with an awareness of what the show could be when it is made in another country.

Warning: Spoilers for both shows.

Humans

The AMC production is currently airing on Channel 4 as a new drama; it is heavily science fiction as it uses science beyond what we currently have to explore various issues about society, family, and, most of all, what it means to be human. The creators, in an interview with Digital Spy, tried to shy away from giving the show a Sci-Fi label because they felt it was limiting, incorrect, and that it was in fact a show about examining family – I feel that this is simply a misunderstanding, and a misrepresentation, of what science fiction is. In fact I feel that this show is more slick and shiny than the Swedish original; it has the sheen that current dramas have and it’s ‘all-star’ cast aims to make it a show to be talked about.

However, it suffers from a problem that almost all science fiction suffers from: misogyny. Now by this I don’t mean that the show openly hates women, I don’t mean that there aren’t female characters, but what I do mean is that it uses science fiction to explore advances in technology and robotics but firmly plants its feet in, digs them in firm, and demands that this has to take place in a parallel world where we are not further – in fact I could argue they have gone further back – in sorting out our misogynistic society. It is disappointing because it has, as even the original suffers, meant that the female AI are reduced to being tools to explore male sexual depravity and objectification. Even as robots we don’t get a good story line, we get, excuse my French, fucked.

The main cast in this show is many – though not as many as the Swedish original as sadly many have characters have been erased and rolled into other characters. The main family are Laura, Joe, Toby, Mattie, and Sophie who buy a Synth called Anita because she is on offer. Straight away the mother is portrayed as angry, dismayed that one of those ‘things’ is now in her household whilst also being shown as a bad mother and wife because she is away being a busy lawyer. We instantly understand that the mother is a bitch & that she is going to be a source of conflict as we see throughout the first episode with her immense distrust of Anita. Her husband, in contrast, is understanding and open and frustrated with his wife’s lack of approval for his decision as well as her work commitments; she will give them more time to spend with each other and the kids is how he argues for Anita to stay with them. Anita herself is odd – laughing too long etc. – and yet the little Sophie embraces her quickly. Their elder daughter is furious and antagonistic, insulting the Synths and Anita – she is, again, clearly difficult and ‘a handful’ and seems like she will be another source of problems for this family; the daughters character appears in fact to be more like a character called Kevin in the original, who I will talk more about later. Finally, there is Toby who wastes no time in lingering on Anita’s breasts and buttocks – along with his father.

In addition to this very casual – and very much not criticised – glances by the young Toby are a scene which happens in episode two. Anita is charging on a night and Toby comes along, he initially holds her hand and she awakens, shocked. After he tells her to close her eyes, and pretend he’s not here he tries then to touch her breast; her response to this is to mention that inappropriate contact will be reported to his parents but she decides that she won’t need to as his hand didn’t actual touch her. As he leaves, glad she won’t tell his parents, he bemoans ‘why did they have to make you so fit’. This scene is disgusting for many reasons: he is a teenager, he does it knowing that Anita is very aware of it, he finds no problem in doing so and only gets upset that someone might find out about it, and after all of that he still makes it known that he finds her ‘fit’.

In the Swedish version this scene is there but it plays out very differently, though not perfectly; Tobias, a much older looking teenager – after not objectifying her before – shyly sits down next to a charging Anita and puts his hand between her legs, over her dress, and Anita says nothing and does nothing except pull her dress back to normal after he has left. Now whilst this is very much not okay and I was shocked it took place in an atmosphere where his mother was telling her father to tell him that Anita is not there for sex – which may still happen in the UK/US version – and it plays a role in a later storyline. Neither are okay, neither bring an awareness of sexual assault or consent but the UK/US one makes it clear that despite the inappropriateness of the encounter it is still the son’s place to share what his penis thinks of her body.

Now we get onto another very disappointing part of the show: using female robots for sex. Let me get a few statements out of the way here: I understand that it is realistic that men would use robots for sex, I understand that this is a parallel world, and I understand why the show has done this storyline. Here’s what I am pissed off about: just because it’s realistic doesn’t mean you have to do it, doesn’t mean you have to show a woman getting fucked from behind, and it also doesn’t mean that you have to introduce a female character to us primarily through her job as a sex robot. I admire the show for talking about whether she has turned her pain setting off, for showing her screaming silently, and for her standing up for herself in episode two – already?! However, there are many problems with the way this version of the show has shown this current aspect of this world.

Firstly, in the Swedish original robots do not feel pain, and whilst there are different robots – or hubots as they are called, none of them are programmed to feel pain. For them to feel pain one man brings his large breasted half naked hubot to Leo, who is temporarily working in a brothel modifying hubots for room & board. He asks Leo if he can make her feel pain and act scared when he hurts her and gets rough. Leo does what he asks but as we see later, spoilers, it makes her murder him. In this version we have a Synth that thinks a human woman should feel pain when she is being repeatedly raped by men; as though a defining feature of women is the pain they feel as a consequence of man.

Secondly, there is the line that she utters as she walks away, after murdering her client for asking her to be young and scared, “All the things men do to us they want to do to you”. I do not deny that this line is true, and I appreciate that female robots are being used in the show in place of human women. But also, Fuck. You. By saying this the show acts as though there are not prostitutes world-wide who are suffering like this by acting like the only way we can openly show how degradingly these women are treated is through metaphor. It also implies that in a world with sex robots that the only interaction between men and women is now all consensual and kind which is completely wrong; men would simply have sex with hubots on top of raping women and children because it is about control not sex.

Whilst watching the show I was trying to figure out who this female Synth was from the original version and I sadly realised that she is probably a number of characters put together. Her character is called Niska which is a very different – more commanding, definitely not sexualised, and aggressive – character, as well as a blonde, beautiful, and complex character called Flash, as well as the robot I mentioned earlier who was used for sex and murdered the man raping her. This is also true for other characters on the show and what it has done, so far, has resulted in many characters being ruined. Characters have lost their whole characterisation, their potential for storylines, and many now feel as hollow replacements.

I feel that this is true for the whole show so far; it has removed many subtleties from its original, perhaps expected from a US/UK production, presented many complex themes with a harsher lens, and given women roles they didn’t have so they can be the negative ones as well as the sexualised ones. There are also many other issues, such as the future of a character who is potentially a domestic abuser and whether this story will be done effectively; now the abused character is disabled and as disabled women are twice as likely to be in abusive relationships it is important to raise awareness of the issue but as with other sensitive issues I feel this may not be the show to do it. There is hope for this series and I hope that these problems are sorted out as time goes on and the show finds its feet; however seeing as the show has previous material to work with it feels like it has already caused problems in trying to make it its own. But I will leave it on a wishful note, hoping that it’s all but one male writers have found a more sensitive way to deal with the dehumanising, specifically, of female robots and the objectification that they and all women suffer.

I will now examine the show Real Humans in detail because there is, also, a lot to discuss. However I will post it here so it is easier to access as a separate entity.

Also, to read about the female AI film Ex Machina read my review here, and also for my review of a film that also does not understand the potential of women in science fiction read my review of The Anomaly here.

Legally Blonde: Bend and Snap

Warning: Spoilers.

Andrea Dworkin in her book Our Blood writes, in describing the history of women, that: “…ladies were trained to mental and moral idiocy. Any display of intelligence compromised a lady’s value as an ornament. Any assertion of principles will contradicted her master’s definition of her as a decorative object”. It is no coincidence that it is a modern day stereotype that blonde women – the idealised woman in the West – are seen as stupid. It is as it has always been that women are not allowed both beauty and brains. Yes there is too the stereotype of an athletic airhead male but when men are admired for their strength, athleticism, and skills on the modern day battle field that is a sports field then it is hardly comparable. It is after finishing Our Blood that I decided to review Legally Blonde, realising that whilst times may change some things stay the same.

Legally Blonde – based on a book by a woman, with the screenplay done by two women – is a triumph of a film that aimed to break stereotypes as its main concept. It’s writers understood that it is far too simplistic to simply assume that there are many beautiful women who don’t try to be educated, who are superficial and that this is all there is to them. I remember as a teenager scolding myself for ever thinking that my friends who wore make up, obsessed over clothes, or who focused on looking good for the opposite sex were anything less than I was. I found myself realising that it is absurd to think that women can’t care about how they look and their grades simultaneously. Nothing will break that stereotype like having the popular pretty girls in the top classes with you.

As I watched the film I saw Elle display many talents and a breadth of knowledge that I simply do not have in any way shape or form. She has an understanding of fabric – from the type of material to the type of stitch that would damage it – in a way that I would one day hope to have as an amateur seamstress. She is confident, courageous, and I envy both of those characteristics as someone who is anxious more than anything. The women around her, too portrayed as superficial – a gendered term – display the skill of speaking another language, of being a tutor to help her get the score she needed for the LSATs, and it further helped display that the hair colour blonde means nothing more than the DNA your parents gave you – or what you got out of a bottle.

In the film there was, however, a somewhat stereotypical depiction of a Woman’s Studies graduate because let’s face it some stereotypes are an easy contrast to Miss Elle Woods. The character is, yes, a lesbian; she looks down on Elle immediately, and mocks her openly. Yet Elle does not do the same in return; in response to the character accusing her of being someone who would call her a dyke behind her back Elle is shocked because she would never insult her. She understands sisterhood – shown again later as she keeps her client’s secret to maintain her client’s reputation – and knows that insulting other women undermines that. It is a key theme of the movie that women are there to support each other – take the bend and snap scene for perfect proof – and that even those who might not be completely compatible can still relate to each other and be there for one another.

In an article I recently saw the plot of the film was being mocked for being too convenient; they were referring to the climax of the film where Elle cracks the case she has taken over – after her ‘prick’ of a professor hit on her and was fired – by knowing perm maintenance. If you haven’t seen it or don’t remember she unpicks the murderers alibi by pointing out that her story of showering within a few hours of getting a perm was a lie because after having over thirty perms in her life she would know that she would not be allowed to get her hair wet for at least 24 hours after. Hair and nail maintenance for someone like Elle is her specialist knowledge, and so what she did was use that knowledge to protect her client from being falsely imprisoned. As someone who is make up illiterate I admire those who can understand how to wield mascara, lip liner, and foundation to ‘put on your face’; whilst I fully understand the history of women’s beauty expectations and would love for women to be accepted as they are I do not condemn or insult women for wearing make up in the meantime.

Whilst there are many individual choices women can make that hurt other women – such as reframing harmful institutions that hurt many women for the sake of a few – there are many that do not. Women should not be shamed for not shaving and they shouldn’t be mocked for wearing make-up and heels. All women should understand that standards of beauty are there to make women feel bad about themselves so they will buy unnecessary products, they should work towards feeling secure in themselves so that their self-worth isn’t defined by their looks, and I think sisterhood and feminism is a perfect way to help women value themselves. But it also definitely doesn’t make you a ‘bad feminist’ if you want to wear make-up and heels whilst smashing the patriarchy.

Fido: I Can't Afford Another Funeral

Warning: Spoilers.

Fido is a zombie film set in a 1950s-esque universe where The Zombie Wars had been won and a company called Zom Com have domesticated zombies. It is the latest trend for each household to have a zombie, as a pet or as a servant. We start with little Timmy learning about zombies, as the wars are taught in school so children understand the world they live in, and about the wastelands that are outside the barriers. Their world is calm, beautiful, and the colour scheme is very bright – despite the zombies, who are very grey. It paints an odd but common picture of the 1950s as being all about the family, about men working and women looking after the home. The zombies don’t change much about the universe until our protagonists buy Fido.

Whilst most are fine with seeing the zombies as no longer human Timmy disagrees and questions the world around him. He is not liked amongst his friends and his father has set up a funeral fund for him – in a world where special measures need to be taken to stop someone being a zombie funerals are expensive luxuries. At the start his Mum, Carrie Ann Moss, was the same but after meeting and getting to know Fido, a beardless Billy Connolly, she changes her way of thinking. It triggers a series of events where zombies go back to eating and turning people and we see how an egotistical man, a work focused father, a stay at home Mum, and a little boy deal with it.

Timmy’s father works in the funeral business and he spends almost all of his time working or golfing; his son asks him if he can go golfing with him but he lies and rejects him because his son is a bit odd and asks the ‘wrong’ questions. He ignores his wife as a person and as a partner so much so that he doesn’t even realise that she is pregnant, and when she tells him his response is simply “Maybe you’re just getting fat”. His demise comes when he tries too little too late to be a father and be there for his son, leaving his wife to pick up the pieces. At his funeral she simply turns to Fido, her new odd companion, and explains “It was what he wanted” – a funeral, with his head in a separate box, and a line from the priest about dust never reanimating. His character is perhaps what 1950s men might have been – focused on work, seeing his family as a status more than anything, and happy to ignore his son if he’s not exactly what he wanted.

Though the 1950s perhaps tried to paint men as the great providers, as competent and noble yet modern representations understand the type of man that might have created. For example shows such as Masters of Sex paint a picture of men as struggling with their emotions and their anger, not being able to cope to any challenge of their ego, and happy to ignore the skills of women to suit their world view – admittedly because the men of today are so similar. Yet these representations of the ‘50s also do the opposite for women; they don’t simply paint women are two dimensional housewives, as mothers with no story and personality in fact they create more three dimensional characters than a lot of modern films do. Especially modern zombie movies where it’s easy to fall into tropes of damsels in distress.

As someone who watches a lot of zombie films it can be exhausting seeing women reduced to cheap jokes or tools to show a range of qualities of men – from the good to the bad. For example in The Horde there is a moment where a female zombie is stumbling down a hallway, a dismembered head in hand, and after knocking her down three of the male characters start calling her a slut, and talking about having sex with her; they even take the head she was holding and make her kiss it and despite one character’s brother scolding him, asking if it makes him feel badass, it still ends with her top wide open showing her bare breasts. I’m not even going to get started on the misogynistic horror that is Deadgirl. This is where Fido follows suit however – with a character called Tammy.

Tammy is a running joke in the film as the adults struggle to explain to Timmy who she is to their neighbour. Tammy is a zombie, one who died young and was domesticated early enough for no decomposition to set in; their neighbour who bought her was fired from his job at Zom Com because of his relationship with her. Timmy’s parents trip over the words to explain that Tammy is kind of his girlfriend but clear to explain that he doesn’t love her. It’s an open disgust and uncomfortableness but one they can’t do anything about because there’s nothing wrong, technically, with owning a zombie for whatever use you want it for. It is a twisted storyline but as it is in a comedy it is used for cheap laughs and to poke at an adult situation in a film about a little boy and his pet zombie. Again however it shows a sadly accurate understanding of what would happen in a world with calm zombie pets. It understands the misogynistic world around us and makes it clear that Tammy is unhappy and that the neighbour is a creep.

But what’s more is that Carrie Ann Moss’ character is a shining light in a film set in a 1950s universe. She is one of the three main protagonists along with her son and Fido, a silent character but a strong performance from Connolly. Her character, yes, looks after the home, she bought Fido in the first place because she was embarrassed that they didn’t have a zombie of their own. Yet she is very skilled with a gun, calm in a ridiculous situation, and understanding of Timmy and his weird questions. She is always beautiful yet never shallow, she is pregnant but never in the background, and whilst she bought Fido for status she begins to grow close to him as a mute zombie becomes a better partner to her than her husband. It’s this depiction of a female character, especially in this decade, that shows an understanding of women that often appears seemingly in contrast to the sexism in the rest of the film.

It’s this depiction of strong women, of capable women, that I think is one that is important when looking at history. Whilst the 1950s stand out as a particularly regressive time for women the rest of history, and present day, has hardly done much better. Women across the world and across time have been ignored, put down, and not given the opportunities that their male peers have; from education to work and even to ownership of their bodies women have had a struggle men simply haven’t had. It would be easy, but wrong, to assume that throughout history women have let the time they live in define them. It would be a false assumption that women simply sat back and let themselves be dehumanised objects for men, that they never tried to break the boundaries around them, and it is something writers would be wise to remember this. Whilst Fido is one that understands this there are many films that don’t and sadly many, many modern films forget this most of all – making women sexual backdrops to the male leads adventures. Women are complicated, strong, ambitious, and amazing even when they are flawed and writers would do damn well to remember that.