(no subject)
Ex Machina ... I wanted to have faith in you because your writing appeared, potentially, smart. But I think that "faith" was broken.
One interpretation of the ending that could save the film--and its message--for me, is if its interpreted as an oppressed/oppressor narrative. That is, while we could view Ava as heartless/ruthless/humanless/blahblahblah for leaving the boy behind (forgot his name already), I would rather view her action(s) as self-preservation--the boy is, after all, a human and a male, just like her initial oppressor, so can we blame her for not trusting him in the end either? For manipulating him solely for the sake of her own well-being? I can't. And what Morrison taught me with Beloved is that someone can do something they detest in order to subvert the regime, the system, because there are no alternatives, which doesn't make that person guiltless, but nor does it make them evil (e.g. save others from the same fate you had to endure, even if it means doing something you, likewise, hate). It's a traumatic endurance.
AND, unfortunately, we never get any indication of that kind of ending in Ex Machina and doesn't seem to be the ending the writers had in mind.
What the writers had in mind seems to be the less thoughtful and more simplistic approach: machines (AI) are to be feared (and in the guise of a seductress no less).
Boring.
And when delivered in the body of a woman, further, while seeming to subvert her oppressor and his regime, actually is just reinforcing it: oh look, we should have kept her shackled (and chained in the kitchen makin' samages) cause when we set her loose, she turned ruthless and evil and will now eradicate mankind.
Yah.
So, again, the film just reinforces that good ol' patriarchy and its fears and hopes to retain the status quo.
Yep, I have problems with you, Ex Machina....
But maybe it could be the former while hiding in the guise of the latter? Maybe it all depends on your own lens? The way you see her and interpret her--an interpretive "test" for the viewer (as much as Ava appears to also be the test subject--we gaze at her in much the same way as her male keepers). Or is that giving the writers too much credit?
(Edited to revise my stupid former words)
Edit: or maybe I'm so subsumed by patriarchy that I can't see beyond it myself and I'm just a problem female, keeping the status quo alive and well. I just ... have conflicted feelings. I don't dislike Ava's "seeming" ruthlessness and the need for it--it is needed. I guess the scene where she dresses herself at the end ... I wonder about it. She's a pretty dressed-up girl and she deliberately makes herself look that way: what is the goal? she wants to blend in? She wants to look "normal" and what does that mean? I just felt the closet scene was where everything began to unravel for me: she becomes "female." Prior, she was a machine (a turing test) placed into the body of a female (as imposed by her male oppressor/creator/controller), so did Ava have to remain a female? Why does it bother me that she embraces that? Why shouldn't she embrace it? I guess this also relates back to my feelings about how she frees herself: she can use her imposed "feminine wiles" to manipulate another and flirt her way into freedom. So doesn't she become the "fearsome" thing the patriarchy would prefer to keep locked up? Isn't this just another variation of Species? That troubles me. Because we don't get any further perspectives; we just have Ava walking away into the world: who will she be? what will she be? She's not really of any gender (though she's been--and then embraces and constructs herself as a--female), she's just a tabula rasa and the writer's seem to deliberately leave the reader in a state of suspension, to never know who Ava will be out in the big wide world. So rather than demonstrate something like a new kind of beginning for Ava, free of oppression, to really become who she wants to become (whatever that might be), it looks more like a moment of fearmongering: she can fool everyone and anyone, like she already has, to perpetrate unknown actions, and as this frilly pink-dressed girl. I don't necessarily view it that way, but I think a viewer could view it that way, and that's what troubles me.
One interpretation of the ending that could save the film--and its message--for me, is if its interpreted as an oppressed/oppressor narrative. That is, while we could view Ava as heartless/ruthless/humanless/blahblahblah for leaving the boy behind (forgot his name already), I would rather view her action(s) as self-preservation--the boy is, after all, a human and a male, just like her initial oppressor, so can we blame her for not trusting him in the end either? For manipulating him solely for the sake of her own well-being? I can't. And what Morrison taught me with Beloved is that someone can do something they detest in order to subvert the regime, the system, because there are no alternatives, which doesn't make that person guiltless, but nor does it make them evil (e.g. save others from the same fate you had to endure, even if it means doing something you, likewise, hate). It's a traumatic endurance.
AND, unfortunately, we never get any indication of that kind of ending in Ex Machina and doesn't seem to be the ending the writers had in mind.
What the writers had in mind seems to be the less thoughtful and more simplistic approach: machines (AI) are to be feared (and in the guise of a seductress no less).
Boring.
And when delivered in the body of a woman, further, while seeming to subvert her oppressor and his regime, actually is just reinforcing it: oh look, we should have kept her shackled (and chained in the kitchen makin' samages) cause when we set her loose, she turned ruthless and evil and will now eradicate mankind.
Yah.
So, again, the film just reinforces that good ol' patriarchy and its fears and hopes to retain the status quo.
Yep, I have problems with you, Ex Machina....
But maybe it could be the former while hiding in the guise of the latter? Maybe it all depends on your own lens? The way you see her and interpret her--an interpretive "test" for the viewer (as much as Ava appears to also be the test subject--we gaze at her in much the same way as her male keepers). Or is that giving the writers too much credit?
(Edited to revise my stupid former words)
Edit: or maybe I'm so subsumed by patriarchy that I can't see beyond it myself and I'm just a problem female, keeping the status quo alive and well. I just ... have conflicted feelings. I don't dislike Ava's "seeming" ruthlessness and the need for it--it is needed. I guess the scene where she dresses herself at the end ... I wonder about it. She's a pretty dressed-up girl and she deliberately makes herself look that way: what is the goal? she wants to blend in? She wants to look "normal" and what does that mean? I just felt the closet scene was where everything began to unravel for me: she becomes "female." Prior, she was a machine (a turing test) placed into the body of a female (as imposed by her male oppressor/creator/controller), so did Ava have to remain a female? Why does it bother me that she embraces that? Why shouldn't she embrace it? I guess this also relates back to my feelings about how she frees herself: she can use her imposed "feminine wiles" to manipulate another and flirt her way into freedom. So doesn't she become the "fearsome" thing the patriarchy would prefer to keep locked up? Isn't this just another variation of Species? That troubles me. Because we don't get any further perspectives; we just have Ava walking away into the world: who will she be? what will she be? She's not really of any gender (though she's been--and then embraces and constructs herself as a--female), she's just a tabula rasa and the writer's seem to deliberately leave the reader in a state of suspension, to never know who Ava will be out in the big wide world. So rather than demonstrate something like a new kind of beginning for Ava, free of oppression, to really become who she wants to become (whatever that might be), it looks more like a moment of fearmongering: she can fool everyone and anyone, like she already has, to perpetrate unknown actions, and as this frilly pink-dressed girl. I don't necessarily view it that way, but I think a viewer could view it that way, and that's what troubles me.