This week in evil robot-ettes...
So, I'll admit it, I went to see "Eagle Eye" on opening day, motivated by my long-standing Shia appreciation, the absurd heat wave, and the sheer awfulness of the trailer.
I can't imagine any of you care enough about this flick to get uppity about being spoiled, but just in case...
So, the mastermind behind the laughable, implausibly-executed machinations in "Eagle Eye" is a computer with a bland female voice, let's just call her HAL-lie, as "2001" also got a nice shout-out as the auto-pilot in "WALL-e." It got me thinking about women and technology, specifically about how/when/why women are aurally attached to technology (e.g. GPS, automated telephone menus, etc.) Here, it's especially interesting, as:
- As far as I can tell, there's no actress credited for the voice of HAL-lie (whose name in the movie is "Aria" or "Ariel" or something, I honestly can't recall) in the film's credits or IMDB, allowing the voice/character to be aligned with (or subsumed by) all of the other automated female voices we encounter day-to-day.
- Here, the female voice reflects both the warmth of maternal "protection" (as HAL-lie is all about preventing terrorist attacks) and feminine passivity. To recap: HAL-lie decides to arrange for the assassination of every key player in government because of a botched murder of a presumed terrorist. She urges for restraint (importantly, because the "masculine"/numerical probability that they have the wrong guy is too high), of course the old boys club pushes on and aggressively blows the guy (plus everyone at the funeral he's attending) sky-high. Don't get me started on the loopy logic here (e.g. I urge passivity, thus I will set in motion an absurdly complicated plot to kill a whole bunch of people).
-HAL-lie is ultimately taken out by the film's lone female Fed (or Naval officer, whatever), played by Rosario Dawson in sensible pantsuit. As always, evil computers can be taken out by smashing their evil red eye with some sort of bat or piece of debris. The key point here is that Dawson is also the odd-woman-out in a profession that is cinematically the domain of men, so it's fitting that the final showdown is between these two ladies.
So, arguably the film's use of a female computer voice is meant to subvert its typical use: as a calming presence (when Time Warner Cable has kept you on hold for 45 min.), as a maternal guide (turn left in 3/4 mile), and so on, making the "reveal" of the computer all the more shocking because we only affiliate female computerized voices with these functions. This is all augmented by the fact that the film's female lead is manipulated by HAL-lie's threat to kill her son, a threat more insidious coming from a fellow female voice. I'd also contend that we're supposed to marvel at how HAL-lie is surveilling and manipulating each and every moment all the more BECAUSE she is a she.
And, because this film so hilariously rehashes the technophobia I thought we'd seen the last of with "The Net," I couldn't help but think back to that text's conflicted gender address. Sandra Bullock might play a techno-savvy woman, but she's also depicted as a lonely hermit and tortured fairly extensively for her techno-prowess.
And now, I'm off to watch some early Buffy so that Willow can cleanse my palate (okay, everything except "I Robot, You Jane"...).
I can't imagine any of you care enough about this flick to get uppity about being spoiled, but just in case...
So, the mastermind behind the laughable, implausibly-executed machinations in "Eagle Eye" is a computer with a bland female voice, let's just call her HAL-lie, as "2001" also got a nice shout-out as the auto-pilot in "WALL-e." It got me thinking about women and technology, specifically about how/when/why women are aurally attached to technology (e.g. GPS, automated telephone menus, etc.) Here, it's especially interesting, as:
- As far as I can tell, there's no actress credited for the voice of HAL-lie (whose name in the movie is "Aria" or "Ariel" or something, I honestly can't recall) in the film's credits or IMDB, allowing the voice/character to be aligned with (or subsumed by) all of the other automated female voices we encounter day-to-day.
- Here, the female voice reflects both the warmth of maternal "protection" (as HAL-lie is all about preventing terrorist attacks) and feminine passivity. To recap: HAL-lie decides to arrange for the assassination of every key player in government because of a botched murder of a presumed terrorist. She urges for restraint (importantly, because the "masculine"/numerical probability that they have the wrong guy is too high), of course the old boys club pushes on and aggressively blows the guy (plus everyone at the funeral he's attending) sky-high. Don't get me started on the loopy logic here (e.g. I urge passivity, thus I will set in motion an absurdly complicated plot to kill a whole bunch of people).
-HAL-lie is ultimately taken out by the film's lone female Fed (or Naval officer, whatever), played by Rosario Dawson in sensible pantsuit. As always, evil computers can be taken out by smashing their evil red eye with some sort of bat or piece of debris. The key point here is that Dawson is also the odd-woman-out in a profession that is cinematically the domain of men, so it's fitting that the final showdown is between these two ladies.
So, arguably the film's use of a female computer voice is meant to subvert its typical use: as a calming presence (when Time Warner Cable has kept you on hold for 45 min.), as a maternal guide (turn left in 3/4 mile), and so on, making the "reveal" of the computer all the more shocking because we only affiliate female computerized voices with these functions. This is all augmented by the fact that the film's female lead is manipulated by HAL-lie's threat to kill her son, a threat more insidious coming from a fellow female voice. I'd also contend that we're supposed to marvel at how HAL-lie is surveilling and manipulating each and every moment all the more BECAUSE she is a she.
And, because this film so hilariously rehashes the technophobia I thought we'd seen the last of with "The Net," I couldn't help but think back to that text's conflicted gender address. Sandra Bullock might play a techno-savvy woman, but she's also depicted as a lonely hermit and tortured fairly extensively for her techno-prowess.
And now, I'm off to watch some early Buffy so that Willow can cleanse my palate (okay, everything except "I Robot, You Jane"...).