Artificial Intelligence in Movies - Essay Example

Artificial Intelligence in Movies Gender identity refers to the individual’s ive experience and private sense of their own gender. In psychology, gender identity refers to a person’s private sense of being either a man or a woman, both male and female or neither. Gender identities are not only inherent in the real world among individuals but also extend to other works such as art, movies, and music. It is typical of the movies to personify the gender identities through the various genres such as the science fictions, adventure, and natural intelligence films. Various gender theories have been developed to provide explanations and highlight the important aspects of gender identity and how the aspects are represented in the society. Such theories can be broadly categorized as the biological theories of gender, interpersonal theories of gender, psychodynamic theories of gender development, cognitive development theory, standpoint theory, and the cultural theories of gender. This paper is aimed at establishing the personification of the Artificial Intelligence movies using gender identities and will solely rely on the Gender Schema Theory to highlight the important elements of the relationship. The AI movies are basically those that largely depict the use of intelligence that is presented in the forms of machine or software. The paper will essentially use Artificial Intelligence movies such as Terminator, Ex Machina, Wall-E and the Iron Man. A highlight on the Gender Schema Theory is essential to start off this discussion. Gender Schema Theory provides explanation for the persistence of gender stereotypes. The theory argues that individuals tend to give much attention to consistent gender stereotype information and increasingly ignore inconsistent gender stereotype information. Martins and Halverson’s (19) experimentation on gender schemas is particularly an essential demonstration of the carrying perceptions (Cardwell and Flanagan 153). In their experiment, children were provided with pictures of boys and girls performing actions that were gender consistent as well as those that were gender inconsistent. One week after the presentation, the children were able to correctly remember the gender consistent images while giving distorted information with reference to the gender inconsistent images. For instance, the children correctly remembered the image of a girl baking cookies but incorrectly remembered the picture of a girl boxing as an image of a boy boxing (Carducci 497). The gender schemas are usually given a double standard consideration. There is more likelihood of remembering information that is consistent with the double standards while ignoring those that are inconsistent. For example, people are usually quick to criticize women who have casual sex and multiple sex partners, considering the behavior very abnormal. However, men who depict similar behavior are considered typical of their gender. The gender Schema Theory also suggests that people are more likely to recall information that concerns their in-group than those of the out-groups. They remember things that are consistent with their groups or those that belong to their groups while ignoring those of the outside groups. This is particularly inherent among children who either pressure their parents to buy dolls or toy guns, actively seeking to acquire the right toy which is the gender appropriate schema. The capacity of children to identify toy schemas associated with each gender is largely as a result of learning through social experience, better explained through social learning theory (Chrisler and McCreary 47). “In the world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has split active males and passive females. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly” (Penley, pg 62). In most of the cinemas and in the accounts of the relations between male and female, the male are seen motivated by the desire to dominate the on screen female both on screen and in the audience. He is the subject while she is the object in this relation. In considerations with the schemas propagated in the Gender Schema Theory, the gender identities are the schemas themselves. The gender identities at both the individual and societal level determine the roles, responsibilities, behaviors, and actions expected of individuals. This definitely affects other aspects of the individuals such as values, beliefs, morality, interests, and preferences. It is interesting how the Artificial Intelligent movies increasingly depict these identities in the character role plays. In these movies, men and women are portrayed very distinctively. It is through such distinctive depiction of men and women that the viewers especially the young children are socialized to act in certain ways and have certain preconceived ideas about how individuals should behave as they mimic the character roles and actions. As noted by Ruthann Mayes-Elma 2006, most movies depict the males as occupying diverse occupations and more often than not they are the heroes and problem solvers. The females on the other hand are depicted in the light of wives to the heroes, nurses, secretaries or teachers. Whenever the females play the roles that have been stereotyped as male such as the police officers, doctors and lawyers they are usually highly sexualized. They are often presented as good looking, vixen or sexy cops, lawyers and doctors. Men when assuming such roles are never sexualized. These and more demonstrations on how the gender identities are manifested in the movies are as follows. In the Artificial Intelligence movies such the females are increasingly identified with the caring roles. They make efforts to take care of their families, care for the injured and in most cases protect the young children. The male characters are however depicted as carrying out the heroic roles of protecting everybody by facing the villain. In the movie, Terminator, Sarah Connor is majorly concerned with the protection of his son, John Connor, from the looming danger presented by T-1000, the villain. The Terminator is however charged with role of eliminating the villain. It was programmed particularly for that purpose. The Terminator depicts the male masculinity as well as chauvinism as most of the decisions are of course ma de by him, including when to escape from the villain and when to face him. In the end he is the hero (Tasker, pg 68). These films also indicate the effort by the heroes to persuade the heroin to fall in love with them. As the movies progress, the heroin falls in love with the main male protagonist and becomes his property, thereby losing her outward glamorous characteristics, her generalized sexuality, her show-girl connotations; her eroticism is subjected to the male star alone. By means of identification with him, through participation in his power, the spectator can indirectly possess her too. This is particularly exhibited in the Wall-E, a movie directed by Andrew Stanton with the Pixar Animation Studios as the producer, is a movie about a robot named WALL-E. The robot depicts the masculine traits and is constantly at the fore front trying to protect another robot named EVE with feminine traits. In this light, WALL-E is perceived as the protector of EVE who on the other hand plays a passive role, to a large extent focusing on the roles for which it was programmed; which was to assess the nature of the earth by collecting plants to prove whether it was inhabitable by humans. EVE’s key contributions came in caring for WALL-E after he was crashed by Auto. EVE repairs and reactivates him, and at last manages to restore his memory back. In her popular essay, film theorist Laura Mulvey use the term "the male gaze." The essay was first published in 1975. Mulvey argues that the so-called classical Hollywood cinema of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, (which are the later version of realist narrative) represents looking as die prerogative of men: the alignment of the looks of male characters, the camera, and the spectator in the audience positions men as "bearers of the look" and women as “objects of the gaze” (Penley, pg 57). The Artificial Intelligence movies in some cases go against the gender identity and stereotypic perspective. In the Terminator 2 for instance, Sarah Connor dresses in a distinct style of women’s high street fashion with a possible definition of ‘ a butch femme’ (more emphasis laid on butch than femme). At times she also puts on the masculine outfits of the leather jacket, vest and legging (Tasker, pg 67). This sense of cross dressing in this movie that is inherent within and across the gender supports the ambiguity of gender identity of the female character rather than expose the distinct gender traits in dressing depicting the instability if the gendered system and the generation of the alternate space through the instability. Another example in where the gender identities are disregarded in the artificial intelligence movies is the movie Ex Machina. The A.I in this movie goes by the name Ava; and is presented as a humanoid robot having a face of a young woman. The movie ignores the stereotypes and schemas often associated with the sexy female robots in most Hollywood films. Ava’s sexual identity is hidden, thus making it hard to relate the artificial intelligence with gender (Whitelaw par6). The movie, Iron Man 3, is very essential in demonstrating how the gender identities can be disregarded in artistic works. This movie alleviates its women characters of usual depiction tendencies of women as wholly dependent on men, either assuming the caring roles or serving under the male characters. Iron Man 3 is largely credited for giving its female actors, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rebecca Hall playing the characters of tony Starks consigliere-girlfriend Pepper Potts and Maya Hansen respectively, the best insights and snappiest lines. Maya Hanse, for instance, is presented as a very brilliant scientist. Pepper Potts, on the other hand, runs Tony Stark’s company. Her indicated rise from the position of a beleaguered assistant to her position Tony Stark’s partner is incredible (Rosenberg par5). Gender identity is an inherent concept in the society and its presence is neither limited in the Artificial Intelligent movies. What is much evident is the association of men with the male stereotyped occupations as well as roles. The women, on the other hand, are given the caring roles such as those of teachers and nurses. However, to some extent, the artificial intelligence films disregard the gender identities. This is particularly in relation to the three movies of Terminator, Ex Machina, Iron man and Wall-E in which the female characters interchange between the female and male roles. Works Cited Top of Form Top of Form Cardwell, Mike, and Cara Flanagan. Psychology A2: The Complete Companion. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes, 2004. Print. Bottom of Form Top of Form Carducci, Bernado. The Psychology of Personality. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. PrintBottom of Form Top of Form Top of Form Chrisler, Joan C, and Donald R. McCreary. Handbook of Gender Research in Psychology. New York: Springer, 2010. Internet resource. Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Mayes-Elma, Ruthann. Females and Harry Potter: Not All That Empowering. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006. Print. Penley, Constance. Feminism and Film Theory. Routledge: New York. 2013. Print. Rosenberg, Alyssa. The Real Strats of Iron Man 3 are Pepper Potts and Maya Hensen. XXfactor. Web. May 6, 2013. Retrieved from: Tasker, Yvonne. Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema. Routledge. New York. 2002. Whitelaw, Gavier-Baker. “Ex Machina director Alex Garland Talks Gender And Artificial Intelligence.” The Daily Dot, 2015. Web. 10 June 2015 Bottom of Form Read More