Gendered machines in film and television: How ‘post-’ femininities and masculinities challenge the gender binary

Abstract

Motivated by the representation of robots in film and television, this work examines the role of emerging femininities and masculinities in revisiting the gender binary. The gendered cyborg has been a common trope in cultural texts and a favourite topic in feminist discourse, regarding how it exposes the artificiality of this binary. The case studies are the films Ex Machina and I’m Your Man, and the television series Westworld. The ‘post’-femininities and masculinities are explored through the depiction of gendered robots and their relationships with humans. By drawing on the intersection between feminist and queer theory and posthumanism, this article combines a close reading of gendered representations with an analysis of how they visualise post-gender worlds.