The fembot mystique

amazonophile · Post by **amazonophile** » Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:22 pm

Check this out: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technology ... drcrd.html Fembots were a pop-culture staple long before Austin Powers battled them–witness the popularity of The Bionic Woman, The Stepford Wives and Blade Runner. But what is it about curvaceous cyborgs that stirs the imagination? To some, fembots represent the perfect male fantasy: They’re sexy and submissive and have more techie features than the Xbox 360. But they also have a dangerous side that can reduce walls to rubble and make an army retreat. Perhaps the fembot’s allure resides in her ability to walk the line between total obedience and unfathomable power.

Feminist science-fiction writer Amy Thomson, author of robot-comes-of-age novel Virtual Girl, suggests that the fembot myth is attractive to men because it deals with “a woman you create and control.” But tech journalist Daniel Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising, argues that fictional fembots have hardly been portrayed as controllable–in fact, he claims, they’re often presented as the most dangerous robots of all, because feelings of attraction to them could leave their victims vulnerable to attack. “A sexy robot that’s aggressive could be a wolf in rubberized skin,” he says.

The world’s first big-screen fembot was introduced in Fritz Lang’s 1927 science-fiction masterpiece Metropolis, a film set in a stylized future world of elite technocrats and oppressed machinists. A mad scientist who wants to destroy the machinists invents a beautiful, sadistic female robot that takes the place of a kidnapped political reformer named Maria. The evil Maria robot advocates war and gives a half-speech, half-striptease that whips the machinist masses into a revolutionary fervor.

Metropolis’s sexy, dangerous cyborg became the template for countless others, though not for several decades. There were few fembots in the mid-20th century, but the desire to connect beautiful women and high-tech machines was manifest in the cheesecake pinups painted on fighter planes and the dramatic curves of 1950s roadsters. Indeed, cars were the fembots of the Cold War era, with voluptuous lines and sparkling fins designed to echo the female form. Robots, on the other hand, were depicted as clumsy automatons like Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet (1956). Despite Robby’s male name, the sweet, lumpy ’bot acted like a traditional housewife, bustling around, making clothes, and cooking for the other characters.

But as women’s social roles shifted in real life, so did those of their machine counterparts. In the 1970s, women had broken away from their Robby the Robot—style roles in the home and embraced the feminist movement, which led to a crop of fembot protest movies. The most famous of these is The Stepford Wives (1975), a fable in which men replace their uppity wives with obedient, beautiful robots who love cooking, cleaning and sex.

But the pop-culture fembots of the past two decades have been far from domestic. In the 1980s movie Eve of Destruction, a luscious robot with a nuclear bomb for a heart threatens a city with extinction after a man in a bar calls her a “bitch.” In Blade Runner (1982), Daryl Hannah plays a delicate yet violent robot named Pris who nearly kills Harrison Ford’s character. Terminator 3 (2003) features a female version of the killer cyborg once played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. And, most spectacularly, nearly all the powerful cylons in the SciFi Channel’s hit TV series Battlestar Galactica are played by strong, devastatingly gorgeous women.

The Battlestar ’bots may be reminiscent of Metropolis’s Maria, but there are shades of Stepford in today’s real-life fembots. Last year, Osaka University researcher Hiroshi Ishiguro debuted “office android” Repilee Q1Expo, modeled after Japanese TV newscaster Ayako Fujii and designed to be a perfect secretary who smiles and flutters her eyelids. But her bosses should beware–if life imitates art, Repilee could take a science-fictional turn for the nasty. We saw it in the movies: Labor unions and sexual-harassment suits are always preferable to an angry fembot. After all, she’s bound to be stronger, faster and smarter than you.

Deep Blue · Post by **Deep Blue** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:26 am

Also, in the Nemesis(1993), the fembot Judy that played by Deborah Sheraton is great too! Her figure is good, but soon broke into pieces!

droidlvr · Post by **droidlvr** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 8:11 am

That article smacks of the many feminist tinged screeds I've encountered during my early web research for ASFR material.

WinterRose · Post by **WinterRose** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:17 am

Gee... where have I read a lot of those observations before... I just don't know... It seems like I've seen that picture used in conjunction with them too. MAN, I just don't immediately remember...

Allenzo · Post by **Allenzo** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 4:33 am

i will just come out and say it, i disagree with you wholeheartedly on what i think is your point. Robots are robots. The fact that fembots are designed as women and are used accordingly is really no skin off my bones. Do not get me wrong, i would feel the same about gaybots or manbots. Its people that think robots have feelings that make this genre so much more devious than it really is. ASFR is not bad in any sense, and i believe that feminism shot its own foot ages ago. But thats another rant for another post!

xodar · Post by **xodar** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 6:08 am

she’s bound to be stronger, faster and smarter than you.

If you're licensed to carry a weapon you shoot her in the fuse box when she malfunctions.

keraptis · Post by **keraptis** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:05 pm

xodar wrote:
she’s bound to be stronger, faster and smarter than you.
If you're licensed to carry a weapon you shoot her in the fuse box when she malfunctions.

Here we go again. I love when we start using hypothetical "fembot goes wild" scenarios to justify more fantasizing about how best to maim and destroy one.

xodar · Post by **xodar** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:49 pm

keraptis wrote:
xodar wrote:
she’s bound to be stronger, faster and smarter than you.
If you're licensed to carry a weapon you shoot her in the fuse box when she malfunctions.
Here we go again. I love when we start using hypothetical "fembot goes wild" scenarios to justify more fantasizing about how best to maim and destroy one.

So you want to be overwhelmed and controlled by a machine?
Would giving in be better even if you could defend yourself?
Did I come up with the "goes wild" theme? No, so how would I have done it to justify how to maim and destroy?

xodar · Post by **xodar** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 7:15 am

Robotman wrote:I too would be concerned with my personal safety over that of a mindless machine with limbs and the capability to do a lot of harm if it was badly malfunctioning or maliciously programmed. Not a pleasant thought at all, but it is a possibility.

I'm shocked, not just surprised, at how "political correctness" overwhelms common sense and even survival instincts. It isn't as though one would be arbitrarily attacking an actual and innocent female: it's a machine that's malfunctioning. You'd try to stop a runaway lawnmower wouldn't you?
And, yes, I would physically resist a live female if attacked.

keraptis · Post by **keraptis** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 5:20 pm

xodar wrote: So you want to be overwhelmed and controlled by a machine?

Of course not. And given that a machine capable of even attempting such control will not exist in my lifetime, the thought had never occurred to me.

xodar wrote: Would giving in be better even if you could defend yourself?

See above.

I don't want to be attacked by a person, either. But I don't spend any of my time thinking about it. I don't sit there thinking about how, if some hypothetical person attacked me, I could (a) shoot them with a gun, (b) stab their carotid artery with a pen, (c) disable them with a Mr. Spock nerve pinch, or whatever ludicrous fantasy I might concoct.

Maybe for some people, endlessly going over all this stuff in their head makes them feel safe. But in my experience, people who spend a lot of time thinking about how they're going to "defend themselves" are more prone to finding themselves in violent situations. Certain prophecies have a way of fulfilling themselves.

xodar · Post by **xodar** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:30 pm

The question came up and I gave an answer.
I doubt anyone here spends much time thinking about what they'd do if attacked by a person or a robot.

Deep Blue · Post by **Deep Blue** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:11 am

xodar wrote:The question came up and I gave an answer.
I doubt anyone here spends much time thinking about what they'd do if attacked by a person or a robot.

Right, just fight or flight!

Borias · Post by **Borias** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 6:00 pm

droidlvr · Post by **droidlvr** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 6:36 pm

I enjoy the idea of sexual contact with a woman who could physically snap me in half.

Not surprised at all on this one. Although I'm the farthest from identifying
with this pov, it doesn't prevent my noticing it's relative commonality here and even in the main stream "hetero" community. There's a reason for the
popularity of fighter/killer type fembots if any at all,specially in western movies.

xodar · Post by **xodar** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 12:33 pm

I do usually find myself underneath my girlfriend or with my head between her thighs.

Situations I've often been in.
I don't see them as submissive or being dominated, though. On the one hand I don't have to put out much effort and on the other it's only fair since I expect the same thing.
But what matters is how the participants see and enjoy it.