The Machine Gun Hand: Robots, Performance, and American Ideology in the Twentieth Century
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2017 The aM chine Gun Hand: Robots, Performance, and American Ideology in the Twentieth Century Benjamin Michael Phelan Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Phelan, Benjamin Michael, "The aM chine Gun Hand: Robots, Performance, and American Ideology in the Twentieth Century" (2017). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4469. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4469 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE MACHINE GUN HAND: ROBOTS, PERFORMANCE, AND AMERICAN IDEOLOGY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Theatre by Benjamin Michael Phelan B.A., Brigham Young University, 2008 August 2017 Acknowledgments First, I must thank my major professor, friend, and advisor, Alan Sikes. Without his insightful comments throughout the years, this dissertation would have never gained much shape or inertia. I cannot thank him enough for his love and support and for the hours of meetings at Garden District Coffee or over the phone, helping me formulate my ideas into concrete chapters. This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous support of numerous faculty at Louisiana State University. I would like to thank the head of the theatre PhD program, John Fletcher, for his mentorship, kindness, and generosity over the years. His example as a person and a scholar remains exemplary. I would like thank the dean of the LSU Graduate School, Michelle Massé, for being my teacher, my friend, and for her generosity and understanding while I struggled through difficult periods of writing. In addition to John, I would like to thank the other members of my committee: my minor professor, Carl Freedman, and my dean’s rep, Bryan McCann. The dedication of my entire committee made the dissertation defense one of the highlights of my academic career. Their advice will serve me throughout my life. Special thanks to Wade Hollingshaus and Megan Sanborn Jones at Brigham Young University. As both my former teachers and current co-workers, their support has throughout the years has been immense. I would also like to extend a special thanks to family and friends throughout the years who have asked me about my dissertation and who have patiently listened while I explained my arguments. Explaining my ideas aloud helped me immensely. Finally, a special thanks to my parents for loving and supporting me throughout my life. This project would not have been possible without them. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................................................................................. ii ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1. THE MACHINE GUN HAND: AN INTRODUCTION..........................................1 The Project ...........................................................................................................................6 Literature Review...............................................................................................................11 Key Term: Ideology ...........................................................................................................14 Key Term: Performance .....................................................................................................24 Key Term: Robots ..............................................................................................................27 Key Term: America ...........................................................................................................34 Chapter Outline ..................................................................................................................39 CHAPTER 2. THE IMAGE OF MAN’S THOUGHTS: 1920-1939 ............................................42 Rossum’s Universal Robots ...............................................................................................47 Katrina Van Televox ..........................................................................................................57 The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair .......................................................61 The Domestic Consumer....................................................................................................69 The Time Capsule of Cupaloy ...........................................................................................73 CHAPTER 3. LIKE OUR PROGENY, THE COMPUTER: 1950-1968 ......................................79 The Phenomenology of Robots on Stage and Film ...........................................................80 Robot Actors ......................................................................................................................86 The Labor Question ...........................................................................................................89 Robot Brains and Robot Minds .........................................................................................93 The Robot Mind in Fiction ................................................................................................98 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................109 CHAPTER 4. NO ALTERNATIVE: 1980-1991 ........................................................................111 Capitalist Realism ............................................................................................................117 The Terminator ................................................................................................................121 The End of History and the Culture War .........................................................................126 Terminator 2 ....................................................................................................................132 CHAPTER 5. THE RED PILL: 1999-2017 .................................................................................141 The Red Dress ..................................................................................................................147 The Red Pill .....................................................................................................................151 Going Their Own Way.....................................................................................................155 Antagonisms ....................................................................................................................163 CHAPTER 6. I AM IN IDEOLOGY: A CONCLUSION ...........................................................175 Is This Dissertation Outside Ideology? ............................................................................176 Is Resistance Possible? ....................................................................................................181 Will Althusser Continue to be Useful in the United States? ............................................188 iii BIBLIOGRAPHY/REFERENCES..............................................................................................192 VITA ............................................................................................................................................206 iv Abstract Twentieth-century Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser argued in his famous essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” that capitalism reproduces itself by interpellating individuals as subjects. For Althusser, the subject has a dual definition: a person who imagines him or herself to be a free subject who then “chooses” capitalism, and a person who, once they have “chosen” capitalism, gives up their free will to the Subject (Law, God, Authority, the State). This dual definition of the subject mirrors the dual definition of “robot.” A robot is both a mechanical being that moves on its own and a person who acts in a mechanical way. By situating humans as “not robots,” I argue that narratives and performances of robots function as tools for the reproduction of capital. This dissertation examines four historical moments in the United States—the 1939 New York World's Fair, the 1960s automation debates, the end of the Cold War, and the turn of the millennium—to argue that robots in performance serve an important ideological function: to convince us that we, unlike robots, are free subjects. v Chapter 1 The Machine Gun Hand: An Introduction We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man. We got a kinder, gentler, machine gun hand. -Neil Young, “Rockin’ in the Free World,” 19891 This dissertation is about ideology. Specifically, I use case studies of robots (both “real” and “fictive”) throughout the twentieth century to argue that ideology is the process by which we imagine ourselves to be free from ideology. Even more specifically,