We Have Always Been Posthuman: the Articulation(S) of the Techno/Human Subject In

Home , Arkangel (Black Mirror), A Cyborg Manifesto, Bedrock (duo), Betas, Be Right Back, Black Mirror

We Have Always Been Posthuman: The Articulation(s) of the Techno/Human Subject in

the Anthology Television Series Black Mirror

A dissertation presented to

the faculty of

the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Quang Ngo

August 2020

This dissertation titled

We Have Always Been Posthuman: The Articulation(s) of the Techno/Human Subject in

the Anthology Television Series Black Mirror

QUANG NGO

has been approved for

the School of Media Arts & Studies

and the Scripps College of Communication by

Wolfgang Suetzl

Assistant Professor of Media Arts & Studies

Scott Titsworth

Dean, Scripps College of Communication

Abstract

QUANG NGO, Ph.D., August 2020, Media Arts & Studies

We Have Always Been Posthuman: The Articulation(s) of the Techno/Human Subject in the Anthology Television Series Black Mirror

Director of Dissertation: Wolfgang Suetzl

This dissertation investigates how Netflix’s Black Mirror (2011—) articulates both the technology/human interconnectedness and a varied array of posthuman subjects within the narrative. I engage with posthumanist theory and utilize narrative rhetorical criticism and the method of articulation to analyze a selection of ten episodes. Based on the textual analysis, I contend that each selected narrative reveals a unique hypothetical scenario that questions the humanist conceptualization of human nature in addition to envisioning potentials for challenging the common understanding of self, identity, subjectivity, and agency. With its controversial and multilayered articulations of the posthuman condition, I propose that this quality science fiction television program takes as its central theme the symbiotic technology/human relationship as the kernel of a co- constructed reality between these two actants in the digital age. I suggest that Black

Mirror introduces five shades of be(com)ing posthuman: be(com)ing alienated, be(com)ing cyborg, be(com)ing fractured, be(com)ing immortal, and be(com)ing human.

Ultimately, I argue for an empathetic techno/human future that recognizes that both technology and humans matter and mutually influence one another in the construction of the techno/human subject that is unapologetically cyborg, hybrid, and posthuman such that it refuses to be categorically unadulterated and pure. iii

Dedication

To all the women who have deeply impacted my life, especially bà ngoại, mẹ, and Ti

To a few men who do so: ông ngoại, ba, cậu 7, and most importantly em Vinh

Acknowledgments

It is a truism unanimously agreed upon that a Ph.D. journey is a long and winding one. And I myself can certainly and personally attest to that. Indeed, every single moment spent on writing and completing this dissertation has been intellectually challenging, emotionally draining, and physically exhausting. I can surely count how many times that

I would have a mental breakdown, just wanting to cry, laugh, and scream at the same time (no pun intended), when working on this project. But I manage to somehow survive and make it through. Now that my Ph.D. journey has come to an end, I can confidently say that I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and that I have never felt happier, more accomplished, and more relieved in my life. And for that, I would like to thank my committee for this greatest achievement.

My greatest gratitude, of course, goes to none other than Dr. Wolfgang Suetzl, who is the best advisor that a student can ever wish for. Dr. Suetzl, whose knowledge and erudition have constantly pushed me to think harder and think more deeply about critical theory, has been extremely supportive of this project. Dr. Suetzl offers one of the best pieces of advice that I will forever take with me—that is, “You have to always anticipate what your reader will ask you.” Most importantly, I sincerely appreciate that you would read everything I would send to you and that you would be patient whenever I would miss the deadlines.

I am deeply indebted to Dr. Eve Ng, who is the kindest and nicest professor that a student can ever ask for. Dr. Ng understands my academic struggles and has always been welcoming whenever I would come to her for advice. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Roger v

Aden, who is like a fatherly academic figure to me. Dr. Aden has always been there for me the moment I asked him to serve as my committee member. Talking to him and discussing scholarly work with him have been one of the highlights during my graduate studies. And finally, I am deeply indebted to Dr. Myrna Sheldon, who has made a great impact on how I comes to see myself as a critical and feminist scholar. Dr. Sheldon introduces me to feminist science studies, and most significantly, the scholarship of

Donna J. Haraway, which comes to be the main inspiration for this project. And for that, I am deeply grateful.

I am thankful for my family for their unconditional love and for putting up with my complaints. I would like to thank my extended family, too, for their warm support. A huge thanks to my professors, my close friends as well as my colleagues who have been with me through this journey. In particular, I would like to give a special shout out to my best friend, Dr. Mark Congdon, Jr., who is the most understanding and thoughtful person that I have ever met. Finally, I would like to thank Grace Nguyễn and Châu Nguyễn for their amazing, loving, and wonderful friendship.

Xin cảm ơn mọi người!

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... iii Dedication ...... iv Acknowledgments...... v Preface...... xi Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1 Setting the Stage ...... 1 Overview of the Changing Television Landscape ...... 3 Background of the Study ...... 7 Rationale of the Study ...... 10 Purpose of the Study ...... 14 Chapter Breakdown ...... 14 Chapter 2: Literature Review ...... 19 Television Studies ...... 20 Post-Network Television ...... 33 Netflix ...... 39 Quality Television Programming ...... 43 Quality Television ...... 44 Quality Television and HBO ...... 49 Science Fiction Television ...... 56 Science Fiction Television and Black Mirror ...... 77 Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework ...... 79 Posthumanist Theory ...... 79 Posthumanist Theory and New Materialism ...... 86 Posthumanist Theory and the Posthuman Subject ...... 93 Posthumanist Theory and Be(com)ing...... 101 Posthumanist Theory and Science Fiction ...... 106 Posthumanist Theory and Black Mirror ...... 109 Chapter 4: Methodology ...... 112 Qualitative Research ...... 114 vii

Critical Theory and Textual Analysis ...... 115 Narrative Rhetorical Criticism ...... 120 The Method of Articulation ...... 130 Procedure ...... 133 Positionality ...... 138 Chapter 5: Be(com)ing Alienated ...... 143 “Fifteen Million Merits” (Season 1: Episode 2): The Articulation of an Alienated Worker ...... 145 Synopsis ...... 145 The Workings of Alienation ...... 147 The Structure of Culture Industry ...... 156 The Influence of Hegemony ...... 162 “Nosedive” (Season 3: Episode 1): The Articulation of an Alienated Narcissist ..... 168 Synopsis ...... 168 The Mythology of the Rating System ...... 170 The Dehumanizing Aspect of the Rating System ...... 179 The Prospect of Rehumanization ...... 183 Summary ...... 190 Chapter 6: Be(com)ing Cyborg ...... 192 “The Entire History of You” (Season 1: Episode 3): The Articulation of an Enhanced Cyborg...... 196 Synopsis ...... 196 The Technology/Human Meta(l)morphosis ...... 198 The Power of the Grain ...... 206 The Tragedy of a Cyborg ...... 209 “Men Against Fire” (Season 3: Episode 5): The Articulation of a Reprogramed Cyborg...... 211 Synopsis ...... 212 The Cyborg Soldier ...... 214 The Technique of Dehumanization ...... 219 The Legacy of Eugenics...... 222 “Arkangel” (Season 4: Episode 2): The Articulation of a Supervised Cyborg...... 228 The Cyborg Daughter ...... 230 viii

The Trouble with Parental Supervision ...... 237 The Ramification of Privacy-Trespassing ...... 241 Summary ...... 245 Chapter 7: Be(com)ing Fractured ...... 250 “USS Callister” (Season 4: Episode 1): The Articulation of a Misanthropic Cyberspace ...... 253 Synopsis ...... 254 The Perils of Toxic Masculinity ...... 257 The Virtual God ...... 265 Autonomous Conscious Digital Clones ...... 270 The Demise of Toxic Masculinity in Cyberspace...... 277 “Striking Vipers” (Season 5: Episode 1): The Articulation of a Queer Cyberspace 280 Synopsis ...... 281 Queer Avatar-Player Assemblages ...... 283 The Collapse of the Virtual and the Actual ...... 295 Summary ...... 306 Chapter 8: Be(com)ing Immortal ...... 308 “San Junipero” (Season 3: Episode 4): The Articulation of a Utopian Dream ...... 311 Synopsis ...... 312 Queer Paradise ...... 314 The Promise of Virtual Immortality ...... 319 The Implications of Virtual Immortality...... 324 “Black Museum” (Season 4: Episode 6): The Articulation of a Dystopian Nightmare ...... 330 Synopsis ...... 330 The Mechanism of Resurrection ...... 333 The Consequences of Resurrection ...... 338 The Concept of the Human (Re)Visited ...... 344 Summary ...... 349 Chapter 9: Be(com)ing Human ...... 352 “Be Right Back” (Season 2: Episode 1): The Articulation of a Personified Android ...... 354 Synopsis ...... 355 ix

Data as Undead ...... 357 Individual as Divided ...... 366 Android-Human-Network ...... 372 Summary ...... 381 Chapter 10: Conclusion and Outlook: Toward an Empathetic Techno/Human Future .. 383 The Symbiotic Relationship between Technology and Humans: The Kernel of a Co- Constructed Reality in the Digital Age ...... 386 The Articulations of Posthuman Subjects: Five Shades of Be(com)ing Posthuman 390 Notes on Black Mirror as a Science Fiction Television Program on Netflix ...... 393 Limitations and Future Research ...... 396 Coda ...... 397 References ...... 402 Appendix: List of the Titles of Black Mirror...... 447

Preface

“HISTORY 101”

Every week we have classic movie night at my house. My robots and I gather in the living room and watch our chosen movie. We each take turns. Last week my mechanicbot chose

Dude, Where’s My Car? The week prior,

I picked Spartacus. This week, the can opener dug up a copy of Blade Runner on VHS at the local convenience store for ninety-nine cents.

I dusted off my old VCR, and we fiddled with the wires and cables and finally had to give up because we couldn’t connect it to the entertainment robot. My television was especially perplexed, and kept asking: “What the hell’s a remote control anyway?”

—Jason Christie, i-ROBOT Poetry

“MACHINE TESTIMONIAL 1” little robot, you grew up from when you were so young. just a pile of sensors & recycled parts from the trash. i tried to make you gorgeous. & you became such a gorgeous robot. beyond template & design. you’re not so little anymore. when you walk on the street now, you glitter & gold. long time for you to realize that you light up so. oh maker, you say at night, when humans are sleeping. i’m awake though, i hear you. i’m kinda like you too, i was made from all trash, you know? my parts more perish- able than yours. believe me, robot. i want. i remember. my programming is nascent. i see you lying there open, waiting for me. & i think, i want to be good to you. my little automaton doll, take me up into the sky like it was promised in the book of machine love.

—Margaret Rhee, love, robot

xii

Chapter 1: Introduction

Cyborgs do not stay still. Already in the few decades that they have existed, they

have mutated, in fact and fiction, into second-order entities like genomic and

electronic databases and the other denizens of the zone called cyberspace. Lives

are at stake in curious quasi-object like databases; they structure the informatics

of possible worlds, as well as of all-too-real ones. (p. xix)

—Donna J. Haraway, “Cyborgs and Symbionts”

Setting the Stage

Since the late decades of the twentieth century, stories about cyborgs have continually populated human consciousness. Images of “the melding of the organic and the machinic, or the engineering of a union between separate organic systems” have become somewhat remarkably familiar (Gray, Mentor, & Figueroa-Sarriera, 1995, p. 2).

Cyborgs vary and one can locate their manifestations in “the barely organic Terminator, merely a human skin over a complete robot” or in “Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge of the liberal Federation of United Nations and Planets multicultural fantasy Star Trek: The

Next Generation (ST:TNG), with his prosthetic visor” (Gray et al., 1995, p. 2). In essence, cyborgs specify a special kind of intimate relations between the organic and the inorganic. Rather than merely existing in fantasy or fiction, cyborgs can be found in real life. Those who have parts of their body altered or reshaped by manmade technologies can be considered as living cyborgs (Gray, 2002). Cyborg technologies can restore, normalize, reconfigure, or enhance bodies, facilitating the emergence of different types of cyborgs (Gray et al., 1995). The idea that cyborg technologies possess potentials for 1

transgressing human/machine oppositional categories, most certainly, leads Hayles

(1995) to succinctly speculate that “the age of the human has given way to the posthuman” (p. 321). Following this line of thinking, the concept of a liberal humanist subject has been compromised, renegotiated, and rearticulated. Because these intimate human/machine relations reveal how physical bodies can be adjusted, morphed, and modified, Hayles (1995) precisely contends that “Standing at the threshold separating the human from the posthuman, the cyborg looks to the past as well as the future” (p. 322).

More specifically, Gray (2017) coins the term post-sapiens to signify “the liminal place that we are currently in, still human (human, all-too-human) but clearly on the verge of something else, maybe many different somethings” (p. 145). The posthuman then comes to be the final form that the human and the cyborg are expected to evolve into. And because cyborgs have materialized and have become part of social reality, they are no longer products of imagination or speculation.

Science fiction has always been a fecund ground to do this kind of cyborg theorization, allowing for the formation of the posthuman subject (Gray et al., 1995;

Haraway, 1991; Hayles, 1995). For instance, the image of the assembled monstrous creature from Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic book, Frankenstein, has haunted readers for generations. The dystopian society constructed by Aldous Huxley in his 1932 classic book, Brave New World, has, too, disclosed the influence of biotechnological interference on social structure and arrangement. In revealing the limitations of understanding the human subject and human subjectivity from the humanist lens, these science fiction stories obviously hint at the conception of the posthuman. 2

Posthuman subjects have become even more visually realizable in science fiction television programs, such as The Twilight Zone (1959—1964), Six Million Dollar Man

(1973—1978), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008—2009), Sense8

(2015—2018) and so on. To that end, Netflix’s Black Mirror (2011—) can be perceived as a recent television program that successfully furthers the popularization of the posthuman subject(s) that reside(s) in dystopian societies. In transporting viewers to new tempo-spatial televisual dimensions, Black Mirror introduces a varied array of possible potentials for being and becoming posthuman. This science fiction television program moreover allows for a critical inquiry into an investigation of television in the post- network era as well as looking at how quality television produced and distributed by an online streaming platform renders possible the visualization of these essentially complex and inherently fascinating science fiction stories.

Overview of the Changing Television Landscape

Prior to laying out the focus of this study, I draw attention to a qualitative shift in television consumption, which has been regarded as a sort of a collective activity that can lead to the emergence of what Benedict Anderson (2006) would call imagined communities. Although print capitalism, as Anderson argues, was the contributing factor that enabled vast and disparate groups of people from different backgrounds to imagine themselves as part of a community, television could be perceived as one important cultural apparatus that manages to continue this way of imaginarily bringing people together. In watching the same television program, viewers could bond with numerous others. During the broadcasting or network era, this sense of bonding could be 3

unequivocally observed through the formation of a national audience that, due to a lack of viewing options, was more likely to watch limited programs produced by a few dominant network channels.

During the 1980s, however, the advent of cable television contributed to the segmentation of this national audience, thereby indicating a decline in a mainstream market formerly dominated by broadcast networks. Cable television signaled a rise in niche markets with regard to television consumption (Sterin & Winston, 2018; Wu,

2011). The past few decades have witnessed a significant change in the shifting television landscape. No longer passive, audiences have become active and have had an increased agency to search for programs that they find most appealing to their tastes and interests.

Viewers who can afford cable channels are more likely to consume certain types of television programs that might not be available to other viewers. In other words, an imagined community of a national audience becomes fragmented, leading to the formation of multiple smaller imagined communities, constituted by selective viewers, whose socioeconomic status and cultural capital enable them to be distinct from the rest of the population, that are potentially brought together over particular television programs.

At the turn of the twentieth-first century, the Internet introduces viewers to novel ways of consuming television. More specifically, online streaming and hosting services gradually emerge as a competitive and viable entertainment media option, which has gradually transformed how television is understood and how it is consumed (Baker &

Wiatrowski, 2017; Lotz, 2014; Sterin & Winston, 2018; Wu, 2010). These changes 4

present unique opportunities for the production of quality television programs, which are aesthetically pleasing, visually captivating and structurally innovative with complex storytelling. These quality television programs are tailored to active viewers who prefer the type of content that, while simultaneously being satisfactorily entertaining, can critically stimulate their viewing experiences.

How quality television is defined remains contested among both critics and television studies scholars; nevertheless, they characterize cable channels, in particular

Home Box Office (HBO), as the medium that promotes quality television (Haggins &

Lotz, 2008; Kelso, 2008; Santo, 2008). Television programs, produced by and broadcast on cable channels, have earned a reputation of mixing genres and transgressing forms. In the post-network era, many online streaming services, including Netflix or Hulu, partake in the development of quality television programming, producing a wide array of critically acclaimed original programs which can now compete with those by cable channels, such as AMC, HBO, Starz or Showtime, that have a tradition of creating quality television programs that utilize aural, visual, and storytelling techniques, typically unwelcome and restricted on broadcast television networks. As a result, traditional television channels no longer monopolize television content creation and television production.

Deemed the most popular streaming platform with a large number of subscribers,

Netflix has become a key figure in the quality television production competition and has also been considered as a force to be reckoned with in this domain (Baker & Wiatrowski,

2017). By extension, Netflix’s original programs represent more cinematic televisual 5

attempts that never shy away from representing contested issues. Such original programs enable this online streaming service to intrigue its users with its unique televisual content.

Quality television programs produced by and broadcast on Netflix indicate possibilities to study controversial topics that may be avoided in the conventional model of television production.

During the post-network era, Netflix’s entrée to the television production terrain of quality programming indicates a unique opportunity to examine how this online streaming platform continues the tradition of popularizing the emergent form of quality television that has appeared in American culture and has been previously dominated by mostly subscription-based cable channels. Because one can easily find a wide array of television programs that embrace original ideas and complex subjects on Netflix, this online streaming service gradually establishes itself as an emergent platform and medium that produces quality television programming to attract new subscribers and retain current ones. A consideration of Netflix’s original programming immediately discloses its unwavering intent to exploit unique themes and take advantage of contested issues in its television content creation. Moreover, Netflix’s strategic plan to capitalize on the creative and economic freedom reveals why it focuses on controversial materials and complicated subjects. This freedom further accounts for producers of these original programs to adopt visual storytelling that may be resisted in conventional television, thereby pushing the boundaries of television norms.

A knowledge of Netflix and the kind of quality television programs that it supports highlights how the online streaming service almost always welcomes engaging, 6

intriguing, and experimental content. And Black Mirror, which successfully depicts the posthuman condition and interestingly presents the posthuman subject, illustrates

Netflix’s mission of creating the type of content that can make it different and enable it to stand out among other online streaming services.

Background of the Study

Black Mirror is a British science fiction television program created by Charlie

Brooker. The first two seasons were originally commissioned by and were aired on

Channel 4 in England. Nevertheless, at a whopping cost of $40 million, Netflix managed to obtain the right to produce and distribute this television program (Plunkett, 2016).

Implicit in this particular case lies the notion of how television production, broadcasting, and distribution have been transformed during the post-network era. For instance, it is not uncommon for Netflix to revive past television programs that went off the air, such as

ABC’s Full House (1987—1995), Fox’s Arrested Development (2003—2006), or CW’s

Gilmore Girls (2000—2007) (Lynch, 2018). Also, Netflix is not hesitant or reluctant to continue television series that were recently cancelled by mainstream traditional television channels, such as ABC’s Designated Survivor (2016—2018), or Fox’s Lucifer

(2015—2018) (Maas, 2018).

Netflix is also the first media company of its kind to challenge the ways that television production and distribution have traditionally operated. Ritman and

Roxborough (2016) write that “no online streaming company, no matter how powerful, had dared to snatch a show away from a commissioning broadcaster that was looking to retain it for another season” (n. p.). That Netflix successfully outbid a traditional network 7

channel to commission future episodes indicates how the post-network era facilitates the development of new television practices.

When asked in an interview about whether Black Mirror would be most suited to be broadcast on Netflix, Brooker responds that “anthology shows of this nature have kind of been waiting for services like Netflix or Amazon or whatever to come along because there, it’s kind of more like giving you a short story collection all in one go. You can tackle the episodes in any order” (Gross, 2017). That is, Netflix has provided the program’s creator and producers with the freedom needed to envision other possible cases, circumstances, or situations that might not be considered as suitable for network television and that might encounter much censorship. Viewers can decide the episode(s) that most interest(s) them without wasting time on watching the whole program, thus speaking directly to changing viewing habits that are popularized by Netflix. The audience does not, thus, have to follow the show chronologically in order to make sense of the program.

Of course, the most important predecessor of Black Mirror is Rod Serling’s The

Twilight Zone (1959—1964). Brooker (2011) explicitly acknowledges this, disclosing that he took inspiration from it, and Black Mirror is an attempt on his part to continue the tradition of utilizing the science fiction television genre as an apparatus to depict the uneasy feeling that an intimate relationship with technology spawns. According to the official description of the show on Netflix, “This sci-fi anthology series explores a twisted, high-tech near-future where humanity’s greatest innovations and darkest instincts collide” (2020). 8

Perceived as a dystopian science fiction television program, Black Mirror contains a total of 21 standalone episodes, varying in length and duration, with distinctive narratives and themes, which are packaged into five seasons, one Christmas special in

2011, and a feature-length film recently released in 2018. The opening episodes of the first and the second seasons attracted 1.9 million and 1.6 million viewers respectively

(Plunkett, 2013). Although Netflix has not published viewing figures for the program once it moved to the platform, in 2016, Black Mirror was among its top 25 original streaming programs (Ahmed, 2017). This science fiction television program is currently distributed worldwide on Netflix and its subscribers now can view past and current seasons on this platform.

By capitalizing upon the television anthology form, Brooker (2011) acknowledges that “each episode has a different cast, a different setting, even a different reality” (n. p.).

That is, each episode represents a hypothetical and imaginary scenario about a technology-integrated modern society, indicating an opportunity to delve into the interaction between the human and technology to conduct an inquiry into how the latter operates to reshape the condition of human life and functions to challenge the understanding of the human nature. For Brooker (2011), the title of the program is a euphemism or a metaphor for “the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone”

(n. p.). Black Mirror thus metaphorically represents the omnipresence of different types of screens that successfully infiltrate into and become an integral part of human life.

Moreover, Brooker (2011) reveals how the program is created to scrutinize both the positive and negative aspects brought forth by new and digital technology. 9

Rationale of the Study

Even though this dissertation focuses on the representation of posthuman identities in Black Mirror, a few words should be said about the connection between post-network television and quality television programs with an emphasis on depicting complicated subject matters in the narrative. The post-network era introduces a set of new rules regarding television production (Christian, 2018) and promotes new practices of television consumption, both of which play a key role in the rise of Netflix as a legitimate entertainment option, thereby revolutionizing common perceptions of television. Rather than merely embodying an online streaming platform that hosts programs mostly produced by other traditional television networks and mainstream television channels,

Netflix is more than just that. In creating its own originals, Netflix gradually crystallizes its status as a quality television producer, becoming a quintessentially concrete manifestation of today’s shifting television landscape.

Netflix’s popularity rests in part in its ability to exploit algorithmic data to provide users with content they most likely consume (Lobato, 2019). This online streaming service also has the financial capital sufficient enough for it to invest in content creation, as evidenced by the significant amount of money it spent on buying the right to

Black Mirror. And yes, it is not difficult to make the case that Black Mirror presents itself as an interesting object of inquiry that merits critical investigation of quality television production during the contemporary television landscape. In other words, thanks to the advent of the post-network television era, quality television programs like

Black Mirror can be developed and produced in the sense that the freedom Netflix offers 10

creators and producers renders possible the incorporation of complex themes and contested topics into the kind of narrative that can carry both entertaining and intellectual values. To that end, these quality television programs can potentially provide intriguing materials, fascinating stories, interesting tropes, and so on, for scholarly studies that are similar to the one that I aim to pursue in this dissertation.

As it happens, the idea for this project did not come to me out of the blue. In fact,

I am motivated to write it for the two following reasons. First, the inspiration for this dissertation stems from my reading of Donna J. Haraway’s (1991) seminal article, “A

Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth

Century.” Because I have a deep interest in the issue of power and how it manifests itself in cultural, political, and social structures, Haraway’s essay speaks directly to this interest in the sense that it galvanizes me to look at both the world and the reality in the most radical manner, opening up a possibility of research that can interrogate the kind of injustice encountered by those who belong to the minority groups, by potentially deconstructing dualistic categories set up by humanism and modernism. I can recall vividly the extent to which the figure of a cyborg lingered in my mind and how it intrigued me a great deal, subsequently pointing me toward the scholarship in posthumanism and posthumanist thinking.

In following this line of critical inquiry, it then dawns on me that posthumanist theory is a theoretical framework that takes as its central theme the core concept of empathy in that this kind of emotion is equally shared among both human and nonhuman entities and emerges when these entities come into contact such that each of them is 11

invested with agency and is on equal terms with one another when it comes to the creation of truths, the production of knowledge, and the construction of reality. Also

Haraway’s essay galvanized me to take science fiction texts more seriously, looking at speculative stories as an experimental entry point to possible alternative worlds that potentially subvert dualisms and offer fresh takes on human nature and human existence.

Henceforth, I knew that my project would be about science fiction television and that it would engage with posthumanism.

Second, as a millennial, I have, too, witnessed first-hand the evolution of digital technology, more specifically social media, and have experienced the seismic shift in human communication as a result of it. I have always thought about how much has changed ever since I created a Facebook account, then a Twitter account, and finally an

Instagram account—all of which have remarkably transformed how I would interact with, and relate to, other people, have led me to invest time and effort to craft an immaculate online presence, and have instilled in me a belief that I could construct my online persona the way I would want and would like others to see me.

But my personal experience with social media has never always been positive. I, for instance, would allocate a large chunk of my waking hours to constantly check for updates and to solicit approval from other users online. And when I decided to stop using social media to reset my chaotic life, I realized that I could be more active and could have more opportunities to do stuff that would matter to me.

During this social-media-free period, I came across Netflix’s Black Mirror, and when I started watching it, I kept thinking about the impact of digital technology on 12

social reality and lived sociality. Rather than immediately laying the blame for a diminution in human contact at the feet of technology, I began to wonder whether both humans and technological innovations are to be held accountable for dire situations a majority of the characters encounter in each episode. And that was when I arrived at a conclusion that posthumanism could serve as an explanatory theoretical framework for my philosophical musing about the interconnectedness between these two actants and would help provide provisional answers to this question.

It is a truth veering toward cliché that technology and humans have always existed together, and, in today’s contemporary society, they are even far more deeply entangled with one another. On the one end, technological innovations have enhanced everyday life and have improved humanity’s living conditions. On the other end, technological infiltrations, together with the prevalence of social and digital media, have tremendously altered the way that human beings interact, survive, and exist. By extension, it is highly impossible to imagine a society where technologies are absent and minimal as well as to envision human existence unaffected by them.

Against this background, Black Mirror manages to tap into such discomfort and concerns—that is, it offers a starting point to consider how the nonhuman material world pushes back on and challenges social, and cultural categories. Black Mirror facilitates a critical and practical investigation into this kind of human/technology relationship.

Therefore, this dissertation uses Black Mirror as the springboard to analyze the construction of posthuman identities and to make inquiries about the development of the posthuman condition. 13

Purpose of the Study

This dissertation aims to critically analyze Netflix’s Black Mirror. That is, this dissertation examines televisual discourses regarding the discursive formation of the posthuman subject and the construction of human/nonhuman relationships. In capitalizing on the science fiction genre, Black Mirror introduces viewers to alternative speculative worlds where the meaning of the human as a subject position and as a unitary identity is resketched and reconceptualized as a result of their interaction with technology. An investigation into how Black Mirror poses questions of the interconnectedness among technology, human subjects, and inanimate objects, then, facilitates the evolving and shifting knowledge of how human subjectivities can be defined, decentered, and negotiated.

To develop this main argument, I employ textual analysis, in particular narrative rhetorical criticism and the method of articulation. Indeed, I refer to a selection of ten

Black Mirror episodes in order to situate themes and locate ideas related to the topic of research inquiry. With the controversial and multilayered articulations of the posthuman condition and the posthuman subjects, I argue that each selected narrative reveals a hypothetical scenario that questions the humanist conceptualization of humanity, and that it articulates potentials for challenging past understanding of self, identity, subjectivity, and agency.

Chapter Breakdown

This dissertation investigates a selection of ten Black Mirror episodes that tell stories about the symbiotic technology/human relationship and the way that it reshapes 14

and transforms what it means to be human in this technologically sophisticated epoch. A majority of the selected narratives articulate the discourse of posthumanism and embed certain dystopian themes within the construction of an arrayed variety of societies in which the characters reside. The ten selected speculative narratives most definitely illuminate the coming into being of the posthuman subject and illustrate potentials for rearticulating and renegotiating humanist tenets that have plagued Western societies when it comes to the understanding of humanity.

I divide this dissertation into ten chapters. Chapter one provides the introduction, background, and the rationale of the study. Chapter two examines the literature surrounding television studies, online streaming, and science fiction television. First, the chapter contextualizes television studies as an academic area. Next, I address the post- network era, Netflix, and quality television. Then, I define science fiction and explicate science fiction television, focusing on the way in which social, political and cultural factors influence the production of science fiction programs in American context. Lastly, this chapter explains the positioning of Black Mirror as a quality science fiction television program that is of great importance in contemporary popular culture and is an object of study worthy of critical attention.

Chapter three discusses the scholarship linked to posthumanism and brings together different approaches to conceptualize and theorize posthumanist thinking. I call particular attention to posthumanism and science fiction and why posthumanist theory provides the most suited theoretical framework to help analyze and investigate the narrative of each of the ten selected Black Mirror episodes. Chapter four states two 15

research questions, asking about the way that the entangled technology/human relationship is depicted in Black Mirror and how it articulates posthuman subjects. I further highlight methodological commitments of textual analysis and present the reason behind a decision to utilize narrative rhetorical criticism and the method of articulation for the study. I also describe each method in detail. In this chapter, the procedure for collecting data as well as establishing and organizing the five themes is further elaborated. I end the chapter with a discussion about my positionality as a researcher in the study.

Chapter five presents a textual analysis of “Fifteen Million Merits” and

“Nosedive,” both of which take as their central theme the notion of alienation, a conceptual model that renders possible the process of both destabilization and deconstruction of the human category. In each episode, the protagonist is made less human due to technological infiltration into each corner of the society. In be(com)ing alienated, the two protagonists cannot construct their sense of self on their own and their subject positions come into existence in relations to their interaction with technology. To make this argument, I engage with a wide array of concepts and ideas in critical theory, such as hegemony, ideology, mythology, and so on.

Chapter six investigates possible outcomes of be(com)ing cyborg. Technological devices in the form of the implant, once incorporated into the biological body, transform the human into a cyborg, cutting open dichotomous and dualistic categorical boundaries inherent to humanism. However, the transformation of the human into this in-between figure generates a profound sense of discomfort and produces repercussions that the 16

human may never have anticipated. Rosi Braidotti, Donna J. Haraway, and Karen Barad are the three feminist scholars whose scholarship in the theorization of posthumanism helps guide the analysis of each of the three episodes, “The Entire History of You,” “Men

Against Fire,” and “Arkangel” respectively.

Chapter seven examines the way that cyberspace is showcased within each narrative of the two episodes, “USS Callister” and “Striking Vipers.” In constructing cyber-game-worlds, both illustrate potentials for rethinking about the unitary nature of the human subject. Both have a distinctive approach to cyberspace, but in a different manner. Whereas “USS Callister” explores cyberspace as a space of domination and oppression, “Striking Vipers” depicts it as a space of transgression and queerness. Yet both articulate how cyberspace comes to create possible ontological confusion regarding how to think about identity due to the fact that capacity for existing in both worlds effaces a sense of certainty linked to contemplating what is real and what is virtual.

Chapter eight focuses on the contested theme of virtual immortality as depicted within the two narratives of “San Junipero” and “Black Museum.” It is through the speculative method of mind uploading that virtual immortality is rendered possible. Both episodes capitalize on transferring consciousness as a legitimate means to give humanity a second chance of life. Whereas “San Junipero” articulates a utopian dream, “Black

Museum” is a tale of dystopian warnings. I situate the analysis of the two episodes within the transhumanist discourse.

Chapter nine presents a probe into the way that “Be Right Back” tells a science fiction story about what would happen when the resurrection of a dead person, in this 17

case, a man who is addicted to social media, can be achieved by reassembling data he posts online. In fact, the moment humanity comes to be datafied, it is impossible to maintain the humanist belief that personhood is tantamount to being individual (in- divide-ual). This chapter recognizes violences humanism and modernism, in operating together, can impose on those who do not fit into categories these two philosophical and theoretical models set up.

Chapter ten concludes that Black Mirror introduces five possible shades of be(com)ing posthuman and simultaneously regards the symbiotic technology/human relationship to be the kernel of the co-constructed reality between these two actants.

Chapter ten also contains some notes on Black Mirror as a streaming quality science fiction television program. I also present a reflection on the limitation of this study and suggestions for possible future research. Finally, I argue for a posthumanist ethics that celebrates and embraces the techno/human subject.

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Why television studies? Why science fiction? Why science fiction television?

Why Netflix? And why Black Mirror? I raise these questions as a provisional way to establish and investigate the values that make each of them an important object of critical inquiry in media studies. I seek to uncover and understand their place within popular culture and provide answers to why we need to pay attention to studying television, science fiction, Netflix, and Black Mirror if we really want and truly hope to make sense of our contemporary culture.

To begin with, I propose that we need to take television seriously and we need to recognize television studies as a legitimate discipline. To do so, I trace the historical evolution of television studies and position it within media studies. I discuss a motley assortment of both quantitative and qualitative approaches to television studies. More than merely a leisure activity, watching television can allow viewers to be introduced to foreign cultures, unfamiliar societies, and new ideas.

The transition to the post-network era is of great interest in this literature review because it facilitates a discussion of audience fragmentation and the production of quality television programming, both of which contribute to the rise of the streaming era in which having a Netflix account is the quintessential illustration of today’s media consumption.

An important aspect of this literature review is to explain science fiction and examine science fiction television. In this section, I define science fiction and contextualize science fiction television. I also provide a brief historiographical overview 19

of science fiction television as a television genre and identify the influence of cultural, political and social climate on its production. I take care to justify why Black Mirror most definitely sits well at the intersection of science fiction television, online streaming, and quality television.

Together, this literature review aims to suggest possible answers to the above questions and illustrate why studying Black Mirror can enable a meaningful and thoughtful conversation about what it means to be human today.

Television Studies

Perceived as a recently developed academic field of study, the primary object of inquiry of television studies is, of course, television. Holland (2017) proposes that production, text, and reception are “the three main areas within which television tends to be studied” (p. 55). An emphasis on production with regard to television studies requires one to pay attention to institutions and professionals that create television programs.

Investigating television texts allows one to apply textual analysis to deconstruct their meanings. And the area of reception studies particularly focuses on how television programs are made sense and decoded from the perspectives of the audience.

Although the object of inquiry in television studies is straightforward, Brunsdon

(1997) notes that the concept of television has not been unanimously and uniformly explicated. McCabe (2011) edits a short article, soliciting opinions regarding television studies from a wide array of academic experts. In it, Johnson and Hilmes concur with

Brunsdon’s contention, voicing the difficulty in unequivocally conceptualizing television studies as a discipline with its own distinctive parameters and established markers that 20

can differentiate itself from other disciplines. Gray and Lotz (2012) do not regard television studies as a discipline, but instead as “an approach to studying media” (p. 3).

Despite its complicated nature, television studies can be understood as “an interdisciplinary affair, a hybrid enterprise drawing on divergent critical paradigms, situated at an intersection between theory and practice” (McCabe, 2011, p. 99).

Contextualizing television studies as a legitimate academic field entails recognizing its immanent hybrid and interdisciplinary nature which can enable scholars to produce unique and complex analyses of television programs, to study television audience, and to examine television production, all of which can account for the way in which television contains meanings and operates as an important cultural form.

Although any attempt to draw a clearly established line to demarcate how mass communication studies and media/cultural studies approach television proves quite challenging, Lewis (2002) argues that “[the former] is generally seen as more rooted in social-science traditions – such as sociology, political economy or psychology – while

[the latter] has been dominated by textual forms of analysis” (p. 7). For Lewis, the field of television studies does not follow a particular methodological trajectory. While the former approach is grounded in a positivistic tradition, the latter emerges out of a humanistic one. That is, these approaches, which are different in their nature of knowledge production, can yield distinctively unique responses toward how television and its programs are operationalized.

Sketching its evolution as an academic field, nevertheless, Gray and Lotz (2012) introduce a more complex conception of television studies that challenges an intent to 21

“always seek to understand television for the sake of understanding television alone” (p.

22). Instead, they propose that “works of television studies examine the operation of identity, power, authority, meaning, community, politics, education, play, and countless other issues” (p. 22). Taking their proposal as a starting point, it seems probable that television studies scholars who adopt a humanistic approach can provide an insightful glimpse into how these issues are addressed on this medium and how they are related to the social realm.

During the 1960s and 1970s, television studies scholars utilized a social scientific approach to investigate television effects on the audience (McCabe, 2011). This approach was predicated upon the hypodermic needle theory, developed through other mass mediums to help explain television consumption with inauspicious behaviors, such as violence (Butler, 2012; Lewis, 2002; Morgan, 2002). Simultaneously, television studies borrowed from the theoretical framework of the Frankfurt School to study media products and their impacts on the viewers in the 1960s (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009).

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno (2012) were the two pioneering scholars of the

Frankfurt School, who introduced the concept of culture industry to demonstrate how media products, such as television programs, were created in ways as to maintain the status quo. They posited that these cultural products, which could never be taken seriously and were consumed as a distraction from everyday life, were perceived to perpetuate hegemonic ideologies. The result: Horkheimer and Adorno blamed the capitalist system, indicating how the audience could be easily affected by this mindless consumption. To this end, they endorsed the concept of a passive audience while, at the 22

same time, overemphasizing the power of the media and its influences. The culture industry, as a conceptual model to critique the capitalist mode of production of cultural goods and the creation of an uncritical mass audience, therefore, came to be remarkably influential in this regard.

In his seminal 1956 essay, titled “The World as Phantom and Matrix,” Günther

Anders, too, expressed his disdain for mass media but in a different way. Rather than looking at mass media from a Marxist perspective that deemed the audience susceptible to manipulation and indoctrination with ideologies generated by the ruling class just as

Horkheimer and Adorno did, Anders approached it from a phenomenological slant, recognizing the problem of its transformative power to be grounded upon its potentials for constructing and promoting a phantom world, constituted by images, sounds, pictures, and so on, that were reassembled and repackaged into a kind of mass-produced content that television or radio would then present and broadcast to audiences. It was this phantom world that would strongly inculcate on them a skewed sense of reality, which, in turn, came to supplant the traditional way that the real world had previously been experienced as well as altered the structural dynamics of human communication. Instead of subjecting viewers and listeners to a continuation of a system of hegemonic ideologies that would placate them and would then solicit their consent, mass media, according to

Anders, would transform them into the mass man who, in being “cut off from each other”

(p. 19), existed in isolation inside the walls of their own houses, and, at the same time, considered television or radio as a window into the outside world, thereby becoming incapable in forging genuine human interaction and deficient in cultivating meaningful 23

human experience. Anders thus laid the blame for people’s lack of motivation to explore the world on their own as they would do in the past on mass media. In consuming television or radio programs, people gradually found no need for exploration because they might have expected the world to be delivered to them by way of these channels and might then have believed that what they viewed and what they heard on these mediums were already enough. Thus, Anders might have taken a phenomenological approach to look at mass media, but he surely shared with Adorno and Horkheimer a similar concern about the emergent presence of mass media in everyday life and its inauspicious impacts on the people. These scholars might all have agreed that audiences were passive consumers who became alienated from the actual world that they lived in.

Apart from the uses and gratifications theory developed during the minimal media effects era, during the 1970s, mass communication research with regard to television studies continually considered the audience as passive. That is, the audience’s agency was not considered, which could be regarded as its biggest limitation. That said, the mid- to-late 1970s also witnessed how literary criticism was adopted to study television texts as well as how critical theory became a productive framework to conduct textual analysis of these television texts (Baran & Davis, 2015; Butler, 2012; Lewis, 2002; McCabe,

2011; Williams, 2004).

Although the mass communication studies approach implicitly turns television into a legitimate object of study, which can be investigated via quantifiable measures and quantitative research methods, this approach proceeds from a presumption that television, as a medium, tends to always have negative and unfavorable effects on viewers, who are 24

perceived as being easily manipulated and easily controlled (Gray & Lotz, 2012).

However, in The Popular Arts, Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel (2018) challenge this idea, delineating an important caveat to this process of quantifying experiences of, and attitudes toward television. For the two scholars, this positivistic paradigm does not leave room for any recognition of a variety of ways that viewers can experience television. In particular, Hall and Whannel lucidly note that “A mental life that did not allow free play to imagination and intuition, that denied the role of speculation and was confined to what could be scientifically proved, would be not merely impoverished but paralysed” (p. 36).

That is, it would seem necessary to recognize that media effects may not always be the most effective construct to measure and understand the audience, and possibly this kind of studies may fall into a trap of reducing the audience to a set of characteristics that can be easily captured quantitatively. And this critique toward media effects studies, therefore, represents how this kind of positioning audiences seems to appear somewhat naïve, unproductive, and oversimplified in the face of their more complex nature.

In Communication as Culture, James W. Carey (1989) echoes this strand of criticism, proposing an ontological revamp of the common conceptual model, most likely shared across cultures, that approaches communication from a transmission perspective, one that deems it “a process whereby messages are transmitted and distributed in space for the control of distance and people” (p. 15). Instead, Carey endorses “[a] ritual view of communication” (p. 18) that places an emphasis on “the maintenance of society in time”

(p. 18) and “the representation of shared beliefs” (p. 18). In doing so, Carey formulates an epistemological commitment that forgoes an intent to consider communication either 25

“as a behavioral science whose objective is the elucidation of laws” (p. 47) or “as a formal science whose objective is the elucidation of structures” (p. 47). According to

Carey, “given what we are biologically and what culture is practically, people live in qualitatively distinct zones of experience that cultural forms organize in different ways”

(p. 66). Thus, a focus on either media effects or functionalism/causality to understand communication may never fully capture the depth and the breath of the dynamics and mechanism of communication in community building and social bonding. Carey thus champions “communication as a cultural science whose objective is the elucidation of meaning” (p. 47). By extension, mass communication research, and television studies, in particular, can generate more nuanced and more productive findings when adopting this standpoint.

Television might bestow certain ideologies or effects on the audience; nevertheless, the audience can either accept or reject them. The assumption concerning the causal effect of television on audiences becomes, to a certain extent, somewhat tricky and questionable. Stuart Hall’s (2006) seminal essay, “Encoding/Decoding,” then transforms the way that audiences are perceived, marking a radical transition into how they may decode a television program differently. The dominant/hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional tenets lead to the development of reception theory, which results in the proliferation of audience research that has endorsed ethnographic and qualitative research methods since the 1980s. These researchers acknowledge audiences’ agency and pay particular attention to how audiences understand media texts (Couldry, 2002; Lockett,

2002; Williams, 2004). 26

In Television Culture, Fiske (1987) proposes the notion of television “as a cultural agent, particularly as a provoker and circulator of meanings” (p. 1), thereby championing the polysemic nature of television texts as well as emphasizing a semiotic method to study them. Accepting that these television texts provoke and circulate meanings means accepting that television producers do not have the utmost power to instill and indoctrinate their preferred ideologies or to instruct or impose upon audiences how to experience and make sense of these texts. Therefore, Fiske characterizes television texts as “the site of struggles for meaning that reproduce the conflicts of interest between the producers and consumers of the cultural commodity” (p. 14). It is necessary to acknowledge the autonomy that audiences can have, thereby allowing them to become sole decoders of these texts depending upon the sort of pleasure that they get out of when consuming these television texts. Exploring television culture enables Fiske to remain skeptical of the idea that audiences are cultural dupes or mindless agents who blindly and uncritically follow what the dominant group’s attempts to communicate in their programs. Because the industry and the audience participate in distinct processes of encoding and decoding meanings, television texts are open for a varied array of interpretations.

Taking a different approach to conceptualizing television, Newcomb and Hirsch

(2000) argue that “[this medium] does not present firm ideological conclusions—despite its formal conclusions—so much as it comments on ideological problems” (p. 565-566).

That is, television can be characterized as “a cultural forum” because “conflicting viewpoints of social issues are, in fact, the elements that structure most television 27

programs” (Newcomb & Hirsch, 2000, p. 566). To this end, their theorization of television indicates that a similar set of cultural concerns and social issues may be addressed differently depending upon how certain television programs construct and approach them. Newcomb and Hirsh (2000) then see “television as a whole system that presents a mass audience with the range and variety of ideas and ideologies inherent in

American culture” (p. 566). As a cultural forum, television welcomes audiences to a televisual sphere where they can witness how television programs depict social issues and present cultural concerns. Television introduces audiences to different possibilities that television programs may deliberate and complicate them. That is, television functions as an arena that highlights how ideologies and ideas can work together, or how they can also challenge one another. It is very simply feasible that Newcomb and Hirsch problematize the naïve and ignorant intent to denounce television as a medium of little value or little importance. For these two scholars, television makes space for a productive exchange of these ideas and ideologies.

If the field of television studies characterizes its object of study “as a repository for meanings and a site where cultural values are articulated” (Gray & Lotz, 2012, p. 22), then, one can begin to see how television occupies an indispensable place in any cultural studies and popular communication project. And if television texts are considered as a site where audiences’ own interpretations challenge and renegotiate dominant meanings, then, one can also begin to see how television, as a popular communication medium, allows for a possibility to understand how a set of hegemonic ideologies are formed and resisted. Collectively, it is necessary to argue that studying television texts may reveal 28

how power and ideologies operate to solicit consent among viewers. And studying television, which is mostly consumed by the masses, then, can reveal more about contemporary society.

Williams (2008) famously makes a claim that “culture is ordinary” (p. 83).

Because culture contains common meanings shared among a group of individuals, culture should be then perceived as being ordinary in that it belongs to the masses. Because ordinary people are what constitute culture, the differentiation between high and low categories remains remarkably problematic. For the masses should be respected and should not be considered in need of direction or guidance from a dominant group.

Promoting this understanding of culture means recognizing why cultural projects should be skeptical, and critical of hegemonic ideologies and should not be constrained to high culture. Therefore, Williams rescues popular arts from their inferior position, in effect, validating them as a legitimate cultural form to understand society.

Rather than espousing a parochial intent to understand culture that typically focuses on either ideal (universal values developed within a society), documentary (the arts or other artistic artifacts) or social (institutional structures) categories, Williams

(1998) argues for the need to exploit these three categories simultaneously and together in any analysis of culture. In particular, Williams develops the notion of the structure of feeling to galvanize cultural studies scholars to consider an extra or abstract substance that glues together all elements associated with the culture of a particular period.

According to him, an investigation into either cultural patterns, social characters, or the art is insufficient to fully make sense of culture because this structure of feeling carries 29

within itself parts or elements that are not easily recognized. The structure of feeling is unique to a particular generation.

Williams (1998) further introduces three levels of culture: “the lived culture of a particular time and place,” “the recorded culture,” and “the culture of the selective tradition” (p. 54). In drawing this distinction, Williams (1998) argues that “Theoretically, a period is recorded; in practice, this record is absorbed into a selective tradition; and both are different from the culture as lived” (p. 54). That is, the selective tradition underlines how a contemporary society, influenced by particular institutional structures and categories, preserves certain parts of the past, incorporates them into their ways of living, and discards “considerable areas of what was once a living culture” (Williams,

1998, p. 55). In his own words, “In a society as a whole, and in all its particular activities, the cultural tradition can be seen as a continual selection and re-selection of ancestors”

(p. 56). This process of investigating the structure of feeling of past periods highlights a crucial need to suspend a position of judgments based upon contemporary perspectives and values in order to experience it differently. Rather than accepting culture for what it is, a critical inquiry into what sort of past cultural elements are rejected can suggest a better sense of the evolution of dominant values in contemporary society. Therefore, a commitment to examining popular cultural products, as manifested in television programs, may foster an understanding of the way that ideologies are promoted in relation to a variety of issues, such as class, gender, sexuality, race, and so forth.

Perhaps Williams’ (1989) early approach to television suggests an important recognition of the prevalence of dramatic representations brought forth by the direct 30

incorporation of television into the social and cultural structure. That is, television has become enmeshed in the politics of quotidian activities. His formulation of this fundamental understanding of the omnipresence of television in domestic spaces was strikingly thought-provoking: “drama, in quite new ways, is built into the rhythms of everyday life” (p. 4). In the past, if people wanted to consume drama, they were expected to take time out of their daily schedule so that they could go to designated establishments for this leisure activity. However, television radically changed how people experienced drama, which had an underlying implication. The idea that television popularized drama and enabled more people to be constantly exposed to drama illustrates Williams’ concept of “a dramatised society” (p. 4). That is, people are constantly and continually bombarded with what Williams refers to as dramatic representations. Everywhere they turn, they tend to encounter dramatic representations. Social and cultural formations have then been redefined.

If a primary insight of these dramatic representations is that drama has become incorporated into daily activities, then, it should imply that studying television dramas produces a productive lens into experiencing the integral place of television in social life and facilitates the discovery of the structure of feeling of this sort of culture, where people’s habitual experiences cannot be separated from their personal interactions with television. Recognizing television programs to be replete with such dramatic representations means recognizing, according to Hall (1997), that television producers strategically create particular types of images that mark the difference between the self and the other. Because representations are considered socially constructed, they are 31

political and problematic. And television becomes a contested site that suggests not only how it reflects society but also how domain ideologies operate to determine what it is acceptable and what is not acceptable to be shown on the small screen.

The field of television studies has initially encountered resistance. Geraghty and

Lusted (1999) present three reasons for this tension. A tendency to associate television with a source of entertainment leads to the view that television should not be taken seriously as an object worthy of scholarly attention. Television is further positioned as a possible factor that creates moral panic and distracts people from meaningful activities or civic engagement. Many also question the necessity of studying television academically and critically. However, I have argued otherwise.

As Geraghty and Lusted contend, television has become a staple in contemporary society and has played an important and integral part of cultural life. In suggesting so, they underscore the importance of television studies in contemporary society. To this extent, while the field of television studies presents unique opportunities to understand the masses and how they see themselves within society, certain aspects of life can be most vividly experienced by paying attention to television texts. Geraghty and Lusted therefore succinctly reinforce the call from Fiske (1987), Hall (1997), Newcomb and

Hirsch (2000), and Williams (1989) to take television, as a cultural agent, as a cultural forum, and as a cultural form, more seriously. It then comes as no surprise when Gray and Lotz (2012) encourage television studies scholars to “specify the context of the phenomenon of study in terms of sociocultural, techno-industrial, and historical conditions” (p. 25). To this end, television studies, as an academic field, can certainly 32

account for how a scholarly and critical inquiry into television can reveal the possibility of this medium to comment on as well as to promote certain dominant ideologies concerning particular ways of living and how television studies can help unpack and uncover many salient and predominant conditions that operate and influence the understanding of how society is structured and what content and ideas it finds most appealing at a certain moment in history.

Post-Network Television

Multiple technological innovations and cultural changes enable the emergence of the post-network era (Lotz, 2014). Perhaps, television as we know it has come to an end and is not as it used to be. Even at its embryonic stages, post-network television demonstrates a need to reconceptualize television in the digital age. In order to unpack what the post-network era entails, then, it is imperative first to understand broadcasting or network television. Here Television: Technology and Cultural Form (1975) by Raymond

Williams remains a key text to explore broadcasting or network television. His insights can also be used as a point of departure to later explicate post-network television.

In this book, Williams develops an important account of the conceptualization of broadcasting or network television as a popular medium with unique attributes. For

Williams, what differentiates broadcasting or network television from other technological apparatuses and cultural forms, such as play, sport game, or book, has its roots in the notion that television would enable viewers to watch programs from the comfort of their home. According to Williams (1975), the planned flow can be understood as “the defining characteristic of broadcasting, simultaneously as a technology and as a cultural 33

form” (p. 86). It is one of the most distinctive concepts in the development of knowledge of network television because it allows television producers to insert commercials during intervals in ways that do not compromise the audience’s viewing experiences. Williams’s concept of the planned flow was developed out of his critical attention to the organization of television programs during the 1970s and has been influential with regard to any discussion of broadcasting or network television.

As Williams (1975) explains, “the real programme that is offered is a sequence or set of alternative sequences of these and other similar events” (p. 87). That is, programs and commercials are organized in calculated sequences that allow for the illusion of a seamless and flowing transition. This strategic blending of commercials and programs, which establishes a viewing schedule, has been characteristic of broadcasting or network television. By following a planned flow, this kind of television always requires a viewing schedule. During the network era, family members gathered in their living room to watch television together. To this end, television was considered an essential part in the domestic space and as a medium mostly associated with the home. In other words, broadcasting or network television facilitated the emergence of a national audience as well as endorsed certain television consumption norms linked to a shared screen (Turner

& Tay, 2009).

Although the above attributes together constitute the network era, they remain insufficient to be extended to reflect the post-network era. It is certainly possible to acknowledge that the rise of cable channels has led to the fragmentation of the marketplace, has diminished omnipresent influences of network television, and has 34

presented a need to reevaluate how television is made, broadcast, and distributed.

However, it is technological enhancements during the post-network era that have accelerated this transformation, reshaping viewing habits and altering the former economic and business model that used to dominate the television industry. To understand television during the post-network era requires a critical investigation into factors that result in such radical changes.

In her book titled, The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Lotz (2014) considers the early 2000s as the particular time period that witnessed such changes. She states how industry leaders finally recognized that it would no longer be possible for them to hold on to or maintain past practices of network program creation and that new technologies required them to reassess what it meant for television producers to construct television programs within this post-network era. Technological advances and active viewing solidified the need for television industry executives to acknowledge that they must cultivate new mentality and strategies to stay abreast of these tremendous technological changes unless they want to be left behind in the competition of obtaining viewership.

According to Lotz, TiVo, Amazon Prime, Google, Netflix, and other platforms have played a significant role in reshaping and redrawing the contours of the television industry and television production. The term post-network, then, is utilized to indicate a transformation of television consumption rather than to refer to the shift in the American broadcasting or network industry due to the emergence of cable channels. Therefore, Lotz

(2014) characterizes post-network as “the break from a dominant network-era experience in which viewers lacked much control over when and where to view and chose among a 35

limited selection of externally determined linear viewing options” (p. 11). During the network era, viewers did not have any other options but to organize their viewing habits around a fixed schedule, created by network channels, in order to catch their favorite programs. However, post-network television marks an end to this limitation.

As Lotz (2014) argues, “Such constraints are not part of the post-network television experience in which viewers now increasingly select what, when, and where to view from abundant options” (p. 11). To an extent, the post-network era challenges dominant and overarching influences of networks or channels on how audiences consume television, meaning that they can easily opt out of these networks or channels and can easily have access to television content via other alternative platforms. To this end, networks or channels do not monopolize or have the utmost control over how, when, and where a program is watched. While one cannot deny how networks have previously acted as “important sites of program aggregation” (Lotz, 2014, p. 11), the contemporary television environment must be reimagined to account for how post-network television has eclipsed traditional broadcasting forms and practices. The post-network era can exist without depending on physical channels or traditional networks.

The prevalent application of “the DVR, VOD [video-on-demand], DVD, broadband-delivered program services such as Netflix (also known as SVOD, subscription video on demand), and mobile applications that can be used on devices such as phones and tablets” suggests a continual shift in viewers’ position of television consumption during the post-network era (Lotz, 2014, p. 68). By developing technologies that accommodate viewers’ experiences, then, one can begin to see that viewers have 36

even more authority and become even more active with respect to selecting from a variety of mediums to watch television. That is, audiences now can watch television content from a wide array of different types of screens, anytime and anywhere and at their convenience. Accepting the possibility of consuming television content on mobile phones, laptops, and tablets means accepting that the former characterization of television as being restricted within the domestic space no longer works. Rather, convenience technologies enable television to become mobile and portable. In addition, technological developments help improve the quality of transmitted content, thus allowing for better viewing experiences. Lotz (2014) concludes that “Each of these attributes of post- network technologies—convenience, mobility, and theatricality—redefined the medium from its network-era norm” (p. 55). These three attributes together present an opportunity to understand this new phenomenon. To this extent, convenience technologies can be perceived as a contributing factor that deters passive viewing and encourages active consumption among viewers.

Moreover, Lotz (2014) regards the complex and multifaceted interaction between audiences, their television consumption behaviors, and their preference for prized content, defined as “programming that people seek out and specifically desire” (p. 12), to be important characteristics of the post-network era. They structure the post-network era and lessen the past expansive power of network television producers, while simultaneously embracing audiences’ opinions, interests, and tastes. During the post- network era, television consumption is not confined within the domestic space. And the post-network era has challenged linear viewing norms and has instead enabled nonlinear 37

viewing practices— “that is, viewing not at an externally appointed time—whether by

DVR, video on demand (VOD), DVDs, or streaming” —among viewers (Lotz, 2014, p.

15). Therefore, through this discussion of post-network television, Lotz creates a usefully nuanced understanding of how a viewing schedule closely associated with broadcasting or network television has become insignificant. Edgerton (2008) writes that “The key to thinking about television in the digital era is to reenvision it in terms of screens (of all shapes and sizes) rather than merely households, which no longer offer a complete and accurate picture of TV penetration” (p. 14). Expanding on his assertion, it is most likely to reinforce the notion that the availability and accessibility offered to the audience by convenience technologies has transformed the past understanding of television. Viewers now consider computers, laptops, and mobile phones as possible viewing platforms, and feasible screens for television consumption.

More specifically, Gray and Lotz (2012) acknowledge that “New technologies may enable many new program forms and experiences and may be eroding past norms of centralization and common experience” (p. 143). For Gray and Lotz, the post-network era might lead to a different sort of viewing habits and might refer to disparate ways of distributing content. But despite such changes, they believe that “television remains intact, at least for now” (p. 143), meaning that television, as a concept, might still be perceived to be useful, valuable, and relevant as a cultural form. To this end, television should not be bottled into the archaic understanding as a black box that is situated in a domestic space and is utilized to broadcast content to a universal audience. Rather, as

Lotz (2014) contends, “We must now think about television as highly diversified 38

medium” (p. 94). That is, the way that television used to be defined and understood should be reimagined, reconceptualized, and broadened in order to adapt to the ever- evolving contemporary television climate.

Netflix

Today, among other mainstream online streaming services in the post-network era, Netflix can be regarded as the most popular hosting platform (Baker & Wiatrowski,

2017; McDonald, 2018). Founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in 1997, Netflix was initially started out as a service that would mail DVDs to a person’s home, later transitioning into becoming an online space that hosts licensed television programs and movies, and now even producing its own original content (Davies, 2018). McDonald and

Smith-Rowsey (2018) attribute the success of Netflix to “advances in technological convergence—the success of its streaming service closely coincided with the growing adoption of high-speed internet connections” (p. 2), an increase in the number of television programs specifically developed for a fragmented audience introduced by the emergence of cable channels, and the incorporation of digital technologies into viewing experiences, allowing viewers to have easy access to programs at their convenience.

Therefore, the rise of Netflix as an entertainment media option stems from technological advances and a shifting television environment. To that end, Netflix demonstrates a successful attempt to merge technology and entertainment together to provide the audience with new possibilities to consume media products, and the online streaming platform in turn requires media industries to reflect upon and reevaluate their business strategies and product development (Smith-Rowsey, 2018). 39

Netflix quintessentially represents a new business model that unequivocally reconceptualizes how television, its audiences, and their viewing experience used to be understood. According to its official website, www.netflix.com,

Netflix is a streaming service that allows our members to watch a wide variety

of award-winning TV shows, movies, documentaries, and more on thousands of

internet-connected devices. With Netflix, you can enjoy unlimited ad-free

viewing of our content. There’s always something new to discover, and more TV

shows and movies are added every month!

This business statement begs for clarification and elaboration concerning how Netflix is defined and how the online streaming platform functions to reshape the contemporary television landscape.

First, Netflix operates as an aggregator, meaning that it provides its subscribers with licensed content from other cable and network channels. Lobato (2018) indicates how Netflix and other subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD) platforms undermine the utilization of a viewing schedule as a way to study television trends, programming, and viewing habits. Rather, he (2018) argues for the need to pay close attention to catalog— “the corpus of licensed or owned content distributed by a particular platform at a given time” (p. 242). To that extent, this attention unequivocally underscores the shifting change concerning television studies during the post-network era.

Further, Netflix operates as a hosting site, where viewers who pay a monthly subscription fee can gain access to this catalog of licensed content. That is, they can find 40

programs of different kinds, which come from disparate sources, producers, and networks. Even though Netflix now produces its own original programs, the majority of its content is licensed, meaning that these types of content do not stay constant, are always in the state of changing, and are geographically bounded. Lobato (2018) therefore points out that “Netflix catalogs are temporally differentiated […] and also spatially differentiated” (p. 244). And with this particular structure and model, Netflix explicitly acknowledges that viewers, once subscribed to the platform, can always watch a new variety of television programs and movies.

In an attempt to shed light on how Netflix can customize and personalize audiences’ choices concerning the type of program they prefer to watch, Alexander

(2018) particularly identifies four techniques as follows: first, “the users’ personal profile

(past choices, the five-star ratings system, scrolling activity, and viewing habits)” (p. 90); second, “collaborative filtering via ‘Consumers Clusters’” (p. 90); third, “a tagging system meant to group together closely related or “neighboring films” (films made by the same director or featuring the same actor, films in the same alt-genre, films with similar themes, and so forth)” (p. 90); and, finally, “Netflix’s own agenda and commercial priorities” (p. 90). In the post-network era, audiences tend to deliberately seek out their favorite programs on the system for consumption. Netflix then functions as the middleman that acts on behalf of these viewers to construct a recommendation list particularly tailored to their personal interests via the four above methods. Lobato (2019) further argues that “Netflix relies on algorithmic recommendations” which “are used to autocurate selections of content geared around individual users’ data profiles” (p. 40). 41

Therefore, Netflix can be regarded as providing its subscribers with unique viewing experiences and invoking among them the agency to see what they want to see, and whenever or wherever they want.

Furthermore, Netflix’s main source of revenue stems from users’ monthly subscription, which guarantees its subscribers that they do not have to sit through a single commercial as advertised on its website. Such an acknowledgment reminds us that

Netflix does not operate the same way as broadcasting or network television and that it is this characteristic that differentiates this streaming service from traditional television channels. This business structure implicitly speaks directly to a continual shift in terms of how the audience consumes television content.

With Netflix, the audience can easily have access to prized content and do not have to arrange their viewing experience around an established television schedule.

Netflix endorses or promotes nonlinear viewing habit, rendering possible audiences’ control of how they tend to watch television programs. If Netflix redefines television consumption, then, one needs to pay attention to how the online streaming platform functions as a television screen. Netflix allows for a personalized interface specifically catering to a particular user. In the past, television was uniform in that audiences were exposed to a similar screen structure, which spoke to universal viewing experiences.

However, Netflix has changed that. For instance, its front-page content is customized depending upon the kind of programs that its subscribers tend to consume. The four aforementioned computing methods allow Netflix to develop a tailored recommendation list, resulting in a suggestion of programs that are most likely to appeal to subscribers and 42

highlight their taste. To this extent, Netflix introduces a new conceptualization of the television screen. A personalized interface based on a customized recommendation list is what makes television consumption on Netflix more unique, while simultaneously promoting binge-watching. The nature of Netflix to present programs in bulk means that audiences are more likely to consume many episodes in one sitting. These new phenomena and practices, brought forth by this online streaming platform, point toward a new understanding of television, its technological and structural form, and its consumption within the age of online streaming services.

Apart from hosting licensed content, Netflix has entered the business of developing and creating its original programs, which can attract and retain its subscribers, and which can allow the online streaming service to build its customer base and to reify its brand name (Lindsey, 2018). That is, Netflix does not mind investing and spending an exceptionally large amount of money to produce, distribute, and market its exclusive programs, which typically receive critical acclaims for their innovative storytelling and complex visual presentations. To this end, many of these Netflix originals represent the attributes of quality television. In the following section, I contextualize quality television as well as consider the role of HBO in promoting this kind of television.

Quality Television Programming

The post-network era of television has generated a range of quality programming, spearheaded by premium cable channels, which contributes to the popularization of quality television, therefore resulting in the reification of hierarchies of taste among viewers in terms of television consumption. More specifically, Johnson (2005) perceives 43

the fragmentation of the American viewership since the 1980s as the catalytic force that galvanized television networks to adopt “a distinctive visual style” if they wanted their programs to stand out (p. 60). Such a strategy allows them to appeal to distinct tastes among different segments of the audience (Johnson, 2005). And cable channels are perceived to further intensify the need to develop unique and original programs to obtain and retain the ever evolving and fragmented viewership. Yet, this competition has become more severe and intense as streaming platforms have begun to produce quality television content. Regardless of the online or offline status of the mediums (network, cable, or online streaming), quality television apparently evokes certain expectations among viewers concerning how it is defined.

Quality Television

Writing about the MTM (Mary Tyler Moore) Enterprises and analyzing a wide array of television programs produced by this company, Feuer (1984) concludes that

“Quality TV is liberal TV” (p. 56). She also asserts that one can perceive MTM programs as representative of quality television only when a quality audience is formed. The quality audience, according to Feuer, “enjoyed a form of television which is seen as more literate, more stylistically complex, and more psychologically ‘deep’ than ordinary TV fare” (p. 56). Implicit in her conceptualization of a quality audience lie two key ideas.

First, quality television contains certain characteristics concerning production values that differentiate itself from “ordinary TV.” Second, quality television merits an upscale audience, who cultivates enough economic and cultural capital, to fully interpret its program and make sense of its content. Feuer (2007) later addresses that even though 44

different interpretive communities can utilize different criteria, such as economics, culture, or aesthetics, to define this sort of television, “quality drama always claims to be original in relation to the regular TV norms of its era” (p. 148). Quality television programs, therefore, can be viewed as more superior and more intellectual and may not be for all viewers.

Through a critical observation of quality television production in Belgium and

Israel, Lavie and Dhoest (2015) attribute the rise of quality television and its success to the American television industry. They argue that television programs during the early

1980s were perceived as an unsophisticated and lowbrow cultural product. Television’s status was initially deemed as inferior because producers and creators had to follow strict formulas. That is, they might find it difficult to incorporate innovative and authentic elements into their programs. Nevertheless, pioneering television programs during the

1980s, namely Hill Street Blues (1981—1987), successfully shifted this television landscape (Lavie & Dhoest, 2015). Bainculli (2007) writes that such programs were constructed in ways that steered away from expected and established television rules and television norms. These types of programs have facilitated a reconceptualization of how television programming should be understood and have solicited different attitudes toward this household entertainment medium among critics and academics. Nelson

(2007) further states that “In the late 1990s and early 2000s, however, critical discourse on quality TV drama has been dominated by the celebration of American quality TV” (p.

41). Factors such as industrial reorganization, audience segmentation, the advent of cable channels, and digital technologies have contributed to a shifting understanding of the 45

American television industry. In addition, technological development subsequently allows for the improvement of production values, meaning that sounds, images, or techniques utilized to create television programs could reach higher levels of quality. To this end, American quality television programs have gradually transformed the once inferior status of television.

As scholars and critics have positioned the American television industry as the promoter and producer of quality television, it comes as no surprise that they deem it the standard and the point of reference concerning any discussion of quality television. In contrast to Cardwell’s (2007) assertion that “classifications of quality television appear to be deeply affected by nation context” (p. 22), Lavie and Dhoest (2015) stipulate that the understanding of quality television and its discourses remains homogeneous among the two studied television industries, Belgium and Israel, and the American one. To this end, it very simply appears that the way in which quality television is defined and conceptualized remains consistent across national and cultural contexts.

Logan (2016) contextualizes quality television as “a programming strategy of the television industry, a particular means to profit under a certain set of market conditions, which have a determining influence upon the form of what are considered the most commercially attractive kinds of prime-time fiction” (p. 144-145). The advent of cable channels allows for the possibility of developing a more complex type of television narratives that do not fit into traditional or conventional ways of telling fictional stories typically associated with network programming. Even though quality can be considered as an acceptable or possible terminological choice to elucidate the emergent arrival of 46

new forms of television storytelling, utilizing such a term, and in this narrow way, can have some underlying implications (Logan, 2016). Quality implicitly and tacitly contains evaluative characteristics and that quality can be utilized to indicate a possibility to place certain programs into one particular category. Logan (2016) thus states that “quality is also a prism through which to understand how certain programmes and programming trends have become commercially viable and attained elevated cultural status at particular points in time” (p. 147). Here Logan indicates that such labeling or characterization can be problematic. The quality label does not operate similarly as a genre because it is possible to consume quality television programming across genres. In other ways, though, this label evokes a value judgment in that certain storytelling techniques and televisual production apparatuses are deployed to create greater and more engaging television viewing experiences.

Furthermore, in explicitly contending that quality as a measurement remains evasively tricky and problematically subjective, Taylor (2002) believes that developing an objective and precise measure to categorize quality television is not an easy task, therefore indicating the questions of who can decide the criteria and on what grounds quality television is evaluated. In pointing toward this problem, Taylor (2002) then highlights that “we should be more intellectually rigorous and recognize our limited measurement abilities, and broaden our area of study to include alternative schemes that promote ‘quality’ television” (p. 600). As a result, it appears possible to stay skeptical and to remain wary of any particular attempt to define and contextualize quality television. 47

Despite its contested status, numerous scholars have treated quality as a useful and convenient marker to differentiate between television with higher artistic values and other types of television programs. For instance, Lavie and Dhoest (2015) state that “a

‘quality’ television drama series must to some extent be commercial, yet remain the innovative, sometimes subversive, authentic, and therefore autonomous work of a ‘genius creator’ who is also a craftsman” (p. 72). Quality television is said to possess a kind of cinematic aspect in that its visual and aural characteristics are highly orchestrated, structured and constructed. Quality television further suggests an effort on behalf of television producers to experiment or to play with genres or forms; and they sometimes can even combine these elements together to foster novel and unique ways of creating television content. Additionally, quality television is considered as having “a sense of stylistic integrity, in which themes and style are intertwined in an expressive and impressive way” (Cardwell, 2007, p. 26). Here it is more likely that quality television producers incorporate and present themes in more detail and in a more innovative manner.

Furthermore, quality television thrives as a result of targeting a certain audience segment that wants or wishes to get critically stimulated and challenged in its interpretation of the content. Only college-educated and wealthy portion of the audience can actually afford to pay an extra subscription fee in order to gain access to exclusive content (Logan, 2016). To this end, it can be suggested that quality television functions in this particular way to underscore the notion that its audiences are selective and have the need and the resource to differentiate themselves from the rest of the population when it 48

comes to the types of cultural products and cultural goods that they aspire and wish to consume.

According to Cardwell (2007), “the complex narrative structure, its intricate themes, its use of erudite, technical, oratorical and even poetic language, and its fast- paced style” function in ways that may create a viewing experience that cannot be obtained elsewhere (p. 26). And one can recognize how Black Mirror’s producers incorporate these attributes into the construction of its narratives in order to transport its viewers to a varied array of speculative televisual territories. These diverse narrative elements, typically associated with quality television, hint at the utility of sophisticated storytelling techniques to convey the development of characters with their own problems in unthinkable worlds in this quality program. That is, Black Mirror introduces its audiences to sets of discourse, embedded in its unique plots, with regard to the variegated technology/human relationship types that might disrupt and challenge their viewpoints toward realities. Therefore, Black Mirror can pose more complex questions about rethinking the concept of the human and about considering the idea of the posthuman, which may not have previously been possible, due to technological, economical, or production constraints.

Quality Television and HBO

Numerous scholars have explicitly considered HBO as the pioneering producer of quality programming (Anderson, 2008; Edgerton, 2008; McCabe & Akass, 2007).

Therefore, a critical inquiry into quality television requires a detailed discussion of HBO, its brand identity, and its quality television programming. 49

Ever since its inception on November 8, 1972, HBO has gradually transformed its original image as the cable channel that used to show Hollywood movies and “produced and telecast occasional stand-up comedy, sports, and music specials” (Edgerton, 2008, p.

7) into the go-to location if viewers want to consume quality television programming.

Implicit in its marketing campaign with the popular tagline, “It’s Not TV, It’s HBO,” is the notion that HBO aspires to disassociate itself from other television network or cable channels. Edgerton (2008) asserts that “HBO is also an idea or identity brand” (p. 9).

That is, HBO is at the forefront of developing quality programming with higher levels of aesthetics and higher senses of creativity that series or specials produced by other cable or network channels cannot achieve. And this strategy reveals how this subscription- based cable channel sees and presents itself.

Anderson (2008) further argues that HBO’s programming, which does not follow traditional structural conventions typically associated with network or commercial television, enables the channel to build a name for itself. HBO’s evolving success has its roots in its executives’ initial decision to invest in its own original programs. Considering these two factors as the starting point for the imminent establishment of HBO as a quality television brand, Anderson (2008) asserts that “HBO has earned its reputation for quality in part by lavishing more money on the production of its drama series than any of the broadcast networks can possibly afford, given their business models” (p. 35). A higher budget gives HBO an edge to produce quality programming, therefore allowing the cable channel to showcase itself as the one place where quality programming can be found.

Furthermore, as Anderson suggests, HBO successfully puts the name of its programs’ 50

creators and producers on the map, gives them a platform to promote their professional works and inspiration to a broader group of viewers, and communicates the message that the channel celebrates authorship. This strategy demonstrates that HBO harbors their talent and embraces their vision.

While arguing that HBO does not introduce new definitions of quality television,

McCabe and Akass (2008) consider this premium subscription-based cable channel as one that has helped popularize the concept of quality television. They state that HBO

“has, nonetheless, defined new rules for talking about, and understanding what we mean by, quality TV in the post-1996, post-network era” (p. 84). According to them, HBO prides itself on giving its producers the authorial and creative freedom to do whatever they want in terms of creating their preferred television content. The cable channel does not shy away from pushing for controversial and provocative materials, themes, and ideas. It is not uncommon for HBO to include extreme graphical images of violence, profanity, or overt sexual displays in its fictional television programs. In particular,

McCabe and Akass (2007) note that “Pushing the limits of respectability, of daring to say/do what cannot be said/done elsewhere on the networks, is entwined with being esoteric, ground-breaking and risk-taking” (p. 67). These two tactics have clearly enabled

HBO to distance itself from other channels via its intent to challenge established norms associated with television production and content creation. McCabe and Akass (2008) therefore point out that HBO normalizes these features in its fictional television originals and further reifies parameters of what constitutes quality television: “authorship as brand label, the illicit as a marker of quality, high-production values, creative risk-taking and 51

artistic integrity, the viewer as consumer, customer satisfaction, and value for money” (p.

92). In other ways, though, “HBO,” as the two scholars argue (2007), “takes control of the illicit and encloses it within its institutional discourse of quality” (p. 69). Leverette

(2008) reinforces their argument, asserting that “Every HBO original program has exploited ‘cocksucker, motherfucker, tits’ to make the most of its place outside of ‘TV’”

(p. 140). That is to say, HBO capitalizes on profanity and provocative language as a distinctive practice in order to demonstrate that its original programs are different and unique.

Even though HBO may not be regarded as the first channel to develop and determine rules associated with quality television, Edgerton and Jones (2008) delineate that HBO has continually proven itself as “the premier location for creative talent as well as the place […] for quality viewing” (p. 318), that HBO influences other cable and network channels regarding original programming, or that HBO’s typical utilization of provocative language, violent and sexual visualities can be considered as a strategic move to both challenge and improve “standardized television genres from the gangster to the situation comedy to the western and the documentary, among many others” (p. 325).

Therefore, it is HBO that significantly facilitates the popularization of quality television and what it means for television producers to write and create quality television programs. Such achievements have somewhat spoken to its branding success as not just simply being television.

Quality television programming tends to adopt a more serious angle concerning its tackling and depicting of a situation, a theme, a topic, or an issue. Hailed as one of the 52

most popular and successful originals produced by HBO, The Sopranos (1999—2007) has garnered academic and scholarly attention because this television program received critical acclaim for its content and art direction and attracted a large audience (Newcomb,

2007). The Sopranos is game-changing in that it renders possible the solidification of

HBO as the premium subscription-based channel with an emphasis on producing quality television programs (Jaramillo, 2007). For instance, Polan (2007) analyzes HBO’s The

Sopranos to illustrate how this television program capitalizes on the construction of a complex narrative with characters “who face moral dilemmas and either grow from the encounter or enable hip spectators to feel they have grown” (p. 264). Furthermore, The

Sopranos successfully appeals to a certain privileged and educated segment of an audience who “comes to assume that he or she has found something in a particular show that others have missed but that would make them better if they were to learn about it”

(Polan, 2007, p. 265). The scholar reveals how quality television programs and quality television audiences are closely related and feed off of each other. To this end, quality television audience exists as a result of quality television programming and vice versa, which most certainly harkens back to Jane Feuer’s (1984) assertion that a quality audience is needed to efficaciously decode both manifest and latent meanings embedded in quality television.

Quality television, too, has been viewed as an alternative lens into addressing the way that representations of gender, sexuality, race, and/or class norms have been articulated. Quintessentially epitomizing quality television at its best, HBO’s quality programming has been widely viewed as pushing established boundaries and has 53

facilitated more nuanced depictions and characterizations concerning these issues.

Television studies scholars have delved into exploring the complex nature of fiction and narratives in a wide array of HBO’s quality television programs. Szalay (2015), for example, writes that True Blood (2008—2014) depicts female characters in ways that could be viewed as being on the borderline of being misogynistic. Their bodies become commodified and female characters can be said to play more supporting roles to their male counterparts. Moreover, Munt’s (2006) analysis of Six Feet Under (2001—2005) indicates that this HBO’s program epitomizes quality television in that the producer combines camp, dark humor, different genres to create the series. Watching the show, it is possible to witness the nuances of being a gay person in contemporary America. The white gay character, David Fisher, can be conceptualized as being in a constant state of becoming or can be seen as a paranoid homosexual who believes that his sexuality may lead to certain inauspicious consequences or that he feels stigmatized because of it.

Therefore, Six Feet Under offers more optimistic and complex lenses into queer and gay life (Munt, 2006; Dhaenens, 2012). With such analyses, these scholars have demonstrated that these quality programs contain messages or content worthy of exploration and interpretation, which can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of cultural and social zeitgeist.

Perhaps HBO can be credited with putting quality television programming on the map and enabling quality television to become more generally popular and mainstream.

Nevertheless, online streaming platforms, such as Netflix, have started to produce and deliver original programs that can be said as fulfilling or satisfying some of the criteria 54

closely utilized to categorize quality television. The monopoly on quality television production which is exclusively available to cable channels now comes to be irrelevant.

For Netflix has entered the race and has started to take advantage of this type of programming to both attract and retain its audience. In particular, Netflix has produced a string of quality television programs that have met with critical acclaim. Farr (2018) particularly notes that “Freed from the television set itself, Netflix is able to construct a vision of itself as doing HBO better than HBO” (p. 164-165), and that “Netflix is simultaneously the underdog, the rebel, and the visionary” (p. 165). Its originals, such as

House of Cards (2013—2018), later Orange is the New Black (2013—2019), reveal how

Netflix strives for a prestigious status in terms of production values and creativity. For instance, Belcher (2016) praises Orange is the New Black for its inclusion of people of color and of diverse bodies. Despite its implicitly perpetuating colorblindness and post- racialism, Belcher argues that this Netflix original does not shy away from shedding light on the complex nature of women’s identities. The unorthodox or unconventional setting of the show (a female prison) can additionally contribute to an exploration of taboo subjects that may not have been acceptable on traditional television.

While it may be too early to make the case that Netflix and quality television can be accurately compared to HBO and its original programming, it can be argued that viewers have cultivated high expectations when it comes to the sort of original content produced by this particular online streaming platform. To this end, Black Mirror can be said to represent an example of quality television during the post-network era. On the one hand, as a quality television program, Charlie Brooker and his collaborators are given 55

more creative freedom and higher budgets, rendering possible the construction of various and unique dystopian societies typically associated with science fiction as a whole.

Because they are under no pressure to create a particular kind of television content that must appeal to the largest number of viewers possible, they can develop arcane themes and adopt inscrutable ideas to tell complicated stories about speculative cosmos and alternative universes in this program. Netflix’s commitment to quality programming also facilitates more complex and nuanced presentations of the posthuman subject. That is, questions regarding what it means to be human in these fictional high-tech worlds can be addressed with more care and more depth. On the other hand, Black Mirror presents a unique opportunity to contextualize science fiction television and so forth operates as a springboard for a survey into some prominent philosophical themes, political issues, ethical concerns, and social topics that science fiction television programs have addressed throughout its history.

Science Fiction Television

Science fiction speculates. And science fiction television visualizes such speculations. In this section, I discuss science fiction and explain its origin. Then, I look at science fiction television as a genre. Finally, I present a historiographical survey of science fiction television, bringing together cultural, political, social, and technological influences on its production.

Defining Science Fiction. Focusing on how science fiction was initially developed, then, allows for a consideration of its evolution and later its significance in the television terrain. Geraghty (2009) attributes the origin of “science fiction” to Hugo 56

Gernsback, who created a magazine that included not only some technical writing to teach readers how to build electrical tools and gadgets, but also introduced them to a kind of stories, authored by some established authors such as H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, and

Edgar Allan Poe, which intrigued their imagination of the possibility of futuristic and alternative worlds.

Although many have utilized different terms to address this genre, Johnson-Smith

(2005) notes that “‘science fiction’ remains the dominant one” (p. 15) and further views the ability of science fiction to build alternative worlds as its defining feature. In considering these worlds as a result of an interplay of “visual or verbal language” (p. 19), the scholar specifically writes that they do not themselves share any commonality with

“the realities of our everyday world” (p. 19) because logically scientific rules cannot be applied to understand their realities. It becomes apparent that the plausibility of introducing a different world to an audience suggests a recognition that this world is not realistically viable. Rather than being grounded upon realism, science fiction stories aim at negotiating the logic of the mundane world, turning it upside down, and working it inside out in order to establish novel versions of reality. Therefore, Johnson-Smith (2005) asserts that “[science fiction’s] entire raison d’être is to speculate and encourage speculation about other potential and plausible realities” (p. 22). That is, science fiction tends to incorporate the impossible, the unusual, and the unthinkable to construct its content and to tell its stories.

If science fiction texts wish to serve new realities, it requires that more attention be paid to background details to bring these realities to life. This focus, as Johnson-Smith 57

(2005) contends, “leads to the complaint that [science fiction] is all style and no substance” (p. 26). However, this kind of attention to detail and background information remain essential in developing science fiction texts because their consumers need to become familiar with these unfamiliar worlds and distant realities first before they can enjoy and sympathize with what they may read on those pages.

Moreover, scenarios of science fiction are best achieved via posing what-if questions. That is, whereas reasons and logic pertinent to understanding our world must be put on hold, imagination and alien language are introduced to create alternative histories or speculative futures with their own repercussions that can influence these societies (Johnson-Smith, 2005). For instance, it is impossible to forget the historical moment in American culture when The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells was broadcast on the radio for the first time in 1938. The story of a Martian invasion haunted and scared

“one million [listeners],” who considered it as “so real that they packed their bags and started to evacuate for fear of falling victim to the Martians” (Geraghty, 2009, p. 12). To this extent, science fiction stories create new universes that at least reveal what it means to see their own selves in a different light and to experiment with the possibility of being placed in a hypothetical situation that they could never have imagined in reality.

Contextualizing Science Fiction Television. Different versions of a speculative future can be most vividly seen in science fiction television programs. In turning to science fiction television, one can locate a kind of representation of imaginary societies and complex cultures that help reflect the zeitgeist of its time, which also operates as a substitution for society. To this extent, a whole new world that is different and foreign in 58

its setting, habitat, and culture is displayed in front of the eyes of viewers. But they can recognize that its alien inhabitants might face challenges and might be exposed to concerns, which are not that different from those of their own realities.

Hockley (2001) writes that “Underneath its unusual and often slightly flashy mise-en-scène, science fiction television has a track record of addressing moral, ethical, political and philosophical themes” (p. 26). To this end, not only does science fiction television demonstrate itself as a productive space in which viewers imagine themselves as part of this televisual universe, but one can witness the parallelism between science fiction worlds and their reality about issues and concerns that they present as well.

Geraghty (2009) notes that science fiction television, as a popular cultural product, can say something about how American society has evolved and has changed throughout its history. As Hockley (2001) simply puts it, “Significantly, what science fiction television does […] is to reflect contemporary social and political concerns” (p. 27). A critical inquiry into science fiction television then unequivocally reveals how social, cultural, and political forces may have influenced the focus on particular themes as well as may have popularized specific stories.

Science fiction television programs are mostly serialized, and they do not have the kind of budget that their film counterpart has. As Casey, Casey, Calvert, French, and

Lewis (2008) contend, “While in its cinematic form the genre has grown to rely heavily on expensive special effects, in its television variant science fiction has more often existed in the long-running-series format” (p. 245). A lower budget also means that special effects utilized to tell these stories on television are not as advanced and as 59

complex. That is, visual technologies to narrate visual and aural stories on television are frequently cited as less sophisticated. Viewers do not expect a spectacular and impressive display of special effects in a science fiction television program. That said, it is precisely the reliance on lavish computer-generated effects that can sometimes overshadow the development of stories in science fiction movies because the serial form of science fiction television suggests an extensive and distinctive opportunity for producers to do more in terms of characterization and storytelling.

Tryon (2008) elaborates upon this point further by stating how science fiction television can benefit from this sort of seriality in that its producers can become more committed to developing highly complicated narratives. For the most part, it facilitates a broader range of ongoing cultural and social concerns to be addressed. In particular,

Tryon (2008) describes that “Unlike a two-hour film, or even a trilogy of films, a television series opens up possibilities for multiple narrative modes” (p. 306), meaning that science fiction television producers can take their programs to unexpected dimensions that are mostly restricted by cinematic conventions or due to time constraints.

Based on his characterization of “narrative complexity” as “its interplay between social and episodic formats with little obligation for narrative closure at the end of every episode” (Tryon, 2008, p. 306), it can be assumed that multiple storylines can be simultaneously incorporated and can be subsumed to construct the narrative. In this way, science fiction television writers can follow different routes that not only complicate the stories but, in turn, can improve them and can retain old viewers and attract new ones as well. Ultimately, with a focus on narrative complexity, one can surmise that science 60

fiction television exemplifies quality television. The distinction between science fiction movies and television programs appears somewhat obvious. But it is evident that technological advances and visual techniques give rise to more complex and intricate representations of faraway and alternative worlds in both cinematic and television terrains.

However, science fiction television as a genre is not clearly defined. According to

Casey et al. (2008), science fiction television producers move across genres and appropriate some elements from other genres, such as horror, thriller, or fantasy, to create their own narrative. Therefore, it can be suggested that this intent to combine conventions of other genres leads to the assumption that science fiction programs are postmodern products.

Apart from being characterized as a quintessential example of postmodernity,

Telotte (2008) argues that it has cultivated a reputation as “a mode of a genre” (p. 2) that should be taken more seriously. That is, science fiction programming should not be considered as an insipid and meaningless cultural product to be consumed simply for the sake of entertainment or as a distraction from mundane activities of life. Despite being products of a culture industry, which Horkheimer and Adorno (2012) condemn, science fiction programs should not easily be regarded as inconsequential and unimportant cultural artifacts. Rather, in constructing alternative universes, science fiction television

“has the advantage that it can escape the confines of naturalistic and realistic conventions” (Casey et al., 2008, p. 245). By so doing, science fiction television can capitalize on the utilization of metaphors, imaginative tropes, and allegorical devices to 61

investigate and portray ongoing contested issues from different angles. That is, how these issues manifest themselves in different social and cultural settings can offer audiences innovative windows to view them.

Science fiction programs require their viewers to suspend their established and normative viewpoints regarding polarized matters. By so doing, viewers are encouraged to embrace and adopt new and fresh outlooks toward the common and typical way that they are conceptualized. To this end, science fiction television “has established itself as one of the key mirrors of the contemporary cultural climate” (Telotte, 2008, p. 2). If this is the case, then, certain concerns or issues as seen in science fiction programs are inspired and influenced by those that currently transpire in society. Therefore, although science fiction television continues the tradition of speculating alternative realities, it, at the same time, offers various interpretations of futuristic possibilities. It also illustrates the perceptions of how its programs function to extend human existence as people seem to be very comfortable with as well as to present plausible consequences and impacts caused by this kind of extension.

In science fiction television programs, multiple nonhuman and nonanimal species exist along with humans. They sporadically interact, sometimes fight, and at times dominate one another. As Johnson-Smith (2005) explains, “Science fiction offers novel concepts for consideration – alien life forms, time travel, warp drives” (p. 4). That is, imaginary places are occupied with inhabitants whose own histories and distinctive ways of life can be quite different than that of the human. Within visual representations of these universes, viewers can imagine the impossible and can live in such fantasy. 62

Furthermore, science fiction television takes its inspiration from society’s fascination with technology. In the words of Telotte (2014), “[Science fiction] film and television are not only about technology, but also […] driven by technology” (p. 5).

Science fiction programming assumes how technologies, with robots, spaceships, and computers, have successfully infiltrated into almost every fiber of society and culture, and it in turn calls for attention to consequences and evolution caused by this sort of infiltration. That is, technologies enable space exploration, Earth invasion, human-alien contact, or time travel. A technologized society as seen in science fiction programs can function as a springboard for discussion of a variety of key concerns that are brought about by technological advancements, innovations, and development. “In the particular case of [science fiction television],” writes Tolette (2014), “it addresses a ‘need’ for that

‘experience of wonder,’ while it also explores certain key themes surrounding the roles of reason, science, and technology in our lives” (p. 14). To this end, viewers are given opportunities to make sense of science fiction television’s ability to delve into a wide array of issues and to get a sense of how they are proffered and deliberated. Thanks to science fiction television, viewers can visualize distant realities, can witness uncertainties of the human status, and can question “[their] sense of what constitutes the real” (Telotte,

2008, p. 30). To this extent, science fiction television producers build upon actual scientific facts and real scientific discoveries to structure and create their narratives, therefore “be[ing] seen as based in the rational and the explicable” (Casey et al., 2008, p.

246). That said, the speculative feature of science fiction television also has some underlying implications in that it can provide a glimpse into what would happen to 63

societies when boundaries between humans and technology or between humans and alien are inauspiciously transgressed.

Historicizing American Science Fiction Television. By considering and synthesizing how science fiction television has evolved, one can begin to have a better understanding of why science fiction programming inhabits such an important place in popular culture. While the process of periodization of this sort of history can lead to the view that each period produces distinct knowledge of science fiction programs that appear to carry certain prominent themes and unique ideas, it can act, in a sense, as a fruitful departing point to unpack the interplay of social, political, and cultural factors that specifically inform the content of these programs this way. This brief historiographical survey is mostly circulated in the American context since its television terrain has been proven a fertile ground for the production of science fiction television.

The history of science fiction programming is as old as that of television—the black box, which has become a household medium that functions as a source of entertainment and as a staple in the domestic space (Sconce, 2004; Telotte, 2008).

Since their inception, early science fiction programs were not viewed as a serious television product because they were produced from a low budget and were mostly targeted toward young audiences. Such low budgets meant that it was difficult to utilize innovative and expensive technologies to construct alternative and foreign worlds. Also, the technique of television storytelling did not present itself as a viable option to create stories that could successfully transport the audience to different and foreign horizons.

Finally, the assumption that science fiction programs could only attract children led to 64

hesitation to invest in this genre. Despite technologically and visually unsophisticated with their presentations, early science fiction programs, such as Buck Rogers (1950—

1951), Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949—1955), or Space Patrol (1950—

1955), took as their central theme the space opera (Jancovich & Johnson, 2009; Telotte,

2014). Rather than having character-driven plots within the narrative, they followed certain notable tropes of a male protagonist who would fight against menace forces to overcome obstacles in futuristic settings, which would intend to instill moral and other positive lessons in young audiences. It is evident that these science fiction television programs also demonstrated a fascination with new science and technology during the post-World War II period. Science fiction programming targeting older audiences was limited, was mostly adapted from already known science fiction stories and was produced in an anthology form (Sconce, 2004; Telotte, 2008).

The space race, the threat caused by anxieties over the spreading of communism, and the imminent Cold War, on one hand, and technological innovations and the suburban spread, on the other hand, were sources of inspiration for science fiction television producers during the 1950s and 1960s. That is, these themes informed the development of a wide array of science fiction programs, which underscored progressive and heroic characters of the United States as a nation and signaled tremendous cultural and social changes of the time, perhaps best exemplified in the prevalent utilization of spaceships, space rockets, advanced pieces of machinery, or alien contact and monsters.

Science fiction television programs, such as The Twilight Zone (1959—1964) and The

Outer Limits (1963—1965), which could reach wide ranges of television viewers, 65

presented a platform for critical commentaries on American culture while at the same time reflecting its hopes, dreams, worries, and anxieties over an unstable historical moment (Geraghty, 2009; Sconce, 2004).

Perceived as the first American science fiction program explicitly produced to cater to adult audiences, The Twilight Zone (1959—1964) helped elevate the once inferior status of science fiction television because it “could present series of subject matter in a well-made dramatic format” (Hill, 2008, p. 111). As Tolettle (2014) argues, this program “appeared at a time when the Western had replaced the SF space opera as the most popular programming for younger audiences” (p. 25) and “helped spur a revisioning of the space opera” (p. 27). Creator Rod Serling successfully took advantage of the science fiction genre to present some controversial “political issues generally considered taboo for the medium at the time—racism, McCarthyism, the threat of nuclear war” in an innovative light (Hill, 2008, p. 11). Framing them in different realities, discrete societies, and distant worlds enabled producers to demonstrate that said issues could exist elsewhere. Although this program might have shown how these issues might have played out on the small screen, audiences might still have found that what they watched might have rung true to their own reality (Hill, 2008). Serling, as cited in

Vahimagi (2007), stated that “It’s an anthology series, half hour in length, that delves into the odd, the bizarre, the unexpected” (p. 2387). To this extent, Serling characterized this program as a striking text to probe “the dimension of imagination” (p. 2387), therefore functioning to illustrate “a concern for taste and for an adult audience too long considered to have IQs in negative figures” (Vahimagi, 2007, p. 2387). Serling understood that what 66

was odd, what was bizarre, and what was unexpected may have presented themselves in ways that may have tricked Americans into thinking that these sorts of issues could never happen and could never be applied to their society.

In challenging the commonsense and emphasizing the unusualness, Serling and his collaborators might have subtly encouraged audiences to imagine their lives and to visualize their realities differently. By so doing, they could become less complacent with their own realities. Simultaneously, they could become more aware or conscious of what would have happened if technologies opened a new door into the future (Hill, 2008). An exploration of certain themes, such as time travel, death/life contact, or extra-terrestrial visitation, clearly and interestingly demonstrated a critical approach to ideological and political tensions between the two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union

(Vahimagi, 2007). Despite arguing that “The general tone of many Twilight Zone stories was cautionary, that humans can never be too sure of anything that appears real or otherwise” (p. 2389), Vahimagi (2007) considers The Twilight Zone as a television program that could enable viewers to find solace in these alternative societies. To this extent, The Twilight Zone presented a window for those who might have been impacted by “the contemporary real-life fears of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile

Crisis, and John Kennedy’s assassination” to envision new possibilities toward alternative futures (Vahimagi, 2007, p. 2389-2390). According to Mortenson (2014), shadow imagery was most visible in the aesthetics of many episodes to highlight a profound sense of anxiety, discomfort, and uneasiness linked to the tension Americans experienced during the Cold War period. Contemporary audiences of the program might 67

also get a sense of what life used to be while some of the social issues introduced by

Sterling seem to be relevant to them (Hill, 2008).

During the late 1960s, a string of science fiction programs, such as Voyage to the

Bottom of the Sea (1964—1968), Lost in Space (1965—1968), or The Invaders (1967—

1968), highlighted how technological inventions afforded excursions to space or travel to other mysterious and unexplored territories on the Earth, and how alien encounters might result in unexpected repercussions (Sconce, 2004; Telotte, 2008). These programs continually fed into American society’s obsession with new technologies.

However, the era’s unsteady political climate, coupled with a wide variety of social movements that fought for equal rights for marginalized groups, inspired science fiction television producers to create narratives reflecting these themes. According to

Geraghty (2009), “The counterculture found a space on 1960s television, and through the displacement of the contemporary onto the future settings of alien planets and spaceships” (p. 43). That is, positioning these divisive matters within completely foreign settings strategically enabled producers to bypass government censorship and network control (Geraghty, 2009). It is precisely this feature of science fiction to transport viewers to unthinkable universes that represented the opportunity to participate in the process of exploring these controversial topics and critiquing them without any compromises and interferences from the media and government institutions.

It is impossible to deny how the original Star Trek (1966—1969) changed the science fiction television landscape. Despite not a huge success when it was first broadcast on NBC, the program was characterized as one of the most important science 68

fiction television texts that helped elevate the status of science fiction television (Booker,

2008; Telotte, 2008). According to Booker (2018), this program reflected a shift in public opinion toward American engagement in the Vietnam War and incorporated its commentaries on the Cold War within the narrative. By following adventures of the

Enterprise to outer space in the 23rd century, whose missions involved restoring order and promoting peace among different alien entities and species, the audience got introduced to an intergalactic universe comprising various ranges of advanced and progressive civilizations. Through images of ship members’ encounters and interactions with aliens from unknown parts of the universe, Star Trek addressed how conflicts among those who did not share similar or common human ways of life could be resolved through inclusion and collaboration among them (Booker, 2018).

The relationship between human and alien bodies then could be characterized as

“vitally important in visualising the American project of multiculturalism and education”

(Geraghty, 2009, p. 44). In particular, Hockley (2001) characterizes “the multiracial (and indeed multi-species) crew and the exploration of themes such as racism, colonialism and human psychology” as the main reasons that successfully drew the audience’s attention toward Star Trek (p. 28). Since humans and aliens could exist in harmony and could even work together against some common enemies in its narrative, it seems that Star Trek depicted a better future, in which differences could be eliminated while common grounds could be established. Sconce (2004) additionally states that “Intermixing action- adventure with social commentary, [Star Trek] addressed such issues as racism, war, sexism, and even the era’s flourishing hippie movement” (p. 2029). That is, the 69

Enterprise and many adventures from its crew members functioned as allegorical settings to open up discussions of the way these contested topics impacted American society. This intergalactic universe also offered some unique interpretations of these social and cultural matters. Booker (2018) posits that Star Trek “anticipates radical historical changes that will bring about a better future in which the problems vexing a very divided America in the 1960s will have been solved, bringing Americans (and the world) toward a lasting period of unprecedented peace and prosperity” (p. 65). Therefore, the program’s characterization of the Enterprise is an interesting demonstration of a kind of desire toward a possibility where different races and species could coexist in a good-natured fraternity. One of the most prominent messages rhetorically communicated by Star Trek was a strong belief in science and technology and their promise of a better future. As

Booker (2018) writes, “what drives Star Trek is the firm confidence that there will be technological breakthroughs and these breakthroughs will have a major positive effect on the evolution of future society” (p. 103). He continues, “The real utopian frontier of Star

Trek is not outer space but technology itself” (p. 103).

Progressive as it may seem, Star Trek is not without problems so critical that they compromise this progressiveness. In fact, some scholars remain wary of its optimistic construction of the intergalactic universe in this period, thereby introducing a slightly different analysis of Star Trek. For instance, Booker (2008) problematizes how certain issues sometimes got addressed and tackled. At first glance, Star Trek outlined a futuristic utopian possibility at which individuals could have the agency to do whatever they pleased and could overcome difficulties hurled at them. Additionally, they could live 70

up to their full potentials. As Booker explains, nevertheless, that the program “remains informed by a powerful Protestant work ethic, even if most workers are skilled professionals whose work is challenging, rewarding and almost entirely nonalienating”

(p. 197). That is, the program promoted and celebrated the ideology of American professionalism, therefore reinforcing American social and cultural norms. Booker

(2018) later observes that Star Trek relied on orientalist stereotypes to construct images of the other. And as Hockley (2001) asserts, “The predominant sexual orientation remains heterosexual and the female crew still have to be as attractive as they are effective” (p.

28). Therefore, Star Trek perpetuated hegemonic ideologies of dominant masculinities and heteronormativity and stereotypical gender roles and expectations. Even with some limitations in the way that it tackled and represented some issues, one can still be certain that Star Trek, as a science fiction television program, remains an iconic and important part of American popular culture.

The Star Trek’s intergalactic universe has been revisited multiple times, as best seen via subsequent reboots or sequels in the following decades, including The Next

Generation (1987—1994), Deep Space Nine (1993—1999), Voyager (1995—2001),

Enterprise (2001—2005), or Discovery (2017—), all of which maintain at their core “a firm belief that technology is crucial to advanced civilization, but warp drive technology simply stands in metaphorically for advanced technology in general” (Booker, 2018, p.

103). By extension, it very simply seems that the Star Trek franchise continues to intrigue its dedicated, devoted, and loyal fanbase with its complex narratives between aliens and humans in space. 71

Science fiction television programming, such as Planet of the Apes (1974) or

Logan’s Run (1977—1978), which were adapted from popular movies, did not garner much success in obtaining viewership during the 1970s, leading to the programs being immediately canceled after one season (Sconce, 2004). However, it would very simply appear that The Six Million Dollar Man (1975—1978) and the spin-off The Bionic

Woman (1976—1978) managed to achieve some minor success. These two programs addressed how technology impacted society and human physicality and how it could be incorporated into human bodies to enhance their physical ability.

Geraghty (2009) carefully specifies how the newly developed knowledge of biotechnology was utilized to present “glimpses of how notions of the corporal were changing in American society” (p. 62). That is, the construction of these technologically enhanced heroes and heroines implied a position of understanding “the limitations and fragility of the human body” (Geraghty, 2009, p. 62). The interest of the producers in constructing this sort of protagonists implicitly communicated a message of the potential of blurring the line between the human and the machine in a way that might complicate the future of humans.

Science fiction programs, such as Battlestar Galactica (1978—1980) and Buck

Rogers in the 25th century (1979—1981), focused on the theme of space exploration, which, then “transferred the myth of the old west onto the frontier of outer space and used it as much as an allegorical device for explaining the nation’s history” (Geraghty,

2009, p. 65). This sense of re-imagining the frontier, as a result, became central to invoking nostalgia for adventures and a progression toward future pasts while also 72

remaining vital to make the thrill and the danger of moving to uncharted territories more relatable and more familiar among viewers.

In order to compete with cinema and new media during the 1980s and 1990s, it would seem that science fiction television producers had no other options than to experiment with innovative narrative techniques to energize stories so that they could attract and retain core audiences. Geraghty (2009) argues that this new way of experimentation then gave rise to the cult series and the quality series. The former category depends on a set of niche markets with habitual viewers who imagine themselves as part of a community dedicated to consuming a science fiction text via a wide variety of mediums, such as novels, magazines or television. These devoted viewers galvanized the production of a sort of science fiction programs that are complex in terms of their narratives. This narrative complexity rendered possible the introduction of new characters later on. The latter category tends to target at unhabitual and less dedicated viewers. To capture their attention means that programs are produced with “high production values, compact narrative, and intense use of marketing and hype” (Geraghty,

2009, p. 78). Both cult and quality categories rekindled the interest in science fiction television and indicated changing patterns of viewer consumption of science fiction programs.

In particular, alien invasion, as a common theme among programs, such as V

(1984—1985), War of the Worlds (1988—1990), or the rebooted version of The Twilight

Zone (1985—1989), was viewed as a plausible, albeit fictitious, arena “to debate controversial, and indeed timely, topics […] such as American race relations, 73

multiculturalism, and immigration” (Geraghty, 2009, p. 82). That is, projecting a televisual space for such discussions indicated the important part of science fiction television to deliberate these issues.

Moreover, The X-Files (1993—2002) was another prominent program that popularized science fiction television. On the one hand, the program was a quality series in that it ingeniously and adeptly utilized different genres, such as horror, thriller, or suspense, to speculate an American society that was in contact with extraterrestrial entities (Geraghty, 2009; Johnson, 2001; Sconce, 2004). In particular, Johnson (2001) attributes the success of the show to “its dark and unresolved storylines, which engage with a pervasive malaise in late-twentieth-century America” (p. 30). On the other hand,

The X-Files was a cult series in that it had a loyal following (Geraghty, 2009).

The 1990s also witnessed ranges of science fiction programs, Babylon 5 (1994—

1998), or Stargate SG-1 (1997—2007) that, as Geraghty argued, catered to the desire and need of their followers. As a community, these fans made sure that their favorite programs would get renewed. To this extent, science fiction television owed its popularization and revival to these loyal fans (Geraghty, 2009; Johnson, 2001). In fact,

Booker (2004) concludes that “1990s perhaps the richest decade in the history of SFTV”

(p. 111).

From the 2000s onward, science fiction programs have focused on the tendency to rely on “the notion of the past or […] the narrative history of their predecessors to establish new stories and timelines—reworking familiar cultural myths and implanting them in a post-9/11 landscape” (Geraghty, 2009, p. 117). Firefly (2002—2003), 74

Battlestar Galactica (2003—2009), or Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

(2008—2009) all exemplified this trend. These programs complicated the human condition, questioned the definition of humanity, and constructed dystopian societies that would highlight the consequences of technological inventions on human issues. For instance, in the analysis of female-gendered cyborgs in Battlestar Galactica, George

(2008) highlighted uneasy attitudes toward technology and emphasizes the dialectical tension between humans and machines. Therefore, George (2008) concludes that “what both humans and Cylons dramatize is the difficult negotiations required to remain human in a universe that is, apparently, moving toward a posthuman condition” (p. 174). To this end, science fiction programs like this one pointed toward a foreseeable moment, at which it might remain difficult to unambiguously demarcate these categories. Hantke

(2010) further argues that the theme of alien invasion made a comeback in some mainstream science fiction television programs, reflecting a sense of uncertainties linked to the instability of the first decade of the twentieth-first century.

With the shift to a progressive account of the human condition in contemporary

American culture, then, science fiction television emerges as a medium that complicates and defamiliarizes mundane human activities, feeds into such paranoids, worries, or even excitement over a posthuman future, and negotiates human limitations. This march toward unpredictable time and place, therefore, could “offer [viewers] sanctuary and solace” (Geraghty, 2009, p. 121). It seems that science fiction television remains an irreplaceable form of entertainment in American society. And it very simply appears that science fiction programs have continually reflected social issues and have unequivocally 75

bestowed upon viewers with thoughts, viewpoints, and ideas that may warrant serious consideration.

Since the 2010s, the depiction of the posthuman condition takes the central stage within the narrative in a wide array of notable science fiction television programs. Take, for instance, the depiction of cataclysmic results of gene editing, gene manipulation, and cloning in the critically acclaimed Orphan Black (2013—2017). This program tells a speculative story about consequences of technological interferences on human bodies and what they can do to enact the process of deconstructing human identity, traditional perceptions of heterosexual family, and the exploitation of genetic information for capitalist purposes (Belton, 2020; Sheldon, 2018; Vint, 2018; Wald, 2018). HBO’s

Westworld (2016—) welcomes viewers to a posthuman future in which female robots are created for entertainment purposes and the way that this program presents a critique of patriarchal influences on gender and sexuality (Belton, 2020). And look no further than

Netflix’s Sense8 (2015—2018), an original program that offers a utopian account “that dwells in a trans universe: trans-gender, trans-genre, trans-subjective, and trans-physical”

(Mincheva, 2018, p. 30). Gentlemen (2019) in particular deems Sense8, with its inclusion of a transgender character as one of the main characters in the cast, a manifestation of

“the unshaping and reshaping of human bodies and practices, particularly in its framing of the transgender body as an avatar of the algorithmic age” (p. 150). In addition, Sense8 makes an interesting case regarding the renegotiation and rearticulation of hegemonic understanding of gender, race, sexuality, and identity (Asante, Baig, & Huang, 2018).

What these science television programs share in common is the idea that the 76

technology/human relationship gives rise to a posthuman reality that forces us to rethink and reconceptualize the meaning of humanity.

Science Fiction Television and Black Mirror

As a science fiction television program, Black Mirror continues the tradition of speculating new worlds and inviting viewers to experience what these worlds may entail.

In this context, the program pays attention to the way that technological innovations of the twenty-first century have gradually transformed human interactions and have significantly altered human communication.

Many of its intriguing basic tropes and themes are remarkably familiar. For instance, social media and digital technologies have become so omnipresent that people have become dependent on them and have incorporated them into their daily rhythms and everyday activities. That is, these technologies have since become an integral part in social life. To this end, the program’s premise is predicated upon the notion of how new technologies complexify the meaning of humans and their category. And the boundaries of how to think about these issues are pushed to the extreme. We might feel uncomfortable, watching the program, not because of the majority of what happen to the characters tragically bleak. Rather our discomfort stems from how relatable what each narrative can be to our contemporary reality. Black Mirror thus highlights a tension toward social and cultural anxieties over either a likelihood of technologies taking over human life or a possibility of technologies opening new paths toward a more nuanced and complicated synergy between the human and the machine. To this extent, one can easily find this tension to manifest itself throughout this program. 77

Black Mirror is certainly heavy on imaginative science fiction concepts. We are transported to alternative worlds that may make us think more deeply and think much harder about our human nature and human existence. That is to say, Black Mirror contains a host of narratives that are intellectually significant and philosophically important. In positioning Black Mirror as a quality science fiction television program, the producers present these themes in such unique and groundbreaking ways that it successfully underlines and illustrates the need to reevaluate the various human/machine relationships.

By operating as a televisual form that facilitates a discussion of the status of the human while, at the same time, introducing the emergence of the posthuman subject,

Black Mirror poses the question of how far technologies can renegotiate, or rearticulate ideas with regard to what it means to be human. To this end, I consider posthumanism as the most suitable and appropriate theoretical framework that will guide the analysis of this Netflix original program. Chapter three will present a discussion about this theoretical framework.

Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework

If scientists have the capacity to create life from matter, and if such life forms can

take the form of intelligent agents able to carry out specific tasks, then previously

essential distinctions are rendered less viable, and the norms that depend upon

them become less intelligible. This raises questions pertaining to life forms

themselves. What kind of ethical value should we attribute to synthetic life forms

and according to what criteria?

—Diana Coole and Samantha Frost, New Materialisms

Posthuman. It is a loaded concept. It is a cultural and political figure, too. What about posthumanism? What is the relationship between the posthuman and posthumanism? This chapter seeks to provide provisional answers to these questions— that is, I aim to use this space to identify and investigate the theoretical framework of posthumanism. This chapter examines different directions linked to the theorization of posthumanism. Once I establish and explicate the posthumanist agenda, principles, and tenets, I then connect it to science fiction and science fiction television. I end this chapter with some remarks about why posthumanist theory indicates a fecund approach to a critical investigation and a textual analysis of Black Mirror.

Posthumanist Theory

Posthumanism claims that human experience emerges from its intricate interaction with both the organic and inorganic others, therefore subverting and rearticulating the central position of the liberal humanist subject in the construction of life. This critical perspective recognizes that it is imperative to attribute agency to the 79

nonhuman other in order to understand the human subject (Keeling & Lehman, 2018;

Wolfe, 2010). Posthumanist theory then never takes the relationship between human and nonhuman material agents and how they communicate with one another for granted. The application of posthumanist thinking to examine humanity can highlight the interconnectedness of a wide array of different agents that may seem, at the first glance, to exist in unrelated networks and do not fit together.

Implicit in the prefix “post” of the term rests the notion that the current understanding of humanity has become challenged, destabilized, and questioned. Bolter

(2016) conceptualizes posthumanist theory as “a new way of understanding the human subject in relationship to the natural world in general” (p. 1). As a result, posthumanism calls critical attention to the fact that despite being previously perceived as the superior agent to shape how other living beings are understood, the human is simultaneously shaped by them as well. In an interview with Sarah Franklin (2017), Haraway argues that posthumanism presents an attempt to critically investigate “the histories, and meanings, and possibilities, and violences, and hopefulnesses of humanism” (p. 3).

Consider, for instance, the following implication of humanist thinking for studying and explaining the nonhuman other. In his popular scientific publication, the well-known primatologist Frans de Waal (2016) exposes the limitation of applying the humanist framework to study the social behavior of the animal and its cognition. In his own words, “Which species we study obviously matters a great deal, and humans are not necessarily central to every comparison” (p. 28). In decentering the position of the humanist perspective, the truth about the nature of animal intelligence can be revealed to 80

humans in its most unexpected, most comprehensive, and most complex manner. In this light, the question of animal behavior can be approached from a radically different perspective that does justice to animal cognition. Here is evidence that illuminates the constraint of the application of ideas and concepts deeply embedded within the humanist tradition to understand the nonhuman, which can limit the scope of experiencing and explaining the world and the other.

Historically speaking, humanism has always celebrated human distinctiveness and has always championed human individualism, both of which would serve as key parameters humanity would use to solidify its subject position as more superior to that of the nonhuman (Davies, 2008; Law, 2011). At the heart of humanist thinking is an emphasis on human capacity for exploiting human rationality to find solutions for ethical, moral or existential questions that it may encounter in reality, which, in turn, downplays and diminishes the overarching influence of religious authority and the almighty celestial being on the meaning of human existence and life (Law, 2011). In the intellectual and philosophical landscapes created as a result of the positioning of humanity at the center of the universe, deeming man the measure of all things comes to be validated. Humanist thinking thus contributes fundamentally to the empowering of humanity at large.

However, tenets endorsed by humanism as a philosophical movement and tradition has always been dependent on historical contingency in the sense that they evolve in correspondence to historical contexts that give rise to them in the first place.

In the Renaissance period, for example, writers like Erasmus of Rotterdam and

Francesco Petrarch questioned religious thought and the key role that God came to play 81

in the construction of social reality. Francis Bacon, too, developed the scientific method as an alternative to looking at the world. Of course, tension arose among these two camps. But in breaking with medieval scholasticism, these writers and scholars laid the foundation for the secular outlook of the Enlightenment—a European intellectual and philosophical movement that espoused reason and science over religion and superstition as a set of values and practices that were more equipped to elucidate human life (Davies,

2008; Law, 2011). The humanist paradigm has never stayed the same because it has been built from certain historical trajectories that have essentially incorporated the changing conception of man and have been specifically established within a particular system linked to cultural milieux, political environs, and social domains.

Thus, humanism is a messy philosophical idea. According to Davies (2008), “the meanings of ‘humanism’ have operated most powerfully precisely at those moments when they have been most contested, and thus most elusive or opaque to definition” (p.

125). One of the difficulties besetting any possible approach to define humanism is that humanity has no clear sense of its nature and its existence. More specifically, Davies conceptualizes man as “a philosophical entity, not a flesh-and-bone one: a creature of language and culture, ‘invented’ in the historically recent past and lately beginning to look a bit battered and disreputable” (p. 130). Ontological confusion and epistemological ambiguity present themselves as challenges so profound and so prominent that any attempt to offer a clear understanding of humanity is rendered problematic due to the fact that there have never been only one language and only one culture and that, as a historical being, humanity can never assume that how it sees itself and how it thinks about its state 82

of being remain unchanged and remain pristine such that it remains immune to external forces and outside factors, those that have always and perpetually contributed to its evolution and its becoming.

In rendering itself a superior subject, humanity, with its birthing of the concept of man, “has consumed and degraded the resources of the Earth” at the service of progress and imperialism, “to such a degree that,” according to Davies, “the finely balanced parameters of terrestrial life itself, the earth, air, fire and water of the ancients have been thrown into chaotic and irreversible disorder” (p. 131). Davies additionally introduces in his book a wide array of humanist traditions and takes care to explain them in detail.

Even though they may have followed distinctive trajectories that connect humanity to certain unique traits and solidify them as those that demarcate the human from the nonhuman, they all share one common characteristic—that is, they, “until now, have been imperial” (p. 141). Davis further claims that “They speak of the human in the accents and the interests of a class, a sex, a race, a genome” (p. 141) and that “Their embrace suffocates those whom it does not ignore” (p. 141). In other words, these problems of humanism as an explanatory philosophical and theoretical framework capture exactly the kind of violences that Haraway suggests above in her interview.

Following the implications of humanism for thinking about human nature and human existence, posthumanism seeks to chastise the hostility of the humanist tradition with regard to the nonhuman, and simultaneously pushes for the formation of the posthuman subject that can be considered as more compatible with the contemporary moment at which the dividing line between human/animal/machine categories is 83

compromised. In particular, Åsberg, Koobak, and Johnson (2011) consider posthumanism to “fundamentally threaten the humanist logics of gender and race, sexuality and species, and their related dichotomous understandings of selfhood and otherness, internal and external, familiar and alien, natural and constructed” (p. 220).

Posthumanism, therefore, gains considerable traction as an epistemological alternative to contextualizing and defining what it means to be human during the period of after humanity at which the nature-culture continuum needs to be reevaluated.

In an interview with P�tzsch (2014), N. Katherine Hayles (2014) asserts that posthumanism means “the deconstruction of the liberal humanist subject and the attributes normally associated with it such as autonomy, free will, self determination and so forth” (p. 95-96). Hayles’s assertion underscores that the human and the technological cannot be ontologically separated. Any intent to perpetuate this separation proves to be difficult and remains challenging. The human subject is then stripped away of the self- proclaimed agency that allows it to dictate the fate of the Earth. How humans respond to and relate to nonhumans is more fruitful to the understanding of the construction of their subjectivity.

Braidotti (2013) further theorizes the posthuman condition as one possible way to highlight such a shift in this regard. That is, posthumanist theory functions as a theoretical framework that can “help us re-think the basic unit of reference for the human in the bio-genetic age known as ‘anthropocene’… [and] … the basic tenets of our interaction with both human and non-human agents on a planetary scale” (Braidotti,

2013, p. 5-6). Anthropocene refers to the contemporary period in which the human is 84

considered as the key and autonomous agent that has overarching and prevalent impacts on life at global scales (Ellis, 2018). In this sense, posthumanism introduces possibilities to resituate the human’s subject position, meaning that the human may never be viewed as the sole agent that would determine what is allowed to live and what is disposable on the planet Earth.

And Barad (2007) says it best in her book titled, Meeting the Universe Halfway, when she writes that “Posthumanism does not presume that man is the measure of all things” (p. 136). She further makes a radical point about the entanglement of matters and nudges us away from the habit, a narcissistic one, that places humanity at the center of the “universe” and that deems it the most important being to ever roam the “universe.”

Barad proposes that “Posthumanism eschews both humanist and structuralist accounts of the subject that position the human as either pure cause or pure effect, and the body as the natural and fixed dividing line between interiority and exteriority” (p. 136). That is, nothing in and of itself exists in and by itself.

According to Barad, “Posthumanism doesn’t presume the separateness of any-

‘thing,’ let alone the alleged spatial, ontological, and epistemological distinction that sets humans apart” (p. 136). When matter comes to matter in any project that focuses on giving meaning to reality, we can never find comfort in the thought that humanism can offer a set of conceptual tools that can proficiently facilitate a nuanced and complete understanding of the dynamics of human existence and human nature. In the words of

Barad (2007), “Onto-epistem-ology—the study of practices of knowing in being—is probably a better way to think about the kind of understandings that we need to come to 85

terms with how specific intra-actions matter” (p. 185). To better understand what it means to be human, we need to take into consideration the fact that ontology and epistemology can never be demarcated.

Posthumanist Theory and New Materialism

Barad’s feminist scholarship, which embraces the inseparability of ontology and epistemology, carries implications for the traditional conceptualization of agency, transforming how it is theorized and perceived. Not only does this distinctive approach allow for infusing matter with agency, but it also gives credence to New Materialism as a critical field of inquiry that asks us to think about matter in its most radical sense.

More specifically, Barad (2003) proposes the concept of agential realism to suggest how the materiality of the body is always becoming and is a process. That is, humans are events and can never be separated from the phenomenon that they are involved in. Rather than existing on their own, humans are always part of a phenomenon.

It is through an intra-action of discursive and material dimensions that humanity comes into being and comes to understand its human nature. To this end, Barad (2003) resituates the central position of the liberal human subject. In deeming humans “part of the world- body space in its dynamic structuration" (p. 829) and in arguing that “We do not obtain knowledge by standing outside of the world; we know because ‘we’ are of the world” (p.

829), Barad fundamentally asserts that we can never fully understand ourselves unless we do take into account other agents or actors.

The call for taking matter more seriously is presented in the 2010 edited book, titled New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. In its introduction, Diana Coole 86

and Samantha Frost (2010) posit a new ontological dimension to matter, which “is no longer imagined here as a massive, opaque plentitude but is recognized instead as indeterminate, constantly forming and reforming in unexpected ways” (p. 10). Matter is not a thing that has no agency, a thing that stands still, or even a thing that is solid. Matter is actively dynamic and lively vital. “In this monolithic but multiply tiered ontology,” they argue, “there is no definitive break between sentient and consentient entities or between material and spiritual phenomena” (p. 10). Accepting the vitalism of matter means accepting that all beings are constituted by matter that can move freely between material and immaterial boundaries. Coole and Frost further add that “it is evident from new materialist writing that forces, energies, and intensities (rather than substances) and complex, even random, processes (rather than simple, predictable states) have become the new currency” (p. 13). If one thinks about matter in these terms, one begins to recognize that a humanist intent to render the human as special and as unique comes to be undermined. Thus, it is this radical theorization that crystallizes the appeal of New

Materialism in that it generates ontological transformation and epistemological remodeling, both of which, first, demand an alternative to thinking about human nature, and, second, require a reconsideration of other key concepts, such as agency, power, embodiment, and so forth, that are pertinent to the contemplation of human identity.

In addition, according to Coole and Frost, a productive engagement “in a multimodal materialist analysis of relationships of power” focuses particular attention to

“their diverse temporalities by examining their more enduring structures and operations as well as their vulnerability to ruptures and transformation — all the while 87

acknowledging that they have no predestined, necessary, or predictable trajectory” (p.

36). Based in part on their theoretical observation, we can note that the proper orientation to investigate the cultural, political, and social discourse of power must rest in a recognition that phenomena and events, linked to issues of inequality and subjugation, are constituted by a matrix of both external and internal vectors that come together at certain points that can never be fully anticipated and can always be open for alteration. By providing an explanatory model of power that avoids looking at it as though it is fixed and is static, Coole and Frost’s framework reflects radical theorizing that renders important the need to invest within matter an agentic capacity for making itself valuable and inevitable in the process of elucidating the nature of power and its influence on the subjective social system.

A methodological practice for dividing the human from the nonhuman is predicated on a Cartesian framework that demarcates the mind and the body, thereby setting in place the self-described and self-internalized idea that only the human can think and can rationalize. The mind/body dualism serves as the starting point for the humanist belief that humanity is far more superior to other nonhuman beings. But Coole (2010) takes issue with this strand of thought, contending that the Cartesian tradition has at its core a dialectical tension in the conceptualization of a thinking subject in that it is empowered with the kind of rationality viewed remarkably important for making sense of the world but it simultaneously submits to an abstract and celestial being. This contradiction manifests itself as a problem that needs to be overcome due to the fact that it may delimit conditions to think about life and nature differently. Coole thus nudges us 88

away from a simplistic theoretical bent about materiality and encourages us to look at materiality anew so that we can give credit to the line of thinking that can “describe an emergent, internally productive materiality without recourse to mechanistic or mystical assumptions or to the notions of causality and finalism (teleology) that are respectively associated with them” (p. 96).

The possibility that materiality is rescued from the deterministic and narrow- minded perspective of the Cartesian dualism then becomes a catalyst undermining

“species-narcissism: ‘life’ must remain special – that is, radically other to matter – if we humans are to be able to think of ourselves as the most special of its expressions”

(Bennett, 2010a, p. 60) and introducing a more radical conceptualization of agency that is given a new definition, one that is not “an essential characteristic of the rational subject, a deity or some vital force” (Coole, 2010, p. 113). Instead, agency can be perceived as

“those contingent capacities for reflexivity, creative discourse, and transformation that emerge hazardously within the folds and reversals of material/meaningful flesh” (Coole,

2010, p. 113). Agency is then distributed among actants and emerges through the intra- action of material and discursive elements (Barad, 2007). Bennett (2010b) extends this idea, introducing a theory of distributive agency—a theoretical model in which agency is shared among actants that constitute an assemblage. In the words of Bennett, “the efficacy or effectivity to which [agency] has traditionally referred becomes distributed across an ontologically heterogeneous filed, rather than being a capacity localized in a human body or in a collective produced (only) by human efforts” (p. 23). Seen in this light, such vehement contentions of the theoretical rudiment of agency seem developed to 89

put an end to or to quell humanist claims that agency can be attributed to only and only the human.

Posthumanism, and New Materialism in particular, rejects Eurocentric humanist ideas of rationality and reflexivity that allow only the human to form its subjectivity.

Drawing on Cartesian dualism, Badmington (2003) indicates that “The human being […] is completely known, knowable, and present to the very being that is engaged on what it means to be human” (p. 17). This rationality is what constitutes the human and what qualifies human beings to establish a barrier that divides them with nonhuman beings.

This reflexivity additionally enables the human to make rational behaviors, which are not replicated or performed by the nonhuman. With these traits, humans are viewed as transcendental beings and therefore are responsible for their own actions as well as develop their subjectivity. Braidotti (2013) states that “Subjectivity is equated with consciousness, universal rationality, and self-regulating ethical behavior, whereas

Otherness is defined as its negative and specular counterpart” (p. 15). Such binary division and dualism perpetuate the unequal power dynamics between the human and the nonhuman, thereby enabling the difference between the two to act as an acceptable criterium to demarcate between the self and the other categories. Posthumanism sets out to remedy this dialectal tension propagated by humanism, which unequivocally favors the human and allows it to become the only agent to possess rational and reasonable thoughts. As Badmington (2003) explicitly puts it, “The task of posthumanism is to uncover those uncanny moments at which things start to drift, of reading humanism in a certain way, against itself and the grain” (p. 19). That is, the superior position of the 90

liberal and rational humanist subject is renounced, and, at the same time, categorical boundaries are undermined.

Take, for instance, the feminist and queer studies philosopher Judith Butler’s

(1999) deconstructive and poststructuralist work on the notion of gender performativity as a conceptual model to elucidate how gender identities do not contain any substance.

That is, gender is always about doing. There is no authenticity or originality in terms of theorizing what gender truly means. Compulsory heterosexuality creates an illusion of gender as being uniform and unchangeable while at the same time disciplining and punishing the kind of gender that deviates from its norms. According to Butler, gender is the effect of being constantly exposed to certain ways of doing gender. The way we act and behave in terms of our gender stems from our observation of how others act and behave. Such exposure leads to the assumption that gender should be done and enacted according to certain rules. As Butler elegantly asserts, “Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (p. 43-44). By extension, gender as a category can be troubled because this notion of repetition and citationality can be disrupted the moment we situate moments and instances that alternative strategies of doing gender are possible.

In thinking that gender is a historical event and what comes to constitute the perception of gender can be disassembled and reassembled. Accepting gender as a performative action means accepting that gender as a category is prone to rearticulations and renegotiations. 91

The idea that gender is always doing and becoming is of great importance because at its heart is the notion that it is impossible to produce human identities that are unified and stable. And Jasbir K. Puar (2012) pushes this idea further when she contends that the theory of intersectionality, which argues that human identities are understood as a product of different categories coming together so that a human subject can be formed, has certain limitations. By saying that human subjects are intersectional, Puar believes that categories have already existed and that these categories can be put together simultaneously in order to construct human identities. And if these categories have always been dictated and predetermined, then it is without a doubt feasible to acknowledge that these categories tacitly cause the production of the Other. Therefore,

Puar encourages us to rethink what categories really mean.

As Puar points out, “Categories—race, gender, sexuality—are considered events, actions, and encounters between bodies, rather than simply entities and attributes of subjects” (p. 58). Proclaiming that categories are historical events means proclaiming that they are never fixed, stabilized, or unchanged. To this end, intersectionality as assemblage, according to Puar, must never be about holding on to pre-established and predetermined categories. Rather, the theory of intersectionality needs to recognize that what constitute these categories always change and are never the same and that what constitute these categories can be assembled to produce newer categories to address human identities.

Collectively, the crux of the claims made by the above scholars is quite similar: categories are insufficient to fully account for the complexity of life whereas agency is 92

radically redefined to the extent that it is naïve to consider humanity’s central place in the formation of the subject, subject positions, subjectivity, and sense of self and to assume that an ability to act is solely reserved for humans.

Even though posthumanism signifies a move away from humanism and a leap to

“alternative ways of conceptualizing the human subject” (Braidotti, 2013, p. 37), it does not mean that it is anti-humanist; rather, posthumanist theory is built upon and grows out of this tradition (Veronese, 2016). Badmington (2003) views posthumanism as “a critical practice that occurs inside humanism, consisting not of the wake but the working-through of humanist discourse” (p. 22). Thus, posthumanist theory poses the question of how the human subject and its subjectivity can be conceptualized and theorized in a way “that is not anthropocentric and therefore not centered in Cartesian dualism” (Bolter, 2017, p. 1).

Any posthumanist project must take notice of the blurring of human/animal/machine boundaries in order to develop new ontological assumptions regarding the liberal humanist subject.

Posthumanist Theory and the Posthuman Subject

Braidotti (2016) contends that “Becoming posthuman consequently is a process of redefining one’s sense of attachment and connection to a shared world, a territorial space: urban, social, psychic, ecological, planetary as it may be” (p. 25). That is, posthumanism advocates for the type of radical thinking that undermines traditional hierarchical dichotomies. This perspective then endorses the formation of a posthuman subject that acknowledges this entanglement with the other beings and that does not shy away from reevaluating its subjectivity in the world. 93

In How We Became Posthuman, Hayles (1999a) writes that “In the posthuman, there are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot technology and human goals” (p. 3). Her writing then points toward the introduction of the posthuman subject that presents a reconceptualization of ontological assumptions of human and nonhuman agents. That is, the traditional liberal humanist subject that is universally uniform and can be differentiated from the nonhuman other beings is undermined. Hayles (1999a) states that “The posthuman subject is an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction” (p. 3). Therefore, the posthuman subject knows that its identity is not closed from but open for adaptation and negotiation. Because the posthuman subject rejects closed boundaries, which demarcate itself from other subjects, it endorses openness and welcomes changes with regard to how it constructs its identity and subjectivity.

The posthuman subject, according to Hayles (1999a), understands how information technologies open new ways to enhance human experience but does not become delusional in that these technologies may actually allow for a possibility of

“unlimited power and disembodied immortality” (p. 5). The posthuman subject further acknowledges that the human condition is associated with mortality and limits, and that

“human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival” (Hayles, 1999a, p. 5). Braidotti (2013) shares a similar conceptualization of the posthuman subject when arguing: “The posthuman 94

subject is not postmodern, because it does not rely on any anti-foundationalist premises.

Nor is it post-structuralist, because it does not function within the linguistic turn or other forms of deconstruction” (p. 188). That is, Braidotti hopes to outline an understanding of a posthuman subject that avoids some of the limits of a post-modern model that attempts to completely eradicate norms and established discourses. The linguistic system, with its restricted set of signifying devices, is not a sufficient model to accommodate the formation of the posthuman subject. To this end, the posthuman subject “is consequently not condemned to seek the adequate representation of its existence within a system that is constitutionally incapable of granting due recognition” (Braidotti, 2013, p. 188).

Braidotti’s concept of the posthuman cannot be clearly captured via the postmodern and poststructuralist matrix. Instead, it is, as Braidotti points out in an interview, “a relational subject constituted in and by multiplicity” (Veronese, 2016, p.

99). That is, the posthuman subject is constituted as a part of a complex system that also celebrates the existence of the other beings. To that extent, the posthuman subject cannot be clearly and pointedly defined. It is always becoming because it always has to interact with other beings.

Yet becoming posthuman does not actually correlate with the notion that one’s body has been technologically enhanced or that it has been replaced by or infused with manmade and artificial apparatuses. That is, posthumanism does not mean the strategic utilization of technologies to simply improve human life. Rather, as Hayles (1999a) illustrates, posthumanism “means envisioning humans as information-processing machines with fundamental similarities to other kinds of information-processing 95

machines, especially intelligent computers” (p. 246). She, therefore, challenges the notion of “human will” as the one particular feature that allows the human subject to override other agents in ways that benefit it the most. Hayles (1999a) particularly believes that

“the distributed cognition of the emergent human subject correlates with […] the distributed cognitive system as a whole, in which ‘thinking’ is done by both human and nonhuman actors” (p. 290) and that “when the human is seen as part of a distributed system, the full expression of human capability can be seen precisely to depend on the splice rather than being imperiled by it” (p. 290). Because human and nonhuman agents exist within an interdependent and interconnected ecology, posthumanism regards these kinds of relations as essential in order to comprehend the posthuman subject. Hayles

(2006) further perceives the posthuman “as a historically specific and contingent term rather than a stable ontology” (p. 160). Rather than standing on its own and being essentialized, the liberal humanist subject, together with its mode of existence, needs to consider the environment, technological agents, and animals at certain historical points.

These nonhuman elements inform and play a constitutive part in the construction of its subjectivity. It thus comes as no surprise that Hayles (1999a) deems subjectivity

“emergent rather than given, distributed rather than located solely in consciousness, emerging from and integrated into a chaotic world rather than occupying a position of mastery and control removed from it” (p. 291).

Grounded upon the notion that the posthuman subject has always been co-evolved with machine and animal, posthumanism introduces a new and alternative way of conceiving notions of agency as well as questions how they are distributed. To this end, it 96

underscores the need to redistribute agency to the nonhuman. The posthuman turn therefore signals the need for new vocabularies or nomenclatures to describe how the posthuman subject is not defined by the categories-bounded system of humanist ideologies. This posthuman turn indicates a response to the everchanging and fast- growing technological influences on the posthuman subject. The ontological formation of the posthuman subject then speaks directly to a critical process of border-transgression and boundary-crossings associated with the contemporary political, social, and cultural environments.

By recognizing human and nonhuman actors are deeply and intricately entangled within a complex system, posthumanism reevaluates universally established binary categories of nature and culture, leading to a possibility to redraw boundaries that differentiate them or to even undermine them. These dualistic categories leak into one another and it appears that boundaries sketched by them become muddy and evasive.

Haraway’s seminal text, “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialism

Feminism in the 1980s,” remains essentially important in the theorization of the posthuman subject.

Considering Haraway as belonging to the cultural posthumanism camp that ardently advocates for breaking down humanist values and categories, Miah (2008) argues that “posthumanism [from this perspective] is the study of the collapse of ontological boundaries, of which one central, but not isolated element, is the study of how moral landscapes might be transformed by this occurrence” (p. 90). And this tendency to rework these boundaries is evident in Haraway’s (1991) appropriation of the 97

concept of a cyborg— “a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (p. 149). Contending that

“cyborg is our ontology” (p. 150), Haraway points toward a social reality and lived sociality that question the nature of the human. For the human cannot be understood as being separate and different from other nonhuman entities in this technologically integrated society. Indicating the distinction among human/machine/animal categories as equivocal and ambiguous, Haraway states that the human, as a cyborg, can never be fixed.

Haraway recognizes that the way scientific practices are not objective but are grounded upon problematic operationalizations. Therefore, Haraway introduces the concept of the cyborg as an innovative springboard to reassess and reevaluate how science is done. Haraway encourages us to move away from traditional and conventional ways of theorizing social reality in order to welcome alternative or foreign perspectives to understand our world. Within this context, it makes sense as to why the cyborg imagery appeals to Haraway. Cyborgs are the manifestation of how boundaries between human and machine are blurred.

In urging for the adoption of a cyborg politics, Haraway ingeniously reimagines the line that separates the human and the machine, the organic and the inorganic. By demonstrating that the human category is not fixed or stabilized or closed, she paves the way for restructuring what it means to be human and calls for a broader understanding of the human subject. Haraway thus states that “So my cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusion, and dangerous possibilities which progressive people might 98

explore as one part of needed political work” (p. 154). That is, posthumanism understands the problem of naming and labeling because such practices set up boundaries that exclude and marginalize. To be a cyborg means to resist being bottled into certain categories and to challenge universalism. To be a cyborg means to be imaginative and creative in thinking about reality.

Haraway’s construction of cyborgs underscores the need to rearticulate categories and nudges us away from striving for a sort of human category that is exclusionary and thus produces the notion of the Other. More specifically, Haraway (1991) understands the transformative potentials invested within technological innovations to influence and to impact lived sociality and many aspects of constructed reality in significant ways. New technologies affect human relations, problematize privatized life, and cut open categorical boundaries that are established and are maintained in order to demarcate the us from the other. In writing about Haraway’s scholarship on the cyborg, Schneider

(2005) posits this image as follows: “Multiplicities. Heterodoxies. Monstrosities.

Improbable but promising couplings made by choice and based on assumed short-term common ends as well as means. These are the marks of Haraway’s cyborg as a figure to think and live with” (p. 66).

Haraway (1991) additionally argues how patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism work together and inform one another to dominate and oppress alternative ideas of gender, sex, and class while promoting its biasedness and restricted definition of what it means to be a woman or a person of a marginalized group. She calls out how this archaic and androcentric system demonizes the Woman, the Other, and the marginalized. Thus, a 99

cyborg politics rejects an overarching and universal theory that can explain human reality and therefore endorses a reconstruction of boundaries that tend to include some while simultaneously excluding others. Haraway (1991) concludes that “Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves” and elaborates that “It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories” (p. 181). That is, Haraway considers these cyborgs or hybridized beings as powerful and different enough to decenter the Western humanist subject.

Reckoning Haraway’s theorization of the cyborg to be a dominant contribution to posthuman feminist theory, Braidotti (2016) concludes that this concept “is both a postanthropocentric and postmetaphysical construct that offers a new political ontology, taking into account technological mediation while staying focused on the project of constructing an ecologically accountable, feminist, classless, sex-egalitarian, and anti- racist society” (p. 680). Gray et al. (1995) support this radical idea of Haraway, speculating that “Machines [in a cyborg society] are intimately interfaced with humans on almost every level of existence not only in the West and Japan but among the elite in every country of the world” (p. 3). Such an intimacy demonstrates how machines and organisms are so deeply interrelated that “there is a symbiosis and it is managed by cybernetics, the language common to the organic and the mechanical” (p. 4). Therefore, it may very simply become possible for the organic and the mechanical to not only interact but communicate with each other as well. Clearly, these theorists demonstrated how these binary human/machine categories can be taken apart and undermined in order to propose 100

a common and mutual language that can be shared and understood between these two entities.

Posthumanist Theory and Be(com)ing

What better way to deconstruct identarian categories than to think about human nature in terms of the tightly knotted relationship between being and becoming, or what I would refer to as be(com)ing—that is, becoming and being do not preexist one another but they instead happen simultaneously. Put it differently, humans come to be and become together and at the same time.

Based on his interpretation of the scholarly works of Gilles Deleuze and Félix

Guattari, Fancy (2010) arrives at a conclusion that “it is essential to conceive of thoughts and concepts themselves as events in life that trace a line of flight, a process of becoming, that are geared to allow us to move beyond that which we know so that we can consider new potentials and, in so doing, renew thought itself” (p. 96). In the words of the feminist philosopher Elizabeth Grosz (2001), “there is the possibility of thinking all sorts of inorganic forces and processes in terms of becoming” (p. 15). She continues, “Not only what man makes—i.e., technology and culture—but also, what makes man—i.e., nature.

To think becoming, in the sphere of nature as much as in the sphere of technology, seems to me a crucial project for the future” (p. 15). One conspicuous manifestation of this line of thinking is nomad thought suggesting that humanity should not assume human existence as closed off from influences by other beings. For instance, this perspective of nomad thought becomes the building block for Braidotti’s (2012) conceptualization of the body “as neither a biological nor a sociological category, but rather as a point of 101

overlap between the physical, the symbolic, and the sociological” (p. 33) and “as multi- functional and complex, as a transformer of flows and energies, affects, desires and imaginings” (p. 33).

In A User’s Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Brian Massumi (1992) devotes a part of his book to explaining theoretical underpinnings of nomad thought, writing that it “does not lodge itself in the edifice of an ordered interiority; it moves freely in an element of exteriority. It does not repose on identity; it rides difference” (p.

5). He then adds that nomad thought “does not respect the artificial division between the three domains of representation, subject, concept, and being; it replaces restrictive analogy with a conductivity that knows no bounds” (p. 5). In invoking that the origin of human existence rests in humanity’s relations to other phenomena and other nonhuman beings, Massumi (1992) therefore claims that “The subject is not psychological” (p. 26).

He clarifies this claim, positing that the subject “is not contained in any one mind” (p.

26), but rather is perceived as being “in the interactions between people” (p. 26). To that end, Massumi posits that “Our world is not static. It is an eternally recommenced creation. Its existence, like that of the living cell, depends on a constant folding, or contraction, of an aleatory outside that it can only partially control” (p. 53). Based in part on Massumi’s reading of Deleuze and Guattari, I argue that to exist and to be(com)e means to be able to translate the coming together of external and internal forces that move and contain in themselves a reservoir of potentialities. Translation then highlights the intra-action of beings, is a method of meaning-making, works at the intersection of expression and content, and never presumes predetermined conceptualization of 102

subject/object. Accepting translation as an ontological, epistemological, and methodological approach to contemplate our nature means accepting that we can be different but at the same time share something in common. Subtle things may be lost in translation and mistakes can be made in the process of translating. We know that we can never be right to capture the truth and the whole truth about our be(com)ing but we recognize that at least we try and we understand that in order to capture nuanced differences in life, we need to avoid depending on our predetermined knowledge and our preset biasedness to translate.

Rather than perceiving being and becoming as two different and subsequent stages in that we become in order for us to be, I suggest that being and becoming occur simultaneously, and both are co-constitutive components that make up a process which subsequently leads toward a state of be(com)ing, one that is never closed but is in ongoing (re)negotiations. In my view, then, a process is be(com)ing, one that never has a beginning and never comes into an end because we can never easily trace the journey of becoming. We think that we can trace this journey, but we cannot. Becoming so that we can be. Becoming so that we can arrive at some concrete destination linked to the nature of being. And becoming so that we can know that life never remains the same and never stay constant.

We become and we come into being at the exact moment that we know that we have to change and that we know that we have to grow. Being and becoming mutually influence and co-construct one another. Just when we are certain that we have become and thereby can be, then, another process of becoming is set in motion. We can never 103

merely be because we are always at the verge of becoming. We can never simply be because we never exist only by ourselves and remain untouched by others. Just when we think of our state of being as secured and as certain, we come to realize that this is never the case because to be means to be in relations with other phenomena. But phenomena are never fixed because they are animated, dynamic, and vital, which then galvanize us to become something else. Thus, in my opinion, rather than implying fixity, being means always becoming.

To recapitulate. Posthumanist theory takes at its philosophical, theoretical, and intellectual stakes the potentials for questioning the stability of the human category as well as for interrogating the way that a wide array of categories operates to construct an individual identity and to delimit conditions in which this individual is subjected. From the perspective of posthumanism, who can be counted as human remains both controversial and problematic at best in that humanism, grounded upon differences and otherization, facilitates the formation of racism, sexism, ableism, classism, and so on, all of which manifest themselves as the root causes of domination and oppression. In other words, the humanist tradition allows for the possibility of utilizing the human category as a justification to produce certain tactics to make those who are not human enough submit to its rules and to develop particular ideologies to take advantage of those who not uphold them.

With posthumanism, it is possible to recognize a history of violences that humanism has imposed upon individuals whom the human category excludes and marginalize. At the same time, it is also feasible to witness how these violences have 104

been integrated into a social structure that clearly privileges certain portions of the population and inevitably dehumanizes the other. To this end, posthumanism proposes a process of deconstructing and reconceptualizing the liberal human subject while simultaneously highlighting the limitations of the human category. In doing so, we can then make spaces for those who have been marginalized and alienated by past practices of exclusion.

Moreover, posthumanism functions as a productive and fecund theoretical framework that can motivate us to remain critical of how society is structured, to continually be skeptical about how our identities are constructed socially, politically, and culturally, and to stay wary of how categories are articulated and developed to dictate our perspectives toward life. That is, posthumanism requires us to pay attention to how a varied array of factors influences our understanding of the world. Therefore, it very simply seems that posthumanism advocates the notion of reimagining the society that we are familiar with. To this end, posthumanist theory encourages and promotes the adoption of unorthodox and innovative views to sketch a posthuman condition that can lead to a more inclusive and just world.

The way in which posthumanist theory sets out to destabilize binary categories in order to promote alternative strategies of rethinking how the world operates and how life is understood. To an extent, posthumanism entails consideration of possible alternative viewpoints that can inspire us to renegotiate and rearticulate what it means to be human and how dualisms include certain groups of individuals while excluding those who do not fit into the human category. 105

Posthumanist Theory and Science Fiction

Haraway (1991) explicitly attributes the process of telling and writing science fiction stories as a possibility to infuse new ideas and understandings of the world in order to redraw the common boundaries that bottle individuals to defined and particular categories. These stories pave the way for revamping stories typically told from Western humanistic perspectives and constructing hypothetical situations and scenarios in which the human category is equivocally reconceptualized while human beings do not fit into dualistic and dichotomic hierarchies.

In Primate Visions, Haraway (1989) explains that “Fiction can be imagined as a derivative, fabricated version of the world and experience, as a kind of perverse double for the facts or as an escape through fantasy into a better world than ‘that which actually happened’” (p. 3). She theoretically describes fiction as a possibility to tell stories that can envision possible worlds, which may deviate from reality, therefore welcoming alternative experiences and disparate subjectivities to be constructed as well as indicating a viable option to envision a deconstruction of established categories of sexuality, gender, race, and species. That is, nature and culture borderlands become renegotiated and redrawn within the realm of “speculative fiction, science fiction, science fantasy, speculative futures, speculative fabulation” (Haraway, 1989, p. 5). This particular way of storytelling, which highlights human interactions with the nonhuman other and its repercussions, can be most clearly seen in her critical reading of Octavia E. Butler’s science fiction Xenogenesis trilogy. According to Haraway (1989), Butler underscores the themes of “the interdigitations of human, machine, nonhuman animal or alien, and their 106

mutants in relation to the intimacies of bodily exchange and mental communication” (p.

378). Once this idea of intermixing becomes possible and doable in science fiction worlds, Butler’s speculative story, therefore, invites readers to both contemplate new boundaries and to rearticulate their imaginations with regard to this high-tech society or futuristic culture.

In “A Cyborg Manifesto,” Haraway (1991) develops a detailed account of science fiction writers as “theorists for cyborgs” (p. 173) and considers them as pushing for a kind of cyborg politics, which embraces new ways of thinking through the notion of embodiment during this contemporary age. Haraway (1991) adopts “the perspective of cyborgs” (p. 176) that is not bounded in “the need to ground politics in ‘our’ privileged position of the oppression that incorporates all domination, the innocence of the merely violated, the ground of those closer to nature” (p. 176) in order to move away from the monolithic and essentialized conceptualization of reality.

Science fiction writers, representing a kind of cyborg writing, call out the problem of constructing stories based on Eurocentric ideas, which tend to prohibit voices of the other and perpetuate oppression. That is, these science fiction authors recognize this problem, and set out to tell stories that can weave these archaic and exclusionary perceptions of a patriarchal society into an experimental sort of narrative in order to problematize, exhaust, and rework them so that they can be rehabilitated in ways that provide these authors with an opportunity to communicate a message about new possibilities to disrupt dichotomies of naturalized identities and to subvert the dominant system. 107

According to Haraway, science fiction stories do not proceed from anywhere.

Rather they are stories that, despite being grounded in a patriarchal society, are being retold so that the false dichotomy between human/machine categories could be reimaged and reimagined. To this end, Haraway perceives the popularization of science fiction stories as a feasible possibility and a unique opportunity to remap the past, to negotiate the present, as well as to speculate the future.

Hayles (1995) concurs, noting that “cyborg narratives [mostly created in science fiction] can be understood as stories only by reference to the very life cycle narratives that are no longer sufficient to explain them” (p. 323). Reading these stories, one can locate some traces of the past and some hints toward the future because the old and the new are mixed and knitted together in order to construct cyborg subjectivities. Hayles

(1999a) offers an important recognition of analyzing science fiction texts, which indicates a position of awareness from which the notion of human subjectivity and embodiment can be challenged. A critical analysis of these stories, as Hayles asserts, could indicate the process of decentering the human nature so that new conceptualizations may be introduced in order to capture a shift with regard to the existence and evolution of the human species in the contemporary technology-infused modern society. For instance, comparing and contrasting four different science fiction texts, namely Greg Bear’s Blood

Music, Cole Perriman’s Terminal Games, Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2, and Neal

Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Hayles (1999a) argues that “Instead of being represented as a

(decontextualized) mind thinking, the subjects of these texts achieve consciousness through recursive feedback loops cycling between different levels of coding” (p. 251). 108

Implicit in this argument lies the idea of how science fiction stories challenge normative ways of understanding the human subject by pointing to a recognition of human consciousness as a relational concept that can only be understood in terms of its interactions between human and non-human agents. That is, the posthuman subjects are not structured via universally dichotomic and dualistic categories. Rather, they can be defined via a multiplicity of their fractured identities and their relationality with other subjects. They do not stay constant but keep on changing. And they can transgress binary categories. Her critical discussion of these particular science fiction literary texts reveals that “the construction of the posthuman is also deeply involved with boundary, particularly when the redrawing of boundaries changes the locus of selfhood” (Hayles,

1999a, p. 279). Henceforth, one can begin to comprehend why both Haraway and Hayles attribute science fiction literature to imagine and envisage a future that reconsiders and rearticulates humanist conceptions of the human subject.

Posthumanist Theory and Black Mirror

If Haraway and Hayles accurately position science fiction literary texts as a productive ground for examining the prevalent existence of hybridized creatures in speculative worlds, then, it could be feasible to characterize science fiction television as a continuation of this tradition of investigating how high-tech worlds foster new meanings of being human. Apart from emphasizing the development of complex and innovative narratives on this topic, science fiction television programs enable these creatures to become alive, to appear imaginable, and to materialize on the small screen. That is, this complex visual materialization of cyborg imagery functions to produce affect and 109

emotion that probably foreground a certain set of feelings, which might unnerve and complicate the comfortable and typical way that people perceive their realities. These science fiction television programs negotiate a range of concerns in the way people interact, socialize, and behave in contemporary societies. Therefore, one can begin to acknowledge how science fiction television can operate as an alternative, yet powerful, medium to transport viewers to new worlds that can withstand the influence of a humanist conception of the human and the tendency toward the centering of a human subject. That is, due to its capacity to attract wider ranges of viewers, science fiction television may displace science fiction literature to become an important and popular space that introduces them to a posthumanist understanding of humanity. As a science fiction television program, one can assume that Black Mirror seems to offer a rich account of the progression of the genre, which presents itself as a cultural product that manages to preserve and continue the legacy of telling complicatedly speculative stories about human/machine symbiotic relationships within contemporary societies, spearheaded by science fiction literature.

As a science fiction television program, Black Mirror constructs multiple versions of dystopian societies. That is, residing in these societies means to recognize how technologies adeptly weave into human existence and hold an essential place in human life. To this extent, the science fiction television program accounts for a call to reevaluate the meaning of being human when binary categories of human and machine become compromised. This dissertation investigates how these unique and hypothetical scenarios foster the emergence of posthuman identities. Locating it within the theoretical concerns 110

articulated by dominant thinkers, such as Braidotti, Haraway, or Hayles, in posthumanist theory, this dissertation addresses the ways that Black Mirror envisions how the posthuman subject may navigate between the blurred boundaries that demarcate human and non-human relationships.

This account of posthuman subjects as constructed in Black Mirror entails a particular understanding of a historical moment in contemporary society that similarly restructures and renegotiates human agency, and specifying this human/machine relationship helps to situate how this television program demystifies or demythologizes this kind of relationship, produces a push against cardinally established categories, and challenges the ontological assumption of modernity. To this extent, Black Mirror depicts a postmodern society impacted by the integration of new technologies and therefore begs the question of whether these new technologies contribute to a newer meaning of human bodies, interactions, genders, and sexualities. To this end, this science fiction television program reveals the unanticipated and unexpected repercussions of the application of new technologies into society. It presents a unique opportunity to take apart and deconstruct oppositional human/machine categories and contributes to the ongoing and contested debate surrounding the status of the human during this contemporary time and age.

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Chapter 4: Methodology

Mediated texts are “cultural artifacts” (Brennen, 2012, p. 193). Evaluating and analyzing them can help uncover and determine how cultural ideas are circulated and how social facts are created in public imaginaries and popular contexts.

Due to its multifaceted and variegated speculations of futuristic alternative worlds, Black Mirror constructs a realm of science fiction-esque scenarios which exploit narratives that potentially bind humans and technology together, ones that illustrate the salience of technology, ones that refuse to let it fade into the background, ones that deem it one key actant that drives the plot, and ones that recognize its impact(s) on humanity but in a problematically unexpected manner.

The common thread that interlaces distinctive and separate episodes and unifies them into a coherent and cohesive anthology, that Black Mirror is, seems to be an overarching theme that illuminates the deeply entangled nature between humanity and technology. That is, this science fiction television program imagines possible futures that can help illuminate or kindle the need to have critical dialogues about this kind of relationship and to encourage meaningful discussions of posthuman self, posthuman subject, and posthuman subjectivity in this contemporary politico-socio-cultural epoch.

In this regard, a qualitative textual analysis proves beneficial to unpack and parse out a set of ideologies and discourses Black Mirror incorporates into its narratives in its explorations of the co-constitutive roles of both technology and humanity to construct the reality. In particular, because I am intrigued by these speculative predicaments and fictional quandaries linked to the narrativization and storytelling in Black Mirror, I 112

conduct a textual analysis of a selection of ten episodes to answer the two following research questions:

RQ1: How does Black Mirror depict the entangled relationship between

technology and humans?

RQ2: How does Black Mirror articulate posthuman subjects?

One caveat though: these two research questions do not place an emphasis on investigating how audiences decode, interpret, and negotiate Black Mirror. Rather, they are developed to critically analyze how televisual narratives, in and of themselves, are created in a mediated text to introduce and propagate certain kinds of ideologies toward the understanding of the posthuman subject and the posthuman condition.

By extension, the objective of the study is twofold: it first deconstructs dominant and hegemonic meanings embedded in Black Mirror, as a meditated televisual text, which depicts the entangled, intimate, and symbiotic technology/human relationship in the digital age and how this entanglement may transform common perceptions of humanity, and secondly aims to reimagine and reconsider how to think through the limitations of the humanist tradition to deliberate and recontextualize the complexity of this technology relationship/human as told within a variety of ten narratives.

Grounded upon the theoretical terrain of posthumanism, this study focuses the attention on how discourses surrounding the posthuman subject are articulated and then rearticulated in this science fiction television program, thereby indicating an attempt to contribute to socio-political debates and critical conversations surrounding this complex and contested topic. 113

This chapter describes the methodology and research methods that are deployed to conduct the study. First, it provides the rationale behind the decision that considers textual analysis as the most proper methodology to guide this study. It also outlines the two research methods chosen for this study—narrative rhetorical criticism and articulation. It then explains in detail the criteria to justify the selection process of what episodes to be utilized for the study. It further elaborates on the analysis procedure. This chapter ends with an account of my positionality as the researcher, highlighting my reflexivity and underlining my biases, both of which may pose as limitations in my analysis of Black Mirror and may cause restrictions on how I approach the chosen episodes.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research has at its roots an embrace of humanistic values and an intent to highlight the notion of subjectivity in the quest for knowledge production (Denzin &

Lincoln, 2005). Qualitative research is interpretive at its core, celebrates nature as socially constructed, and “involves the studied use and collection of a variety of empirical materials […] that describe routine and problematic moments and meanings in individuals’ lives” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 3-4).

Qualitative research deviates itself from positivism—a philosophical tradition that holds that social facts are objective, and therefore can be quantitatively measured

(Silverman, 2014). This kind of objectivity, which guides quantitative researchers, indicates that the research setting does not influence how social constructs are operationalized and that the findings are generalizable to a broad population. To this end, 114

it is possible to generate scientifically justifiable data to understand social phenomena and objective reality by utilizing empirically measurable and testable quantifiers to support or reject hypotheses.

On the contrary, a qualitative approach to conduct research, as Creswell (2013) succinctly demonstrates, generally endorses inductive reasoning and rejects the notion that objective truth exists out there and independently. In other words, the ontological assumption that multiple realities exist and the epistemological belief that knowledge can be generated via the budding relationship between the researcher and the researched together guide qualitative research. Jensen (1991) asserts that the insufficiency of deductive approach and quantitative methodology to provide answers or explanations for certain research questions, and a recognition that cultural and historical contexts influence the generation of scientific knowledge both have resulted in a qualitative turn in mass communication research. Therefore, this qualitative turn acknowledges the need to reassessing the nature of reality and how a phenomenon can be discovered and studied.

Also, qualitative research recognizes the researcher’s subjectivity and presence in this research process (Jensen, 1991). Therefore, it is certainly possible to contend that qualitative research acknowledges biasedness and that the researcher will always be visible in the research process.

Critical Theory and Textual Analysis

In situating this project within the critical/cultural paradigm in qualitative media studies, I aim to engage extensively with the scholarship produced by a variety of critical theorists in order to shine a spotlight on the way in which Black Mirror carry materials 115

and themes within the narrative that can help facilitate meaningful dialogues about the posthuman condition and generate productive conversations about the resulting transformation of human nature in the digital age—in effect, placing my textual analysis of this mediated text in posthumanist theory and in contemporary discourse of the entangled technology/human relationship.

Critical theory takes as its central theme a special attention to the way that knowledge is formulated and its relation to power. Because critical theorists remain skeptical about the promise of progress and transcendence since the start of modernity made by the Enlightenment intellectuals and philosophers, they work to interrogate how, rather than fulfilling this optimistic vision, humanity has gone off the rails in the pursuit of a better, more equal, more just, and more modern society (Bronner, 2011; Buchanan,

2010). And because critical theorists also remain suspicious of the approach propagated by traditional theory that has at its core an intent to elucidate social structures in an objective manner and through empirical methods that can stand against the test of time and can be applicable to the population at large, they choose, instead, to position these social structures within their historical specificities, thereby delineating the historical contexts, sketching the historical landscapes, and charting the historical conditions, all of which would contribute to the reification of their subjective set of dominant values that would subsequently alienate the people. In doing so, critical theorists can look at them reflexively and with sharp eyes so that they can critique power dynamics that put in place these subjective social structures in order to not only reveal and uncover social limitations but to search for potentials for liberation and emancipation as well (Bronner, 116

2011; Buchanan, 2010). Thus, critical theory serves as an explanatory framework that is committed to disclosing the operation of the discursive matrix of power that gives rise to a system of ideologies that produce oppression and perpetuate domination. The ultimate agenda of critical theory then is to make strange the familiar so that the normative values of cultural and social norms, be it gender, race, sexuality, and so on, can be questioned, and problematized to the extent that it is possible to create and introduce new, and sometimes radical even, opportunities to contemplate and experience social reality.

More specifically, Lindlof and Taylor (2011) discuss the rising popularity of the critical paradigm within qualitative communication research and the way that it comes to influence and inform how this kind of research is conducted and implemented. In writing that power relations play an essential and important part in the construction of social reality, they conclude that “these traditions promote ethically and politically sensitive study of the relationships among power, knowledge, and discourse that are produced in situations of historical and cultural struggle” (p. 10). To make sense of these power relations means paying particular attention to how discourses of power contain and shape social realities through hegemonic ideologies linked to both political and cultural structures. In the words of Lindlof and Taylor (2011), “there is no ‘outside’ to ideology— only a field of competing narratives about what is good, true, and possible in social life”

(p. 55). In other word, the most important epistemological contribution of critical theory in qualitative communication research is the notion that the formalization and formulation of knowledge can only be done within and inside subjective and historical contexts. According to Jensen (1991), “Perhaps the key contribution of the humanities to 117

qualitative research is an empathetic commitment to studying the language of particular texts and genres in their historical setting” (p. 18). Based on these views, I, therefore, position the study within the cultural studies tradition, which is evidently committed to addressing “how the production, circulation, and interpretation of cultural artifacts contribute to ongoing contestation that is conducted within and between cultural groups”

(Lindlof & Taylor, 2011, p. 65-66). Given an intent to uncover and decode meanings associated with Black Mirror, I turn to textual analysis as a methodology that can allow me to accomplish the objective of the study.

Rooted “in the tradition of literary criticism and art history,” textual analysis is a humanistic approach to interpret, to decode, and to make meanings out of a mediated text, which is defined “to be significant carriers of cultural values and insights […] to provide important and valuable aesthetic experiences” (Larsen, 2012, p. 134). In particular, McKee (2003) perceives this methodology to be “useful for researchers working in cultural studies, media studies, in mass communication, and perhaps even in sociology and philosophy” (p. 1). As a methodology, textual analysis allows researchers to decide what aspects of mediated texts that they are most interested in and helps them frame the types of questions that can lead to a productive and valuable generation of knowledge. Rather than characterizing a text “as a closed, segmented object with determinate, composite meanings” (p. 122). Larsen (1991) contextualizes it “as an indeterminate field of meaning in which intentions and possible effects intersect” (p.

122). Larsen’s concept of the text then endorses an analytic method that can “bring out the whole range of possible meanings, not least the ‘hidden’ message of the text” (p. 118

122). Hartley (2002) additionally notes that “[textual analysis] is not a scientific method with falsifiable hypotheses, testable observations and generalisable, predictive results” (p.

31). Questions linked to this methodology are qualitative in that they require researchers to uncover hidden meanings rather than merely manifest ones. Thus, textual analysis endorses the possibility to investigate what mediated texts contain at more in-depth levels. Textual critics examine discourses and ideologies that operate to structure the content of mediated texts. By so doing, they can address what these texts have to say in terms of how identity, subjectivity and other issues, politics or culture, are constructed and presented.

Furthermore, textual analysis refers to a way of gathering and analyzing data obtained from mediated texts, facilitating the possibility of drawing meaningful conclusions and implications based upon them. While stressing that textual analysis entails the process of “making educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of a text” (p. 70), McKee (2003) also warns that “[Textual analysis] relies on messy concepts like originality, creativity and inspiration, on researchers living in, or studying cultures, and seeing what they think are interesting aspects of that culture”

(p. 70). This messiness can therefore be considered as its pitfall and presents itself as a challenge with regard to this methodology.

However, textual analysis remains a powerful approach to digging deep into discovering meanings that mediated texts contain. That is, textual critics are required to situate context, to pay attention to the genre, to take notice of intertextuality, and to identify discourses that structure meanings embedded in the text (McKee, 2003). Given 119

the aim and scope of this methodology, textual analysis is the most suited to guiding my analysis of selected episodes in Black Mirror. In addition, Berger (2016, 2019) descriptively outlines a variety of common research methods regarding textual analysis, namely discourse analysis, ideological criticism, Marxist analysis, psychoanalytic criticism, rhetorical criticism, semiotic analysis or sociological analysis. This project then adopts a narrative approach to rhetorical criticism as well as utilizes the method of articulation developed by Stuart Hall in order to analyze this science fiction television programs. Both of these two methods are detailed below.

Narrative Rhetorical Criticism

One of the most common research techniques that allow for meaningful and critical analysis of televisual mediated texts has been rhetorical criticism (Berger, 2016;

O’Donnell, 2013; Ott & Mack, 2014; Vande Berg, Wenner, & Gronbeck, 2004). Foss

(2009), for instance, deems rhetorical criticism as “a qualitative research method that is designed for the systematic investigation and explanation of symbolic acts and artifacts for the purpose of understanding rhetorical processes” (p. 6).

In particular, Kuypers and King (2016) conceptualize rhetoric as a type of communication that is developed and constructed by the speaker to persuade a certain audience and that can help the speaker to achieve specifiable goals. Always intentional and often deployed to obtain certain objectives, the scope of rhetoric can be extended to include discourses from print, social media, television, films, and so on, rather than simply including public speaking or public speeches (Foss, 2009; Kuypers & King,

2016). Based on this observation, I therefore position Black Mirror as a rhetorical 120

artifact, and thereby investigate this quality science fiction television program within this tradition.

Writing about the nature of criticism as a method, Kuypers (2016) states that

“criticism is an art, not a science” (p. 23). He continues, “It is not a scientific method; it uses probability-based methods of argument, not in conjunction with other methods of generating knowledge (i.e., social scientific or scientific)” (p. 23). Criticism does not have to follow the guiding principles in social scientific fields, and it is one of many methods that are typically utilized in the humanities. According to Kuypers (2016), the act of criticism entails three stages: conceptual, communication, and countercommunication.

The conceptual stage requires critics to engage in the act of cerebration in order to

“generate some type of insight concerning the rhetorical artifact” (Kuypers, 2016, p. 23).

This process of cerebration is very personal because “there is not standardized way critics go about flexing their cerebral muscles” (Kuypers, 2016, p. 23). It does not matter whether they apply a pre-existing theory to help guide them through this process or they can make an attempt to analyze a rhetorical artifact with fresher eyes. Here it can be argued that rhetorical critics apparently are at the center of reflecting and controlling the direction that they intend their criticism to head to. The communication stage instructs the critics to write down what they discover about their rhetorical artifacts or acts. They are expected to situate their target audience who will read their analysis. During this stage, the critics should adopt a rhetorical perspective or “a theoretical orientation” to “help guide criticism of a rhetorical fact” (Kuypers, 2016, p. 24). A rhetorical perspective 121

presents the critics with possibilities to either narrow down their criticism or to enable them to locate the angle or angles for their analysis of a rhetorical artifact. To decide upon what kind of perspectives to direct the criticism, as Kuypers (2016) argues, relies on

“the critic’s personal interest” (p. 26) and “the unique characteristics of the rhetorical artifact being examined” (p. 27). Rhetorical criticism varies, depends on the type of rhetorical artifacts, and does not follow a strict set of rules that dictate how the critic should analyze them. The countercommunication stage entails the process of receiving feedback from the audience in order to build upon them, to polish the findings, and to make sure that the criticism is sound. Kuypers (2016) concludes that “What we are about during this stage of the critical act is none other than entering into dialogue about matters of importance” (p. 28). Although textual critics do not have to follow a formal formula when conducting any type of criticism project, they should first describe the artifact, then interpret and analyze it, and finally evaluate it (Kuypers, 2016). Foss further describes the four steps linked to conducting rhetorical criticism: “selecting an artifact” (p. 9),

“analyzing the artifact” (p. 10), “formulating a research question” (p. 11), and “writing the essay” (p. 13). Taken together, I follow both Kuypers’s recommendation concerning applying criticism and Foss’s (2009) suggestion with regard to doing rhetorical criticism in this study. In particular, I apply the narrative perspective in rhetorical criticism to study how Black Mirror depicts the relationship between technology and humans and how the program articulates posthuman subjects in the narrative.

According to Larsen (2012), studying narratives encoded in meditated text “has been one of the most fertile interdisciplinary fields of study during recent decades, and 122

has proven particularly effective and valuable for analytical purposes” (p. 138). Rather than focusing on the aesthetics of Black Mirror, this study investigates how each narrative of each selected episode is constructed in order to disclose and reveal discourses embedded within each text in addition to discovering values and moral lessons that each narrative embodies and conveys. In other words, this dissertation project continues this qualitative textual analysis tradition.

Let me call attention to the conceptual and theoretical model of the narrative paradigm. Walter Fisher is the key figure who has played a crucial part in the imminent popularity of this narrative paradigm in communication studies. In introducing the notion of homo narrans to conceptualize the nature of humans, Fisher (1984) adds another dimension to the way in which human beings are theorized and understood. He provides a conceptual framework that comes to reshape how to comprehend humanity. The perception of humans as storytellers is rooted in the idea that they make sense of the world by narrativizing and constructing stories, an important theoretical point Fisher depends on such that it serves as the building block that allows him to provocatively make an ontological claim that narratives are indeed an innate, and inherent aspect of human nature. In other words, to be human means to have the capacity to develop and create narratives, which, as Fisher believes, is universal and can be found across cultures.

Mayer (2014) agrees, stating that “Whatever else we are, we humans are a storytelling animal” (p. 53). That is, he perceived the ability to tell stories as a unique human characteristic that demarcates humans from other animals. The historian Hayden White

(1980) also elaborates upon this notion, writing that “narrative is a metacode, a human 123

universal on the basic of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted” (p. 6). With narratives, it is possible for humans to communicate, interact, and socialize with other human beings among the same culture as well as those from different cultures. White further stresses the importance of narrativization across cultures, contending that “the absence of narrative capacity or a refusal of narrative indicates an absence or refusal of meaning itself” (p. 6). In this context, the scholar draws a connection between meaning-making and storytelling.

Predicated upon White’s assertion, it very simply seems that the narrative capacity is not only a distinctive human trait but does have an integral part in shaping and constructing how the world can be comprehended as well. In this regard, to communicate and to produce knowledge of the world requires that humans narrate and tell stories. And the construction of narrative, according to the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1980), comes to facilitate the emergence of narrative time, an odd kind of time that deviates from the common perception of public time because it comes to connote the notion of

“being-with-others” (p. 188), which is to say that narrative time is shared among humans who, by listening to a story, come to be transported to a different temporal dimension, one that is clearly much detached from the one they are much accustomed to in reality.

Bruner (2004) additionally emphasizes the importance of narrative when he considers how narrativization becomes the one and only technique that renders it possible for humans to communicate their experience to others. More specifically, he claims that “a life as led is inseparable from a life as told” (p. 708). In this view, these scholars forwardly highlight the significance of storytelling and underscore the idea that stories 124

narrated and re-narrated by humans to one another or to groups of other humans are what make them human.

When Fisher (1984) regards homo narrans as a potential metaphorical term to contemplate human nature, it appears possible that he sets out to challenge the way in which traditional rationality has been perceived as the primary principle mostly utilized to comprehend how humans communicate and make decisions. According to Fisher, the rational world paradigm presumes that humans need reason and logic in order to structure their actions and behaviors. Traditional rationality is needed if humans wish to participate in social and political activities. That is, Fisher argues that rationality simply functions as an instrument that can allow humans to make sense of the world. To an extent, traditional rationality can alienate, disempower, and marginalize certain members of the public who do not have an opportunity to be taught how to become rational while, at the same time, placing more values upon what the experts have to say.

By delineating the limitations of the rational world paradigm, Fisher then proposes that the narrative paradigm be adopted. In particular, he (1984) claims that “The narrative paradigm, then, can be considered a dialectical synthesis of two traditional strands in the history of rhetoric: the argumentative, persuasive theme and the literary, aesthetic theme” (p. 2). The narrative paradigm encourages rhetorical scholars to focus their attention on both the function and the form of any rhetorical artifact. Fisher (1984) elaborates that “The materials of the narrative paradigm are symbols, signs of consubstantiation, and good reasons, the communicative expressions of social reality” (p.

8). To this end, the narrative paradigm allows for a holistic view toward an investigation 125

of not only what elements are utilized to structure a narrative but also what external, cultural, and social factors contribute to the construction of this narrative.

The ontological assumption of humans as storytellers or a storytelling animal lays the foundation for Fisher’s development of the concept of narrative rationality, which does not have a set of predetermined rules that people need to follow if they want to make a rational judgment. The scholar (1984) further proposes that “all persons have the capacity to be rational in the narrative paradigm” (p. 10). That is, narrative rationality does not need to be learned because it is regarded as an innate trait in humans. In other words, all members of the public are equally well-equipped with the ability to decide whether the narrative to which they listen is a good or a bad one. People do not need to be taught to rationalize what constitutes a good story.

According to Fisher (1985), narrative rationality is constituted by two principles that can guide listeners to determine whether or not a story manages to communicate the message the speaker intends to tell and to ascertain whether or not it is constructed effectively: narrative probability and narrative fidelity. If the former principle enables people to pay attention to “formal features of a story conceived as a discrete sequence of thought and/or action in life or literature (any recorded or written form of discourse)” (p.

349), then, the latter principle functions as a guide to focus on “the ‘truth qualities’ of the story, the degree to which it accords with the logic of good reasons: the soundness of its reasoning and the values of its values” (p. 349). In other words, people use narrative probability to establish the coherency of a narrative while they apply narrative fidelity to make a comparison between the narrative and their own experiences and sets of personal 126

values. Under the narrative paradigm, these two principles operate together as a system that renders it possible for people to interpret stories.

In addition, Fisher (1985) deems the narrative paradigm as yielding a more productive understanding and generating more efficacious knowledge with regard to human communication than the rational world paradigm. His claim is met with a deluge of criticisms, however. For instance, Warnick (1987) points out that, when Fisher finds an issue with the rational world paradigm, it appears that he centers it around “technical rationality” (p. 177), therefore failing to take into consideration other subforms of traditional rationality, “such as practical reasoning and moral argument” (p. 177). In addition to her skepticism of the fact that Fisher apparently distributes too much agency to members of the public regarding the way they employ narrative rationality, Warnick not only indicates how Fisher does not manage to “enlarge and expand the circle of critical evaluation” (p. 181), but she also argues that the narrative paradigm relegates the claims of the critic to the peripheral position. While Fisher’s attempt to argue for the need to embrace the narrative paradigm to study how humans communicate if human communication is to be perceived as stories does make sense, Rowland (1987) claims that this paradigm is not without limitations. That is, according to Rowland, Fisher fails to develop a clearer and less ambiguous set of rules that can make his approach more effective to study narratives. To this end, Rowland (1987) argues that “narrative should be studied as one among many modes of argumentative proof, all of which are subject to standards of informal logic, and one among many rhetorical devices for persuading an audience” (p. 274). In other words, both Warnick and Rowland demonstrate that one 127

should be mindful and cautious of the scope that the narrative paradigm can allow rhetorical critics to cover, leading them to question Fisher’s ambition to argue for the rejection of the rational world paradigm and to highlight that Fisher might have overstated and might have exaggerated the usefulness and effectiveness of the narrative paradigm. Despite the aforementioned critical attention, it appears that Fisher successfully presents how the narrative paradigm can be viewed as an alternative to investigating human communication. Fisher thus foregrounds the need to recognize narrative as an inherent and intuitive manifestation of human communication.

Moreover, Nelson (2001) lays out the features of narratives: depictive, selective, interpretive, and connective. These four features operate together and inform one another in order to construct the meaning of a narrative. That is, storytellers strategically organize a wide array of ideas and materials, which are drawn from social reality and reference lived experiences in a chronological sequence such that the narrative constructed and created can reflect how these ideas and materials are interpreted and how they are combined together as well as are linked to other narratives by these storytellers. Nelson

(2001) further claims that “Through its selective, interpretive, and connective representation of human experience over time, it makes a certain sort of sense of some part of what it is to be human” (p. 15). In other words, these four features manifest themselves within a narrative by disclosing the way in which people want to be represented and want to be received.

In his discussion of the differences among annals, chronicle, and history proper,

White (1980) proposes that real events are not inherently narratives because they just 128

happen as they are. It is through the process of narrativization that narratives of real events emerge because humans present them in such ways that highlight their significance. To this end, humans do not narrativize or construct their narratives from nothing, meaning that they are influenced by a motley assortment of internal and external factors. In particular, White defines the social system as an important apparatus that tends to have an impact on how meanings are embedded in a narrative. That is, a social system needs to produce a moral system that can enable people to cultivate a set of perspectives and viewpoints, which can teach them to determine what is right and what is wrong.

“[N]arrativity, certainly in factual storytelling and probably in fictional storytelling as well,” White (1980) asserts, “is intimately related to, if not a function of, the impulse to moralize reality, that is, to identify it with the social system that is the source of any morality that we can imagine” (p. 18). In essence, narratives always carry within themselves a rhetorical function, meaning that humans construct their stories with an intention to persuade their listeners to adopt and agree with the sort of moral messages that they wish to communicate in their narratives. It then becomes understandable as to why White (1980) explicitly postulates that “narrativizing discourse serves the purpose of moralizing judgments” (p. 27).

Insofar as a narrative is told, is presented in front of an audience, and is heard by its members, it becomes certain that the narrative needs to demonstrate this sense of moralization. As Mayer (2014) best puts it, “narrative almost inevitably carries with it a normative undertone, a moral stance” (p. 77). He then adds, “When we enact narrative, we just as inevitability seek to cast ourselves as acting appropriately, legitimately, and 129

morally” (p. 77). What he suggests here undoubtedly highlights the complex nature of narrative. To narrativize means to communicate a message of promoting certain moral values. Mayer (2014) therefore proclaims, “And as with intelligibility, we not only use narrative to justify our actions, we act in ways that can be justified by a story in which our character did the right thing” (p. 77). He further notices, “We anticipate the moral of the narrative in which our actions will be interpreted, anticipate being held to account for the moral implications of our actions” (p. 77). It is then possible to put forward the notion that moralization is expected to be implied within any sort of narrative.

If one begins to recognize that a narrative must always be chronologically sequenced with closure, then it is necessary to pay attention to its form, which has been the main interest of structuralists. And if one begins to apprehend that a narrative must always contain implicit and tacit moral messages that its listeners can relate to or can identify with, then it is also essential to put efforts into studying its functions, which has been what functionalists have set out to do (Mayer, 2014; Rowland, 2016). In essence, a compelling narrative should contain both form and function.

The Method of Articulation

Mediated texts contain certain ideologies and are constructed within particular discourses. That is, social, historical, political, and cultural forces inform one another and work together in order to influence how they are produced. This recognition means one thing—that is, mediated texts are never innocent, bias-free, or value-neutral. And articulation is the most productive research method to make explicit the co-constitutive workings of these components linked to mediated texts. 130

The concept of articulation can be considered as both a theory and a method.

According to Slack (1996), articulation acts as a theoretical framework in that it is “a way of characterizing a social formation without falling into the twin traps of reductionism and essentialism” (p. 113). As a method, articulation “suggests a methodological framework for understanding what cultural study does . . . [and] . . . provides strategies for undertaking a cultural study, a way of ‘contextualizing’ the object of one’s analysis”

(Slack, 1996, p. 113). Articulation enables the researcher to overcome the reductionist and essentialist limitations typically associated with the formation of identities and subjectivities. Articulation then recognizes how a wide array of elements and factors, which are mutually, correspondingly, or even contradictorily related, contributes to the development of a subject. More specifically, DeLuca (1999) defines articulation as “a means to understand the struggle to fix meaning and define reality temporarily” (p. 334).

Articulation then allows for the possibility of paying attention to the shortcomings of

“social formations” that reflect “simple, or expressive totalities” (Clarke, 2015, p. 276).

To this end, articulation encourages the researcher to take notice of the linking of different elements or factors and the way they are assembled together in order to produce coherent subjects.

Stuart Hall (2016) offers a full definition of articulation in one of his lectures reprinted into the book titled Cultural Studies 1983: A Theoretical History. In it, Hall explicitly characterizes articulation as “the form of the connection that can make a unity of two different elements under certain conditions” (p. 121). For Hall, articulation is then understood as “a linkage which is not necessary, determined, absolute, and essential for 131

all time” (p. 121). To this extent, because the practice of linking elements together need not be perceived “as a law or a fact of life” (Hall, 2016, p. 121), the method of articulation entails a critical attention to investigating and unpacking the way that they come to be connected in the first place. In the words of Hall, “[Articulation] requires particular conditions of existence to appear at all, and so one has to ask, under what circumstances can a connection be made” (p. 121). According to him, “So the so-called

‘unity’ of a discourse, for example, is really the articulation of different, distinct elements which can be rearticulated in different ways because they have no necessary

‘belongingness’” (p. 121). Hall further elaborates that “An articulation has to be positively sustained by specific processes; it is not ‘eternal’ but has constantly be renewed” (p. 121). Hall thus believes that new linkages can be created and forms out of the same elements that constitute old ones.

In a later interview with Grossberg (1996), Hall argues that “The ‘unity’ which matters is a linkage between that articulated discourse and the social forces with which it can, under certain historical conditions, but need not necessarily, be connected” (p. 141).

That is, articulation examines how elements work together to form a subject, but this subject is not stable, and its reification and materialization can be rearticulated.

Predicated upon “certain conditions,” it is possible to break the linkage and to determine how different elements are rearticulated or reassembled to facilitate the formation of a new subject. The unity then is the product of the relationship between discourses. And its meaning is not forever, can be challenged, and can be told differently at particular points in time and space. 132

It can be said that social forces and elements, which have already been there, await suited conditions that make their linkages possible. The act of linking them together, or the process of assembling them, then allows the subject to obtain new meanings. Stormer (2004) notes that “Articulation is transformational and emergent, creating new possibilities through the mutual interaction of elements where none existed before, augmenting by factors rather than by linear accretion, or diminishing possibilities in ways that defy rudimentary calculation” (p. 264). That is, a subject emerges out of the matrix of discourses. Each axis of this matrix informs each other, acts as a piece of the puzzle that, when combined, can give rise to a newer meaning of the subject. A subject identity is malleable and is not clearly defined. Stormer further considers agency as “a function of a network of elements in which no single element has complete control over the interaction” (p. 264). In this context, articulation does not underscore a universal subject that is always understood in particular ways. At the same time, these elements, be it economics, race, gender, sexuality, or class, always work together and do not exist on its own. Henceforth, I consider articulation as a fruitful method to investigate how the posthuman subjects are articulated and rearticulated in Black Mirror.

Procedure

In this dissertation, I intend to analyze ten Black Mirror episodes, all of which are broadcast on Netflix. To determine what episodes are to be utilized for the textual analysis, I watched the whole program except for the special episode, “White Christmas”

(2014), and the standalone interactive movie, “Bandersnatch” (2018). The decision to do so was predicated on the reason that they are not officially included in any of the seasons 133

of Black Mirror, thereby making them not part of any season. I spent approximately 19 hours, in a span of a few days, watching a total of twenty-one episodes across the five seasons. I then gathered the main theme, jotted down notes on key points linked to the narrative of each episode, organized all of them into clusters of themes shared among them.

Given the objective of this project was to investigate the entangled nature of technology/human relationship, with research questions aimed at investigating the articulation(s) of posthuman identities and posthuman subjects, eleven episodes were eliminated from the data collection, based on the fact that they did not fit into this objective. More specifically, the omitted episodes either illustrate the significance of technology in inaugurating new figures of panopticon and surveillance techniques, highlight the workings of technology in initiating new formats of discipline and punish, or address the operation of technology in instituting new forms of retributive justice within their narratives.

With this intent in mind, I investigated the following episodes: “Fifteen Million

Merits” and “The Entire History of You” from season one, “Be Right Back” from season two, “Nosedive,” “San Junipero” and “Men Against Fire” from season three, “USS

Callister,” “Arkangel” and “Black Museum” from season four, and “Striking Vipers” from season five. I have selected them because of their emphases on the co-constitutive roles of human and technology in the destabilizing process that deems it impossible to consider the main characters as representatives of human subjects in the most conventional sense as well as their explorations of the posthuman condition that 134

illuminates how humans and technology mutually influence each other and the way that it comes to make it probable to view them as human/technology hybrids that can never be fully understood unless both are to be taken into account and to be considered simultaneously.

The ten selected Black Mirror episodes were then arranged and ordered into five focal themes as follows:

• Alienated: “Fifteen Million Merits” and “Nosedive.” These two episodes both

share one common theme: technology is the chief cause that leads to the

alienating effect that makes the protagonists become less human.

• Cyborg: “The Entire History of You,” “Men Against Fire” and “Arkangel.” These

three episodes introduce unique versions of cyborgs whose posthuman

subjectivities come into being at the intersection of human and technology and

whose existence is evidently the effect of that.

• Fractured: “USS Callister” and “Striking Vipers.” These two episodes underscore

the prominence of cyberspace and virtual reality in shaping how the characters

view the nature of their being as well as offer a contestation to the understanding

of a liberal humanist subject.

• Immortal: “San Junipero” and “Black Museum.” These two episodes tackle two

sides of the same coin: what are the consequences of becoming immortal

virtually? They both wrestle with this question and thereby conceptualize the

restriction of applying the concept of the human to think about their main

characters. 135

• Human: “Be Right Back.” This one episode spotlights the relationship between

the human and the android as well as complicates the way in which data have

been traditionally theorized and perceived.

In particular, the five themes fit well into the posthumanist theoretical framework and serve to underline its principles that embrace the need to deconstruct categories and challenge the tendency to place and classify phenomena, ideas, and views into dualisms

(Barad, 2007; Ferrando, 2018; Haraway, 1991; Latour, 1993). Despite their shared theme, each episode approaches it differently in the narrative.

I re-watched the ten selected episodes several times to ascertain that no paramount details and critical materials were overlooked. Through my first re-watch, I summarized their narratives. My second re-watch then concerned with situating key instances that could help generate a better understanding of the narrative present in each episode as well as functioned as an occasion for me to locate and transcribe the dialogues I deemed vital to my analysis. Thanks to my Netflix account, I could always have access to Black

Mirror, which means that I have no difficulties re-watching these episodes, which, in turn, proved beneficial and valuable when conducting my textual analysis. That is, whenever I needed to check or recall what I may have missed during previous re- watches, I could always login to Netflix to do so.

The process of interpreting and analyzing the ten episodes involved the application of both narrative rhetorical criticism and the method of articulation. On the one hand, the former serves as a research tool to examine how narratives are constructed to communicate moral and ethical messages as well as is rooted in the idea that narratives 136

matter because they are created to be shared among humans and thereby come to stabilize culturally accepted and hegemonic ideologies regarding how a topic, an issue or a subject is perceived (Fisher, 1984). Narratives come to shape how a society comprehends its world.

This project is done with the assumption that televisual texts carry within themselves a set of discourses and ideologies regarding how humanity thinks about and thinks of technological influences on the cultural and social construction of reality within their narratives. In this regard, this study focuses attention on the analysis of the narrative to pinpoint the utilization of storytelling techniques to offer accounts of how presumptions and perceptions of the complex technology and human relationship, which operates as narrative themes, plays out in the episodes.

On the other hand, this project applies the method of articulation to extend its analysis to bring to the fore the need to recognize how discursive elements and ideological components are linked together to produce an assumption of unity regarding a subject matter (DeLuca, 1999; Slack, 1996). A posthuman subject, for instance, is never considered as a static and fixed identity. Instead, it is the effect of the coming together of varied discourses that create an illusion of its unity. In other words, this posthuman subject is a product of linking, delinking, and relinking ideologies related to how technology is perceived, how humanity is conceptualized, how they interact with one another, and how they can commingle. Articulation(s) hence speak(s) to this stabilizing process associated with an intent to regard the nature of this unity cohesive and coherent at certain moments in time and space. 137

Let us assume for the sake of argument that this posthuman identity is never natural. Then articulation becomes a fecund and productive method to trace movements and pathways of discourses and ideologies to allow for the coming about of this identity.

This type of analysis helps uncover the interior workings of these elements to produce the unifying essence of any subject. In this regard, the method of articulation facilitates an understanding of an ideological groundswell of discursive underpinnings that are at the forefront of the creation of variegated posthuman subjects embedded within the narratives of the selected ten episodes. By extension, narrative rhetorical criticism and the method of articulation complement one another and work well with each other such that they, when combined, come to serve as a mixed-method system that guarantees a nuanced textual analysis of Black Mirror.

To conclude, the aim of this project is, first, to investigate the entangled relationship between the human and technology and, second, to elucidate the articulation of posthuman subjects as depicted within the narrative of each of the ten selected episodes in Black Mirror. This process of analysis then requires closely watching and re- watching this mediated text to the extent that themes in its narratives and articulations of its discursive formations are taken into account to make explicit how they build upon each other and operate together to depict and portray the development of posthuman self, posthuman subject, and posthuman subjectivity.

Positionality

Meanings encoded in televisual texts never stay constant and are prone to various interpretations and different analyses. Black Mirror is the perfect example of how there 138

rarely exists one accurate way of interpreting and analyzing a set of complex narratives in this quality science fiction television program. Otherwise speaking, decoding meanings encoded in mediated texts can be different among individuals who may consume the same content. In this context, it is imperative for me to acknowledge that I approach this quality science fiction television program, first and foremost, as a viewer who has a keen interest in the kind of television texts that address philosophical concerns about the nature of human existence within the narrative, thereby posing ethical questions and conveying moral lessons that are both closely linked to this subject matter. As the “only viewer” of

Black Mirror, I reckon that the findings I obtain in this project reflect my bias and positionality as a critical researcher. In other words, a reception studies on the same topic may not generate the same results. To that end, I understand that this type of qualitative research requires a recognition of certain responsibilities associated with conducting a critical textual analysis of this anthology television program.

To begin with, utilizing narrative rhetorical criticism and the method of articulation means that I need to highlight my positionality. Because rhetorical criticism does not embrace the idea of objectivity, I have to demonstrate that my work can be held accountable, that my criticism of Black Mirror can be validated, and that my arguments regarding the program are sound. I accomplished that by describing in detail how I approached the selected ten episodes as well as by calling attention to the kind of rigor that I established for myself regarding how I utilized these materials to advance my arguments about the connection between posthumanism and this science fiction television program in this study. 139

In particular, a critic’s personality is at the center of any criticism project.

Kuypers (2016) writes that “It is clear that criticism is not a scientific act; the very best criticism involves the personality, insights, and imagination of the critic” (p. 34). Black

(2016) elaborates upon this point, characterizing the critic as the most important instrument in rhetorical criticism. He additionally acknowledges the difficulty in underscoring the need to stay objective in rhetorical criticism and argues that rhetorical critics walk a thin line between subjectivity and objectivity. More importantly, although rhetorical critics do not follow a set of rules or formulas, they can strive for a sense of objectivity so that, as Black (2016) asserts, “in any given critique, [the methods] could be explicated and warranted” (p. 66). Furthermore, Black (2016) contends that “critical techniques [should] also be subject to the extent that they are not mechanistic, not autonomous, not disengaged from the critics who use them” (p. 66). Here I am required to make sure that my criticism is innovative and original enough to be engaging and to represent my personality. I have to reveal in my criticism that the arguments that I present have merits and can stand on their own. That said, rhetorical criticism is imaginative and creative. Notwithstanding, it does not mean that I can do whatever I want with mediated texts.

Moreover, and most importantly, my textual analysis of Black Mirror is deeply influenced and is vastly inspired by some of the values closely associated with critical theory, which, in turn, have an impact on how I look at this science fiction television program and how I may emphasize some aspects of the narrative and may overlook others. As I have argued above, critical theory questions the validity of truth claims and 140

the power/knowledge relationship in the construction of subjective social structures that give rise to and champion a set of core values that marginalize certain parts of the population. Thus, I perceive discourses of power as the building block of the construction of reality. In particular, I consider them to have vectoral qualities that move freely and merge easily with one another to the extent that they come to sketch a unique ideological terrain that would embrace, endorse, and espouse one way of viewing reality while simultaneously suppressing other options of constructing realities.

Reflexively, I am more and most interested in uncovering the kind of prejudice and injustice that social and cultural norms tend to produce, by making explicit the forms and shapes of the delimited human condition sketched by them, with an intent to shine a spotlight on the disjuncture between what can be viewed as authentically natural and as socially nurtured so that it is possible to deconstruct and take apart binary and dualistic categories. My textual analysis of Black Mirror inevitably attends to these concerns, meaning that I focus mostly on the operation of discourses of power in the creation of posthuman subjects as articulated within the narrative of Black Mirror.

Consistent with the objective of the study, I first view these two methods as productive and as fitting to my orientation as a qualitative researcher. Second, positioning myself as a critical researcher indicates that my ways of decoding these texts might be liberally biased and at times arcane. Third, although Black Mirror is open for different interpretations, grounding my analysis of the program within the posthumanist paradigm delimits my analysis of this science fiction television program. That is, I believe that

Black Mirror can be studied through other theoretical frameworks. Finally, my criticism 141

of the program can be regarded as one of the many possible approaches to analyzing and studying themes, as articulated in Black Mirror.

142

Chapter 5: Be(com)ing Alienated

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master

of others, and still remains a greater slave than they.

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

Being popular was equivalent to becoming a character, perhaps even a person,

since if to be is to be perceived, then to be perceived by many eyes and with envy,

interest, respect or affection is to exist more densely, more articulately, every last

detail minutely observed and thereby richly rendered.

—Edmund White, A Boy’s Own Story

Mention “alienation” and one might expect the response to be something like this: a process that makes individuals isolated and detached from the truth about their existence or a condition people may be exposed to that renders it impossible for them to give authentic meanings to their life. Alienation has a negative connotation because it thwarts any attempt to find happiness and content. It causes people to feel less about themselves and, at the same time, generates a profound sense of hopelessness that they might internalize such that they become more pessimistic and grow more despondent when they think about their circumstances and situations they find no way out. Alienation gets much more intense and much more severe when we take into account the presence of technology. Why? Because technology makes it more convenient for people to communicate in front of their screens than in person. The two Black Mirror episodes,

“Fifteen Million Merits” and “Nosedive” address exactly this problem within their narratives. 143

In this chapter, I contend how the two societies introduce the construction of the posthuman subjects who are influenced by hegemonic ideologies that render them susceptible to the process of alienation. If the former episode highlights the notion of estranged labor as constituting the alienation of the protagonist, then, the latter episode depends on a kind of mythology that subjects the character to false consciousness.

Posthumanism argues for the deconstruction of the human category (Barad, 2007;

Hayles, 1999; Braidotti, 2013). In this case, the posthuman subjects arise out of a lack of autonomy embedded in humanism. The way they construct, enact and perform their identities is embedded in their own perceptions of a false sense of reality they find themselves in.

Consistent with this observation, I investigate the coming into being of posthuman subjects that exist within a complex and intricate coupling with technology and ideologies. To do so, I deploy the scholarship of a wide array of critical theorists, namely

Theodor W. Adorno, Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Max Horkheimer, Antonio

Gramsci, Karl Marx, and Raymond Williams. I also place them in direct conversation with contemporary scholars in order to demonstrate how their work remains important and relevant today when thinking about culture, human, media, and technology as well as contemplating the meaning of the human in this technologically sophisticated age. To that end, I aim to illustrate that what “Fifteen Million Merits” and “Nosedive” articulate within their narratives is the notion that the ontological stability of the liberal human category as rooted within humanism is challenged as a result of the nature of the technocultures, of which the two protagonists are members. 144

“Fifteen Million Merits” (Season 1: Episode 2): The Articulation of an Alienated

Worker

In “Fifteen Million Merits,” the theme of alienation within the narrative is quite prominent and it is not difficult for viewers to notice the dire circumstance that the male protagonist has to face as well as to recognize the root core of it. The source of his alienation stems from a combination of his working conditions and exposure to screens at every corner of his society. As he becomes more alienated, he becomes less human and more posthuman. Engaging with the notions of estranged labor, the culture industry, and hegemony, I intend to unpack the remarkable influence of technology on the emergence of the posthuman subject as articulated through this protagonist.

Synopsis

Bing Madsen (Daniel Kaluuya) is a member of a society in which each person resides in a box-shaped room with walls made of interactive screens that function as a source of entertainment. On screen, people are represented via Wii-like cartoonish avatars that both display their emotions and exhibits their offline behavior. In this society, merits are the only authorized currency, which can be generated by riding designated stationary bikes. People need merits to obtain what they need and want, even essential products, such as toothpaste. The more merits they earn, the more options they can afford.

Bing’s life has always been dull, monotonous, and repetitive until the day he accidentally overhears Abi Khan (Jessica Brown Findlay), who recently moves into the complex, singing in a shared restroom, and becomes infatuated with her. And fully 145

convinced of her unprecedented singing ability, Bing approaches her, initiates conversation with her, and subsequently suggests that she take part in Hot Shot—a talent reality show judged by Hope (Rupert Everett), Charity (Julia Davis), and Wraith (Ashley

Thomas) that promises the winner a life of luxury. On top of that, the winner would be exempt from riding the stationary bike forever. But it would cost “fifteen million merits” to enter the contest. Without hesitation, Bing decides to spend the majority of his fortune, which he previously inherited from his dead brother, on the entry ticket and gifts it to

Abi.

With confidence, Bing accompanies Abi to her audition. The moment Abi is escorted backstage, waiting for her turn to face the judges, she is handed Cuppliance, a special kind of “mood stabilizer” beverage, and is ordered to drink it. Once she does as requested, Abi appears onstage, introduces herself to the three judges and a digital audience, and begins singing.

Despite acknowledging that Abi has an excellent voice and delivers a solid performance, Judge Hope finds Abi more fitted for the pornographic program, Wraith

Babes, owned and produced by one of the judges. Unsettled by their comments and under the influence of the Cuppliance, Abi cannot think clearly. Both the audience and the judges then put pressure on Abi to make a choice. From the wings, Bing makes a desperate attempt to get onstage to intervene, but the security stops him short. And to his dismay, Abi accepts it.

The incident upsets Bing. With a plan formed in his head, Bing is committed to earning back the exact amount of merits he used to spend on the entry ticket for Abi in 146

order to secure a spot on the show. He becomes economical and thrifty with his expenditure for food and other necessities and tirelessly rides the stationary bike.

Meanwhile, Bing studiously practices what he intends to perform.

After reaching the 15-million-merit threshold, Bing immediately buys himself a ticket. Bing arrives at his audition, with the glass shard stealthily hidden in his pants.

While backstage, Bing fools the show producer into thinking that he has already drunk

Cuppliance by showing a salvaged container he had saved during Abi’s performance.

Despite his unconventional performance, Judge Hope offers him an opportunity to have his own 30-minute weekly podcast so that he can continue vocalizing his dissatisfaction with the system.

Sometime later, it is revealed that Bing accepts the offer. In one of his broadcasts, with the glass shard, which Bing holds to his neck, as his prop, he seriously delivers an impassioned harangue on the subject of the broken and corrupt nature of the system live in front of an indifferent and uninterested audience. Bing abruptly ceases ranting and nonchalantly concludes the broadcast of the week. With his own talk show, Bing now gets moved to a new and improved place.

The Workings of Alienation

One of the most salient aspects of “Fifteen Million Merits” is its depiction of a society in which the characters are alienated laborers who display no interest in meaningful human contact and whose media consumption habits turn them into mindless entities. Consistently interacting with different kinds of screens results in the detached and withdrawn way people in this society behave and socialize. Surrounding themselves 147

with screens mitigates their need to have physical contact with others, therefore instilling a narrow set of values that both downplay affection or friendship and promote aloofness or isolation. In fact, Moser (2016) deem the characters “alienated modern subject[s]” or those who represent “unreflective automaton that [have] been conditioned to devour the carefully manufactured, prepackaged, meaningless, screen-based images that accost us from all sides in contemporary consumer republics” (p. 65). This society thus undermines a certain degree of autonomy that the people can acquire.

Merits are fruits of their own physical labor. This society subtly indoctrinates them in the philosophy that underscores hegemonic ideologies of individual responsibility. In other ways, though, this society propagates a system of meritocratic values while, at the same time, thwarting the desire for building genuine human rapport among the people. And one can most clearly witness the consequences of being a member of this society through the characterization of the protagonist who performs his daily routine in a perfunctory manner and avoids interactions with other individuals. That

Bing cultivates a feeling of separation from other human beings and experiences a sense of estrangement from his work unequivocally illustrates the central concept of alienation that Karl Marx (1978) addresses in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. As

Comninel (2019) claims, if we hope to better understand his Manuscripts and why “his historical materialism conceived antagonistic class relations to be at the core of history just as much as they were at the core of the modern history” (p. 13), we need to take into account social and political milieus during Marx’s life and how they shaped his ways of thinking. In fact, as Louis Althusser (1969) asserts, we can find in this text, published 148

posthumously, “a moment in the formation of Marx’s thought” (p. 156), one that evidently marked his encounter with political economy, and how it made a transformational impact on the way that Marx approached history as the history of class struggles. Both scholars emphasize the importance of Marx’s Manuscripts as a key work that lays the foundation for the theory of alienation.

In calling particular attention to the division of labor, Marx (1978) introduces the concept of estranged labor to make a point about workers and why they have no ownership of the commodity they produce. In selling their own labor, they become alienated from what they produce. Marx maintains that “The worker puts his life into the object, but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object” (p. 72). The moment workers, under the capitalist political economy, transform raw materials into commodities, their inner world and subjectivities become detached from their own consciousness. To this end, they lose the capacity to actively “evaluate [themselves] through [their] activity” (Israel, 1971, p. 37-38). In other words, it is the fruit of their estranged labor that supposedly constitutes values alien to workers. As Marx (1978) further emphasizes, “The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him” (p. 72). In arguing that “[labor] becomes a power on its own confronting him” (p. 72), Marx (1978) thus concludes that “the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien” (p.

72). The labor of the workers comes to be delineated in the form of an autonomous and foreign object that can be regarded as not part of their own nature. Because what are 149

created and produced become objectified, workers and their products become separate entities that share no intrinsic connection. In particular, the notion of separation between them functions as an indicator of work as not representing “an expression of [the workers’] personality and [their] needs, but something which has been forced upon

[them]” (Israel, 1971, p. 42-43).

More specifically, Marx formulates four levels linked to the alienation of labor.

First, because the object produced by workers exists independently, it turns itself into something alien to them. Second, because labor is considered to be “external to the worker” (Marx, 1978, p. 74), he never finds enjoyment or excitement in this kind of labor; hence, Marx perceives the external aspect of labor to have negative, albeit masked, impacts on the worker due to the fact that it is “a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification”

(p. 74). Workers work but they work involuntarily. And because the type of work they do and the type of activity they perform at work never belong to them, they come to feel both disempowered and dissatisfied with the system of production. To this end, Marx concludes that workers become alienated from “the act of production within the labor process” (p. 74). Third, it is in both the absence of ownership of their own labor and the lack of understanding of the labor process that workers subsequently become alienated from “[their] own body, as well as external nature and [their] spiritual aspect, [their] human aspect” (Marx, 1978, p. 77). They cultivate an equivocal perception of themselves, therefore compromising the way they view themselves as well as other people. Fourth, the alienation from “the product of [their] labor, from [their] life activity, from [their] species-being” contributes to “the estrangement of man from man” (Marx, 150

1978, p. 77), meaning that they experience a remarkable sense of distancing and isolation from themselves and from the others. That is, workers undergo a transformation so dramatic that they come to detach from societal interactions and come to disconnect from social relations. As a result, alienation underscores what it means for people to inhabit an imaginary space of detachment and disconnection together with experiencing certain degrees of dissatisfaction toward their disillusioned society.

In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1964) argue that technological developments facilitate the emergence of the bourgeois class that, in accumulating enough capital, comes to be the ruling class, and “has converted the physician, the lawyer, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers” (p. 62). In a way, the bourgeois class “creates a world in its own image” (p. 65). Marx and Engels criticize capitalism for its tendency to encourage society to produce more than it needs, and they put forward the idea that “the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman” (p. 69). The proletarians are only valued for their labor in performing the task of operating machine. They become an extension of the machine and, in a sense, are replaceable. They come to constitute a social group in which each worker is perceived as a commodity.

In addition to economic exploitation, the proletarians lack a sense of individuality.

They become robotized while their waking hours and leisure time are now predominantly reserved for work and responsibilities that do not involve intellectual thinking and critical ability. As workers at factories, they wake up each morning, come to the station designated for their individualistic tasks, and perform what they are told and required to 151

do. It does not matter whether they express any enthusiasm or interest in working. The only thing that matters to the bourgeois class is that the proletarians do complete the portion of the work that they are assigned. Workers become part of the machine, are transformed by the machine, and no longer possess any elements of individuality in their own work. In “Fifteen Million Merits,” Bing and the rest of the members of the society articulate exactly this Marxist idea.

Furthermore, in dictating conditions and developing rules, the ruling class comes to impact the way in which the proletarians perceive themselves. Marx and Engels (2012) contend in their other writing that the bourgeois class can accomplish this because it has the power thanks to ownership of “the means of material production” (p. 31). Because the ruling class has the infrastructure to provide the proletarian class with works that would allow them to survive, it then “controls the means of mental production, so that the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are on the whole subject to it” (Marx

& Engels, 2012, p. 31). Materialism, according to them, plays a pivotal role in determining and constructing ruling ideas. The ruling class understands that it can produce knowledge and create ideas because it has the means to do so. Those who do belong to the ruled class then come to be receivers of these ideologies. Based on this assertion by Marx and Engels, the proletarian class, by unconsciously accepting ideologies that are produced by the ruling class, in a sense perpetuates and maintains the system. Without them abiding by these laws, ideas, and regulations, the system would have failed. In this context, the proletarians are granted no agency to construct their own identity. Therefore, the ruling class is thought to have given name to, or to have defined, 152

the ruled class. Workers are relegated to the position of being unconscious, and not being able to gain awareness of their own thoughts. They lack the capacity to form their own world views. They are alienated from their reality and they apparently have nothing tangible to revert to and hold on to. This alienation renders them powerless in that both their survival and existence depend fundamentally on the assistance of the ruling class.

When alienation becomes routinized, the human capacity for finding in the community a sense of belongingness becomes impeded, thereby hindering human potentials for daring greatly to achieve a fulfilling life of self-expression, self-evaluation, and self-realization. The routinization of alienation sets up a condition with its cloaked and veiled symptoms so invisible that those who are susceptible to these symptoms never come to realize that they have them. Israel (1971) extends this Marxist concept, asserting that “the process of alienation affects all, but the alienating process is experienced in different ways, depending on the class to which the individual belongs” (p. 52). If one applies the concept of alienation to study Bing, then, one can begin to comprehend the origin of the dissatisfaction he experiences regarding his current living situation and one can also understand his unfiltered display of discontent of the kind of daily work required of him. Bing trades his physical labor, from riding his stationary bike, for merits, without which Bing cannot survive in this society. Moreover, an insufficient fund of merits limits the number of opportunities he can have to actively be in control of leisure activities outside his work. The mandatory nature of riding his stationary bike completely removes any sign of enjoyment and freedom that he can find. Bing cycles because he has to.

Rather than laboring voluntarily, he is forced to do so. 153

Merits Bing produces further acquire a character alien to him and operate as a means of his survival. In particular, in supplanting the conventional way to think about money as something physical, Conway (2019) deems the episode’s merits to indicate how monetary values are given to both tangible and intangible things. In his words,

“Everything is a pay service: even to purchase quiet and darkness so one can sleep requires an exchange of merits that are hardwired into the subject’s body” (p. 247).

Merits then take on a number of overlapping meanings. They certainly guarantee Bing, to a certain extent, some sort of stability to his physical existence, but they simultaneously drain the fun and the pleasure out of his life as well. An external object and a means to fulfill basic needs, the merits thwart potentialities in his human capacities for pursuing other meaningful personal interests. The act of riding designated stationary bikes to earn merits then comes to be the raison d’être of the existence of Bing and other characters, meaning that they have no other options but to be part of a social structure that renders them alienated both from themselves and from the rest of the society.

Moreover, that interactive screens are everywhere carries particular weight to the workers. Johnson (2019), for example, lays the root cause of the isolation experienced by

Bing and others at the feet of the interplay of “gamification” and “live streaming” and the way that they work together to secure the predominant place of interactive screens in both work and leisure activities. With almost every aspect of their daily life spent before interactive screens, consuming insipid content that humiliates and shames those whose physiques deviate from the societal ideal of body image and playing games with no enriching values, the only reality the characters come to know is certainly the one 154

presented on these interactive screens. Therefore, the ruling class takes care to assure them that what they view and what they play are indeed what they want and what they need. Why bother interacting when it is more fun and more entertaining to play digital game and to watch online videos to pass time? In her analysis of the episode,

Radovanović (2018) reasons that “there is no excessive communication between workers, although it is not prohibited to reach out to someone in person or with the help of one’s doppel” (p. 106). For the characters, in being constantly subjected to interactive screens non-stop, the active act of seeing comes to be a passive one (Radovanović, 2018). Then, prolonged exposure to a varied array of these interactive screens installed in almost every corner of their living and working spaces contributes to a myriad of related concerns regarding the way they relate to one another emotionally and psychologically. Thus, whereas Bing’s social structure exists on the premise of a transformation of the social conditions to enforce labor upon its members, their state of alienation is exacerbated by the fact that screens come to discount genuine human contact.

Locating the characterization of the protagonist within the intersection of the

Marxist concept of estranged labor and the penetration of technology into his life activities entails particular understandings of how his identity is articulated. That is,

Bing’s quietness, reticence, and taciturnity have their roots in: (1) the unhappiness he experiences through his physical labor, (2) the way in which interactive screens deter the need for meaningful human interaction, and (3) the consumption of insipid and uninspired entertainment content that encourages hedonistic and narcissistic pleasure. To this end, the figure of Bing is offered as a rhetorical device to critique how a close 155

intimate relationship with technology within a society that demands forced labor can destabilize the category of the liberal human subject as defined within humanism—an autonomous being that has free will and that reasons. The construction of the protagonist’s living and working situations articulates him as a posthuman in the sense that he lacks the qualities to be regarded as a liberal humanist subject.

The Structure of Culture Industry

Amidst the sea of sameness in media content produced for public consumption,

Hot Shot stands out in the sense that it indicates an opportunity toward upward socioeconomic mobility and a promise of freedom. For the characters, winning Hot Shot is tantamount to an escape from their mundane and nonremarkable life. Bing himself understands this. No wonder that he goes out of his way to secure Abi, a fellow worker whom he just met but whom he deems so special, a spot for the audition because he believes that she deserves much better than wastes her talent away. Given the deficient display of compassionateness and empathy is the norm in this society, Bing’s charitable action toward Abi can be considered unusual and, at the same time, rhetorically indicates potentials for rehumanizing the alienated protagonist as well as renegotiating social structures that deter meaningful human relations.

However, such potentials are squandered due to their failure to recognize that Hot

Shot is just another media product created to maintain the spectacular nature of this society and to propagate the illusion that fame and fortune await those who have what it takes to obtain them. Hot Shot, as Moser (2016) points out, “is merely another prefabricated fantasy that plays a pivotal, hegemonic role in maintaining the hyper-real 156

fiction from which the integrated, miniscule political and social elite derive unheralded profits” (p. 69). In a survey of reality television in the 2000s, Grazian (2010) arrives at a conclusion that this genre embraces and promotes neoliberal ideals that solely attribute success and failure to the individual rather than taking into account the extent to which social systems can also influence these outcomes. Thus, we can squarely place Hot Shot within the discourse about reality television and the way that it champions certain ideologies benefitting the ruling class. Yet Hot Shot metonymically serves as a nod to the enduring legacy of the culture industry as a concept that enables a critique of the nature of media production and media consumption.

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno collaborate to pen “The Culture

Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” a seminal essay in which they come up with the theoretical idea of the culture industry to explore how cultural products function to make people more passive and less critical. In their writing, Horkheimer and Adorno take care to cement the negative effects of the culture industry on the masses. In claiming that the culture industry first and foremost is part of what has destroyed the faculty of art, they (2012) stress that “Films and radio no longer need to present themselves as art. The truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce” (p. 53). Rather than making art, the cultural industry creates dispensable and replaceable cultural goods that lack artistic characteristics and hold no creative value.

In mass-producing cultural goods in standardized and uniform ways so that the masses can consume them more easily and less critically, the culture industry infuses 157

within media content a particular set of elements that make it repetitive and the same.

This explains why, from the perspective of Horkheimer and Adorno, that “the present the technology of the culture industry confines itself to standardization and mass production and sacrifices what once distinguished the logic of the work from that of society” (p. 54).

They blame the masses’ deleterious appetite for media content without distinctiveness and uniqueness on the cultural industry. Cultural goods bring the masses comforts but at the expanse of eroding their appreciation for art as well as to the detriment of even contemplating other alternative options.

According to Horkheimer and Adorno, “Something is provided for everyone so that no one can escape […] differences are hammered home and propagated” (p. 54). On the one hand, inundated with cultural products, the masses may find it impossible to turn away from them. On the other hand, exposure to subtle modifications of the same content in the form of mass-produced cultural products, such as television, film, or music, further undermines the masses’ capacity for envisioning a different approach to life. Two ramifications then emerge: first, a perpetuation of a certain set of dominant ideologies, and second, a challenge for the masses to imagine other alternative ways of experiencing reality. Horkheimer and Adorno further acknowledge, “in the superstructure [the mechanism of supply and demand] acts as a control on behalf of the rulers” (p. 59). But how? By considering consumers “the workers and salaried employees, the farmers and petty bourgeois” (Horkheimer & Adorno, p. 59). For the two scholars, “Capitalist production hems them in so tightly, in body and soul, that they unresistingly succumb to whatever is proffered to them” (p. 59). The whole purpose of the culture industry is to 158

never introduce cultural products that possess depth, meaning, or substance to the masses.

Instead, they argue that what the culture industry hopes to do in the end is to turn people into passive consumers. It appears possible that Horkheimer and Adorno recognize that the ruling class eventually finds a legitimate strategy to reassert its authority and maintain its influences.

Moreover, the culture industry disenfranchises people intellectually and deprives them of their critical thinking ability. In deeming entertainment both “the prolongation of work under late capitalism” (p. 61) and one that is “sought by those who want to escape the mechanized labor process so that they can cope with it again” (p. 61), Horkheimer and Adorno conclude, “mechanization has such power over leisure and its happiness, determines so thoroughly the fabrication of entertainment commodities, that the off-duty worker can experience nothing but after-images of the work process itself” (p. 61). The culture industry therefore creates both an illusion and a fakeness that reestablish dominant ideologies. The fact that the inner workings of the culture industry depend fundamentally on the capitalist mode of production renders possible further exploitation of the masses by offering them products that make them feel they may need if they want to release work-related stress as well as tricking them into thinking that these products are specifically tailored to them as a way to escape the mundanity of life. As Kalekin-

Fishman and Langman (2015) assert, “Conditions of alienated labor lead people to embrace standardized escapist entertainment that keep them deceived, distracted, and powerless either to understand their lives or to mobilize for progressive change” (p. 4).

Rather than seeking activities they themselves find interesting and meaningful, people see 159

entertainment as the best option available. But is it though? In this context, Horkheimer and Adorno say it best, “Fun is a medicinal bath which the entertainment industry never ceases to prescribe. It makes laughter the instrument for cheating happiness” (p. 62). This scathing attack on the deceptive nature of the culture industry generates a profound sense of sadness and uneasiness—that is, not only are the masses exploited at work, but now they are taken advantage of at home as well.

The idea that the only way to feel contented and happy is through the consumption of content offered by the culture industry forms the basis of the message the ruling class wishes to disseminate to the masses. Strinati (1995), for example, claims that the culture industry “works to exclude real or true needs, alternative and radical concepts or theories, and politically oppositional ways of thinking and acting” (p. 61). In packaging dominant ideologies into cultural goods that can be mass-produced, mass- distributed, and mass-consumed, the culture industry can talk people into blindly and mindlessly accepting and believing what they see and hear, thereby recommending them what to think rather than how to think. The masses may be inspired to cultivate false needs that they must fulfill at all costs and may even let themselves be hoodwinked into believing that they do have a choice in terms of the type of content they want to consume.

Nevertheless, they never have a choice in the first place because they can only accept what the culture industry presents to them.

However, the perception that the culture industry is the main producer and the sole disseminator of media content serving the ruling class has been challenged

(Rodríguez-Ferrándiz, 2014; Wiggins, 2014). Today, technological innovations enable 160

the masses to actively participate in the production of content, leading to the question of whether the culture industry as theorized by Horkheimer and Adorno still rings true.

Based on the depiction of Hot Shot in “Fifteen Million Merits” within the narrative, the answer is certainly “yes.” In fact, in their analysis of the episode, Byron and Brake (2020) explicitly deem Hot Shot a textbook iteration of the kind of content the culture industry typically produces.

The creation of Hot Shot is a calculated strategy and a manipulated move of the ruling class to communicate a rhetorical message: the show is the only short-cut to the realization of the ultimate dream of liberation. The ruling class provides them with an opportunity, and, to an extent, the ruled class believes in it and strives for it. This way, they internalize the idea that individuals either have what it takes to emerge victorious in

Hot Shot or they do not. They have no one else to blame but themselves for their situation and their alienation. But they do not realize that their reality does not solely depend upon their talents. Rather, it is the show producers and the panel of three judges, Hope,

Charity, and Wraith, that determine their future. A case in point is the tragic event that happens to Abi in the show.

Abi auditions and receives praise. But the judges believe that she is more suited to working as a porn star. Rather than challenging their perception, Abi accepts what they say about her. Abi’s decision unequivocally articulates the idea that the ruling class, as represented by the judges, dictates the final outcome that a person can have. Abi has talents, but her talents do not impress the judges, who make sure, via the technological intervention in the form of Cuppliance, that she does not have any opportunity to defy 161

against what they decide. In the end, it is the ruling class that comes to determine the fate of the ruled class. By extension, the ruling class holds the utmost power over the degree of autonomy granted to the ruled class, thereby, controlling the construction of their subject positions as well as how they form their subjectivities. Those who take advantage of technology to create this kind of society offer the people an illusion of aspirations, dreams, and hopes to a certain extent. But it is also they who abuse this power to maintain their position of domination. What happens to Abi then pointedly articulates the limitations linked to the common belief that people are to be responsible for their own circumstances.

The Influence of Hegemony

Abi’s decision to work as a porn star has a devastating effect on Bing because she inspires him, letting him experience the kind of emotions he does not even know to exist on a personal level. For the alienated protagonist, Abi represents the excitement he has always yearned for and serves as a beacon of light irradiating the darkness shadowing his life. And it is through the injustice faced by Abi that galvanizes Bing to come up with a plan to resist the system and imbues him with the courage to expose hegemonic ideologies embedded within the social structure.

One incident triggers his rebellious intent. One night, alone in his room, the new

Wraith Babes commercial featuring Abi interrupts Bing’s shooting game. However, the lack of merits prevents him from skipping it, forcing him to sit through it. The walls of screen continue broadcasting the advertisement regardless of his attempt to close his eyes or to look the other way. Infuriated, Bing forcibly slams his body against one of the walls 162

a few times in order to make it stop showing the commercial. The moment Bing finally cracks it, a triangle-shaped piece of the wall screen falls on the floor, which he picks up with an intention of cutting his wrist to remove the temporary Hot Shot stamp he previously received when accompanying Abi to her audition. But Bing contemplates, examines the ink, and stows the shard away. In his critical reading of Antonio Gramsci’s scholarly work, Hawley (1980) postulates that “The development of revolutionary consciousness does not flow innately from a particular social situation and life experience of oppression, but is a stage in the process of social self-realization” (p. 586). That is,

Bing’s social self-realization originates from the distrust of the system that masks its domination through the application of interactive screens and the production of Hot Shot.

That Bing wants to revolt has at its roots this self-realization of the way that the system operates to deceive its people, to alienate them from finding their own truths, and to impede the emergence of their own consciousness.

In order to do justice to Bing’s rebellious act, it is imperative to examine his audition at length. On the stage, Bing dances awkwardly but his dance routine intrigues and perplexes the judges and the virtual audience at the same time. Abruptly, in the middle of his performance, Bing pulls out the shard, places its pointed edge next to his throat, and threatens to cut it open unless they let him speak. Once the judges let him do so, Bing launches into revealing how people are out of touch with their own reality and how they tend to spend their hard-earned merits on useless stuff for their doppels.

Bing. We buy shit that’s not even there. Show us something real and free and

beautiful? You couldn’t. Cos it’d break us. We’re too numb for it; our minds 163

would choke. We’ve grown inside this machine, breathed its air too long. There’s

only so much wonder we can bear. That’s why when you find any wonder

whatsoever, you dole it out in meagre portions—and only then when it’s been

augmented and packaged and pumped through ten thousand pre-assigned filters

till it’s nothing more than a meaningless series of lights to stare into while we

ride, day in, day out: going where? Powering what? Powering the whole

distraction engine. All tiny cells and tiny screens and bigger cells and bigger

screens and FUCK YOU. Fuck you! That’s what it boils down to, is fuck you!

This part of Bing’s public tirade articulates two fundamental ideas. First, the social structure has transformed the nature of the ruled class and has turned its members into mindless beings who have difficulties recognizing its problems. The insipid commercials that they are constantly exposed to, the hedonistic pleasures the system promotes, and the shaming that overweight individuals receive publicly in videos altogether contribute to the internalization of a set of core values with alienating effects that make people forget what truly matter to them. Second, the ruling class successfully locates what the masses find meaningful, exploiting it, and packaging it into manufactured content for mass consumption in order to propagate its agenda. To this end, the masses give their consent and allow themselves to be persuaded into being part of this system. The argument that

Bing presents above reflects the mechanism of hegemony and how it operates as a legitimate form of leadership and governance.

In Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Antonio Gramsci (1971) asserts that ideologies do not merely arise out of nowhere but instead out of a particular structure. 164

When the concept of ideologies transforms into what Gramsci would call a “system of ideas” within this structure, they offer the ruling class a set of systematic possibilities it can use to mold and shape the aspirations that can help guide the masses and can allow it dictate its rules. Rather than carrying within themselves a capacity for structural change, ideologies metamorphose and mutate such that they maintain and sustain the social structure that gives them their shape in the first place. In emphasizing the difference between political society and civil society, Gramsci (1971) focuses the attention on the way that these two types of societies operate together in order to create “the fundamental historical unity” (p. 52). Whereas political society indicates an intent of public sectors to utilize physical coercion or disciplinary techniques that imbue the ruling party with the power to govern, civil society constitutes private social and cultural institutions, such as the media, universities, churches, and so on, that render possible its undertaking of the responsibility of education in order to shape the governed (Jones, 2006).

Given hegemonic ideologies supplant physical forces and hard power as a viable form of governance, it appears probable to recognize the state’s inclination, according to

Gramsci, to accentuate the need “to raise the great mass of the population to a particular cultural and moral level” (p. 258). Within civil society, ideologies implicitly carry interests of the dominant class and explicitly function as an educator of the mass, leading to what Gramsci would conceptualize as hegemony—a conceptual model that capitalizes on the assumption that “man is not ruled by forced alone, but also by ideas” (Bates, 1975, p. 351). That is, hegemony operates in ways that solicit “the consent of the led, a consent which is secured by the diffusion and popularization of the world view of the ruling 165

class” (Bates, 1975, p. 352). In being subjected to hegemonic ideas, the governed class first believes that the ruling class represents its best interests, then submits to these hegemonic ideologies, internalizes them, and finally becomes influenced by them.

Because hegemony merits the amplification and extension of a set of ruling ideas, it can

“secure the ‘free’ consent to the masses to the law and order of the land” (Bates, 1975, p.

353). Therefore, members of the ruled class accept what is given to them without any sort of critical consideration and reflection. Bing’s criticism, then, articulates how hegemony allows for a consideration of the continuation of the existence of the system that leads the masses to act against their own will and their own interests. Rather than employing physical forces, the system secures consent by way of developing dominant ideologies that focus their attention on the construction of a false reality. The masses no longer understand the way that their physical labor is exploited to generate and support structural and social apparatuses that persistently distract them from pursuing their potential and perpetually maintain their alienated existence.

Following this cathartic moment, Bing does not hold back and continues his rant, angrily cursing at the judges and exposing the system in front of the virtual audience.

Bing. Fuck you for being part of this landscape, fuck you for sitting there slowly

knitting things worse, fuck you and your spotlight, and your sanctimonious faces

and—Fuck you, fuck you all for taking the one thing I ever came close to feeling

anything real about, anything—for oozing round it and crushing it into a bone,

into a joke, one more ugly joke in a kingdom of millions of them. Fuck you for

happening. Fuck you from me, for us, for everyone. Fuck you. 166

This instance has a significant rhetorical implication in that it articulates how Bing’s social structure contributes to the emergence of a kind of false consciousness that obfuscates what it should be considered as real for the masses. “Commercial culture does not manufacture ideology,” according to Tod Gitlin (1979), “it relays and reproduces and processes and packages and focuses ideology that is constantly rising both from social elites and from active social groups and movements throughout the society (as well as within media organizations and practices)” (p. 253). Hegemonic ideologies are indeed part of what are embedded in the culture industry and what function to aid the ruling group in its quest to sustain its power and exercise its dominance over the working class.

What seems contradictory and paradoxical here indeed highlights once again the idea of the working class having not the ability to create its own sense of self, but rather its existence and ways of living being dependent upon what the bourgeois class wants and hopes it to be. Making these ideas and cultural forms appear acceptable and familiar to the working class and convincing workers that these ideas are an integral part of this system, the ruling group then strategically re-asserts its assumed dominance. As argued earlier, Bing sees in Abi a sense of hope in that she makes him feel something real and special, but the system inhibits its realization and crushes it. Here is evidence to explicate

Bing’s bold move to rebel against the whole system. Bing has envisioned how his diatribe may function as a wake-up call: making people understand how artificial, heartless, and superficial they have become. But both the judges and the virtual audience are delighted with his awkward and peculiar performance. And judge Hope decides to offer Bing his own show so that he can continue his criticisms about the system. 167

In the end, Bing escapes from pedaling away to generate merits. Nevertheless, even though Bing is offered a platform to rebel against the system, such efforts fail because the rest of the society does not take what he propels against seriously, considers his show as one of the many entertainment options, and continues slaving labor away riding stationary bikes. In essence, I contend that Bing’s attempts to challenge and renegotiate hegemonic ideologies remain fruitless due to the fact that the state of alienation articulates the characters as less human and as more posthuman, albeit in an inauspicious sense, because their subjectivity is decentered while their agency is compromised.

“Nosedive” (Season 3: Episode 1): The Articulation of an Alienated Narcissist

Alienation need not have its roots in the process of commodification. Alienation can be experienced through a profound sense of isolation originated from a lack of meaningful human interaction as a result of an intimate relationship with technology.

“Nosedive” tells a story that highlights this aspect of alienation through the female protagonist who becomes victim to the rating system that deters the forging of authentic and real human contact. I analyze the narrative through an engagement with the concepts of mythology, ideology, and interpellation in order to demonstrate how alienation dehumanizes the human subject, thereby rendering visible the limitation of the human category.

Synopsis

Lacie Pound (Bryce Dallas Howard) resides in a technologically sophisticated society in which eye implants and personal mobile devices enable users to share and rate 168

their mundane activities and social interactions with others on a five-star scale. The rating system determines an individual’s socioeconomic status: the higher a person is rated, the more favorable this person is perceived by others and the more respect this person receives. The public nature of the rating system makes it available to the whole society, meaning that people can even rate those that they do not personally know.

Wanting to obtain a high rating, a 4.2 Lacie persistently monitors how she conducts herself. Tired of sharing an apartment with her brother, Ryan Pound (James

Norton), who has no interest in the rating system or whatsoever, Lacie hopes to move out and lives on her own in an expensive luxury apartment she cannot afford. But she can receive a discount once her rating is at 4.5.

Days later, while at work, a bored Lacie randomly takes a photo of Mr. Rags, a teddy bear she made with her childhood friend, Naomi Blestow (Alice Eve), and posts it on her page. A 4.8 Naomi sees the photo, rates it five stars, and later contacts Lacie to ask whether she would like to give a speech at her wedding.

Even though Naomi used to bully her in the past, Lacie enthusiastically accepts

Naomi’s offer once she realizes that Naomi surrounds herself with other highly rated people, who, if they enjoy her speech, can significantly increase her rating to above 4.5.

On her way to the airport, a series of unfortunate incidents happen to Lacie, causing her rating to drop under 4.2. First, at the airport, she discovers that her flight gets canceled but with a current rating at 4.183, she cannot get booked on another flight, which prompts her to act in an uncourtly manner, leading to her rating dip much lower than ever. 169

Although Lacie misses Naomi’s rehearsal party, she promises the bride-to-be that she will arrive in time to deliver her speech. A truck driver, Susan (Cherry Jones), with a rating of below 2.0, picks her up and offers her a ride. Initially, Lacie refuses to ride with her. But, reluctantly, she accepts Susan’s help and hops on her truck since she has no other options.

When Naomi discovers Lacie’s plummeted ratings, she calls to demand that Lacie not come. However, an infuriated Lacie, despite her unwashed and unkempt appearance, sneaks into the wedding reception to give the prepared speech. But as she speaks, she becomes upset, leading her to act aggressively, erratically and hazardously while disturbing the guests, who then rate her negatively.

Finally, Lacie has to be restrained by security, has her eye implants removed, and gets sent to prison. While there, Lacie and another prisoner, who is held in the opposite cell, argue freely and loudly without any constraint.

The Mythology of the Rating System

Much ink has been spilled about the episode’s metaphorical takes on the theme of social media obsession and the way that the rating system represents the archetypal example of the panopticon (Redmond, 2019; Urueña & Melikyan, 2020; Yazdizadeh,

2020). In particular, the rating system “is like a digital version of the panopticon applied to the entire populace: the possibility that you might be scored for anything you do aims to have an effect on the way you relegate your own behavior” (Urueña & Melikyan,

2020, p. 85), represents a strategy of “bio-political governance, and new and all-pervasive surveillance systems made from and out of the compliance of the augmented docile 170

body” (Redmond, 2019, p. 111), or “performs the precise function of making the individual’s life itself the spectacle” (Yazdizadeh, 2020, n. p.). Regardless of their distinctive observations about the rating system, all these scholars seem to come to a consensus that “Nosedive” has a satirical undertone in that it utilizes the protagonist as a metonymy to convey a rhetorical message about possible ramifications related to an intent to construct a perfect online presence. Whereas they are certainly accurate to make this point, I contend that there is more to the idea that the rating system subjects Lacie to self-disciplining and to self-policing her behavior. That is, the rating system is in and of itself an apparatus that both generates and promotes the myth that associates happiness and satisfaction with a materialistic way of life.

Lacie has expected that a positive online presence would give her more opportunities and would offer her more options to obtain the glamorous life that she has always wanted. The kind of benefits linked to possessing a high rating is too great for her to pass it on. I thus argue that the basis for Lacie’s intent to construct an immaculate online image may reside in the recognition that her future, one that she has always strived for and one that she has always desired, depends on whether she comes to play her cards right. Therefore, the rating system hegemonizes certain aspects of her emotional and physical life, controlling both her aspirations and dreams.

Lacie is devoted to maintaining a meticulously curated profile because she buys into a set of hegemonic ideologies that instruct people to act nicely if they hope to have nice things. Accepting this line of thinking, in my opinion, means accepting that humanity has always been under the influence of some kind of promises made by the 171

ruling class with regard to how it comports itself and how it structures its life around achieving them.

Reflecting on the interior workings of the rating system provides insight into how hegemony and mythology are closely related. Raymond Williams (1980) puts a special emphasis on Gramsci’s thinking of hegemony and its centrality to study the relationship between base and superstructure. His suggestion nicely illustrates the need to expand on this conceptual model to study culture. More than merely a set of dominant ideologies, hegemony, as Williams (1980) writes in Problems in Materialism and Culture, “is a whole body of practices and expectations; our assignment of energy, our ordinary understanding of the nature of man and of his world” (p. 38). This move of Williams’s theoretical writing adds a more nuanced dimension to the conceptualization of hegemony.

Williams’s version of hegemony “constitutes a sense of reality for most people in the society, a sense of absolute because experienced reality beyond which it is very difficult for most members of the society to move, in most areas of their lives” (p. 38). Insofar as we understand hegemony as a flexible and complex technique of domination as Williams, by association with Gramsci, encourages us to do, we then understand the rating system as a means to construct this society through its exploitation of immaterial labor and its capitalization on myths.

On the one hand, Lacie’s impassioned interest in perfecting her online presence, under the influence of such hegemony, might possibly be construed as an attempt on her part to solicit acceptance from other individuals and reap benefits from being positively rated. But her single-minded intent to obtain high ratings at all costs prevents her from 172

acting freely, which, in turn, alienates her from meaningful physical social interactions.

That is, Lacie mistakes her online presence as her true identity without realizing how her perceptions of it are highly biased in the sense that she allows technology to create the boundaries distinguishing who she truly is and who she expects to be seen. On the other hand, it is in her absolute trust in the system that Lacie unconsciously and uncritically models her sense of reality after its hegemonic ideologies. In other words, hegemony structures how Lacie views her own self because it provides an essential template that guarantees her a reward of happiness. Therefore, it is understandable why she becomes frustrated with her current rating of 4.2 and why she continually works extremely hard to improve it.

In her pursuit of a perfect online presence, Lacie is engaged in serious work in the sense that she generates immaterial labor, one that can be “defined as the labor that produces the informational and cultural content of the commodity” (Lazzarato, 1996, p.

132). The value of her immaterial labor is deeply rooted in the potential for climbing the socioeconomic ladder. In the words of Maurizio Lazzarato, “If production today is directly the production of a social relation, then the ‘raw material’ of immaterial labor is subjectivity and the ‘ideological’ environment in which this subjectivity lives and reproduces” (p. 142). For Lacie, it is social relations that she mostly cares about. Lacie then places herself and constructs her subjectivity in connection to the network created by the rating system in order to make sure that the product of her immortal labor would be a more respected and higher status in her society. In other words, the rating system subjects people to the generation of immaterial labor whereas social relationships come to be the 173

main currency. The more social relationships one can have, the better one is perceived by others in this society.

Furthermore, if one refers back to the limitation that hegemony sketches out in the act of leadership, then, one can comprehend Lacie’s actions and aspirations to take as their central theme a strong belief in the myth created by the ruling class to enable a continuation of a hierarchized social structure and to thwart mutinous efforts to overthrow it. I contend that the process of hegemonizing produces myths both linked to and reflective of it. The inevitable outcome of Lacie’s hope and dream illustrates the influence of myths on her perception of this society.

In Mythologies, Roland Barthes (1987) discusses the creation of myth and its mechanism, arguing that “myth cannot be an object, a concept, or an idea; it is a mode of signification, a form” (p. 109). Myths signify. They carry within themselves rhetorical messages that emphasize certain aspects associated with a certain phenomenon and, at the same time, downplays others. For Barthes (1987), it is “a sort of constantly moving turnstile which presents alternately the meaning of the signifier and its form, a language- object and a metalanguage, a purely signifying and a purely imagining consciousness” (p.

123) that enables “the signification of myth” (p. 123). Rather than remaining static, the substance of a myth evolves and mutates such that the signification of this myth rhetorically communicates to people a preferred set of values. The possibility of myths to cherry-pick what they want to overemphasize and what they want to underemphasize most certainly highlights their capacity for distorting the way that reality is to be perceived. 174

If Barthes (1987) frets that “the function of myth is to empty reality” (p. 143), then, myths should never be considered to represent reality but, instead, they strategically appropriate historical facts and eschew historical contingency to construct themselves as universal truths, fabricating a state of a reality that is considered as “natural.” Myths oversimplify the complexity of reality, offer their abridged versions of this complexity, and infuse these abridged versions with just a touch of clarity in order to present them as a matter of fact that can be easily understood without explanation. When myths become normalized, individuals, who are susceptible to them, consider them as a way of life and as commonsense. In other words, they understand what myths mean but they never come to realize what myths are able to do to objects and subjects that they mystify and mythologize.

Moreover, Barthes (1987) grants myths with a capacity “to immobilize the world”

(p. 155). That is, myths “must suggest and mimic a universal order what has once and for all the hierarchy of possessions” (p. 155). Thus, Barthes fashions a detailed conceptualization of myths and calls for a recognition of their mechanism to maintain cultural, political and social harmonies envisioned by the dominant class. For example, at the surface, the myth of the American Dream quintessentially epitomizes transgenerational self-proclaimed values, such as diversity, industriousness, individualism, and liberty, that American people stand for. At a deeper level, this myth does not take into account social and political contexts that render difficult the upholding of said values. Indeed, the American Dream is the actualization of meritocratic ideologies

(Paul, 2018). However, the dominant class promotes such idealistic imageries as a 175

strategy to assure that the ruled class never questions the validity of myths. To this end, the construction of myths comes to be an effective and productive hegemonizing apparatus.

Let me call attention to Lacie’s desire to live in her expensive dream apartment above her price range. This instance articulates a particular kind of myth created by the rating system. This myth functions at two levels: first, being part of a gated and high-end community with the latest technologies for domestic usage indicates an opportunity for upward mobility and represents the successful realization of a dream that many insistently pursue but fail to achieve. Then, a closer look at the myth reveals its second stage: the discourse of a materialistic way of life that embraces material possession as a symbol of happiness, on the one hand, and renders significant the need to strive for these materials at all costs, on the other. That is, the gated community is advertised as an ultimate reward to the selected few who manage to fulfill what the dominant class asks of them, which is to remain at the top of the hierarchy in terms of their ratings. To this end, it is understandable why a discount is only given to those whose ratings are at 4.5 and above.

The gated community further articulates the meaning of happiness, for Lacie, as being solely grounded on the way she accepts ideologies that this type of myth contains, internalizes them and structures her life to fulfill them. Nevertheless, because Lacie views the pursuit of this myth as a social norm and as a tangible objective that she can have if and only if she does and behaves in the right way, she does not realize how this myth oppresses other alternative ways of defining happiness and how it operates as a factual 176

matter. Thus, Lacie seeks professional advice from a consultant from the company

Reputelligent (perhaps Reputation + Intelligence), who reveals that she can achieve her rating goal if she interacts with those outside of her inner circles, individuals who are highly rated, and gets these quality people to rate her.

Her counseling session has a rhetorical connotation—that is, the normalization of myth functions as an efficacious technique to solidify hegemonic ideologies. At the same time, the offering of assistance and guidance to assure Lacie of the possibility of finding solutions for her problem illustrates an attempt to preserve her trust in the myth that this rating system advances. In short, if Lacie continues to bond and identify with the values and meanings of this kind of myth, then, its impacts on her views of life will persist and she may exploit a range of chances available in the service of attaining her false dream.

Moreover, this instance articulates another important idea: the rating system is never considered at fault for Lacie’s situation. Instead, she is to be held responsible for her own failure and she must have tried harder and must have devoted more time and effort to making people rate her more positively. In laying the blame on Lacie, the rating system champions neoliberal ideologies.

Neoliberalism, according to the political scientist Wendy Brown (2017), refers to

“an order of normative reason that, when it becomes ascendant, takes shape as a governing rationality extending a specific formulation of economic values, practices, and metrics to every dimension of human life” (p. 30). Under this neoliberal paradigm, Lacie is only valued for her human capital and is advised to improve it as high as she can so that she will have more opportunities to secure the future she has always desired. More 177

metaphorically, the rating system alludes to potentials, in our social reality, for transforming everyday activities and life aspects into things that can be rated and ranked.

Brown (2017) remarks that “the pursuit of education, training, leisure, reproduction, consumption, and more are increasingly configured as strategic decisions and practices related to enhancing the self’s future value” (Brown, 2017, p. 34). Applying neoliberal principles this way can have ramifications. “As human capital,” Brown worries, “the subject is at once in charge of itself, responsible for itself, yet an instrumentalizable and potentially dispensable element of the whole” (p. 38). In short, Lacie must take it upon herself to rectify her circumstance and unless she can, she has no one else to blame but herself. Rather than questioning whether Naomi is her true friend or why Naomi wants to ask her to give a speech, Lacie merely thinks that this unexpected wedding invitation presents itself as the one single event that helps secure a future of prospect and prosperity. As a result, Lacie excitedly goes ahead and closes the deal on her future luxury apartment.

The characterization of the self-governing Lacie then articulates the discourse of the fragility of human integrity. It is her relationship with technology and its social platform that motivates and stimulates her to overlook honesty and to act dishonestly.

Technology complicates and transforms the core set of ethical values and moral principles mostly associated with human progress. That is, the rating system allows the society to alienate its people, to instill false expectations and false desire in them, to popularize a type of myth that underscores artificiality and superficiality, and to rearticulate them as individuals whose human identity no longer represents the tenets of 178

humanism. The tendency to create boundaries between online and offline personae then echoes a critique toward a unitary liberal human subject.

The Dehumanizing Aspect of the Rating System

Clearly, there are possible ramifications associated with letting the rating system dictate the way that Lacie constructs her subjectivity. More specifically, her social interactions are entirely influenced by both this technology and by its promise of a better future, leading to the formation of her identity as a fraud not only to others but to herself as well. Therefore, one can most likely expect how Lacie’s prepared speech may have sounded like.

Before getting ready to leave her apartment for the airport, Lacie rehearses the speech before her brother, Ryan. Witnessing the histrionic and melodramatic manner she plans to deliver it, coupled with how falsely she presents her friendship with Naomi,

Ryan explicitly expresses both shock and disbelief. In sarcastically calling out the fakeness and insincerity of her speech, Ryan acknowledges, and with deep concerns, how technology deprives his sister of her humanity. He states that “I miss the normal you.

Before this obsession, when we had conversations, remember? The whole ranking thing, just comparing yourself to people who only pretend to be happy. High fours like Naomi, I bet they’re suicidal on the inside.” Ryan’s observation certainly articulates the extent to which technological infiltration can have effects on human nature.

Humanity typically takes pride in the ability to apply rationality on its decision- making but Lacie’s situation indicates the opposite. Moreover, humanism purports to provide a store of unquestionable and fundamental traits that differentiate the human 179

from the nonhuman. To be human means to have the ability to express authentic, genuine, and real emotions. From a humanist perspective, a system of human emotions is the critical parameter of human uniqueness (Graham, 2002). It is the human who discerns, who feels, and who thinks. Emotions are then an innate part of being human. If a liberal humanist subject prides itself on the capacity to construct a sense of self that adheres to self-evident values of self-determination and rationality, then, no traces of external factors can influence how it articulates its emotions. However, Ryan’s concern toward his sister indicates that technology and humans co-evolve and that it is irresponsible to hold on to the humanist idea which underscores the centrality of the human subject. Technology modifies Lacie’s perceptions of her own self and her social relations and thereby meddles with her full humanity, which, in turn, rearticulates her human feeling. As Lacie’s subjectivity is embedded in technology, this technoculture undermines her individualistic sense of autonomy and that human/technology boundaries are de-articulated and disassembled.

In viewing the ranking system as a threat to authentic personhood, Ryan then confirms that his sister who may have never realized how she lacks the ability to connect with others emotionally offline and how she becomes alienated from her own reality have been dehumanized, and both the rating system and Lacie are to be held accountable for that. Those with a perfect online presence, according to Ryan, have become less human because their profile and personae online never reveal the fundamental fact about who they really are. For Ryan, they have personally become victims to the system that unequivocally establishes online self-improvement and online self-perfection as the two 180

most significant strategies that would allow them to live up to hegemonic ideologies.

Along the same line, they experience the absence of being quintessentially human. In his analysis of “Nosedive,” Redmond (2019) contends that “emotion and affect are consumable durables, turned into ratings ideologies, emptied of their authentic power” (p.

116). Ryan’s critique of Naomi’s public image evidently attests to this contention, further articulating that the ranking system renders acceptable the idea that humans have never been the one to determine their own human nature. In this context of the narrative, it is a competition for virtual perfection that structures this humanness. Therefore, the likes of

Lacie embody a sense of humanity that has never been of their own to claim.

Given the merit-based system allows for the establishment of a hierarchy that affirms the belief that people are to be rewarded for the effort to construct an affable and positive online presence, then, it is their individual liberty and personal autonomy that are at stake. “Nosedive” then deconstructs the human subjects as rational beings and, at the same time, reconstructs them as an accumulation of ratings predicated on how other individuals perceive them. In other words, the central position of human subjectivity is reappraised and, therefore, is rearticulated to embody posthuman subjectivity, which cannot be unambiguously understood without taking into account how the rating system reigns over their self-presentation.

Furthermore, one can recognize the omnipresence and the omnipotence of the ranking system to decide Lacie’s fate the moment her unanticipated low rating triggers a domino effect that renders her helpless and turns her life upside down. Her inappropriate behavior toward the ticket agent results in Lacie having “one full ranking point” 181

temporarily deduced from her current rating as “a punitive measure.” On top of that, according to the airport security, “During this period, all down votes are subject to a times two multiplier.” To this end, with the low rating, Lacie can only be allowed to rent an older car model.

Certainly rather than utilizing physical forces to govern, the state, through the rating system, introduces a set of rules that ingeniously allow it to chastise, discipline, and punish violators: highly ranked individuals will get rewarded and will receive benefits exclusively reserved from them and poorly ranked individuals will be placed at a disadvantage and will have limited options that they can gain access. By definition, the rating system presents itself as what Louis Althusser (2006) would refer to as an ideological state apparatus.

According to Althusser, while there exists only one repressive state apparatus which depends on violence to establish its power, ideological state apparatuses are plural and operate on the plane of ideologies of the ruling class. Thus, the ranking system realizes a particular ideology, which has at its roots a social structure that devalues authentic human relations. If the only way to be rated positively online is to pretend to be content and to avoid negativity, authentic personhood may never be needed. And if one gets awarded for inauthenticity, one adopts corresponding attitudes that follow such an ideology. Thus, “the ideological representation of ideology,” as Althusser (2006) observes, exploits a possibility to encourage a subject to internalize the belief that “his

‘consciousness’ inspires in him and freely accepts,” meaning that he should be led to believe that he, “as free subject,” acts out of his own free will (p. 82). As a result, 182

Althusser contends that “ideology has always-already interpellated individuals as subjects,” that “individuals are always-already interpellated by ideology as subjects,” and thus that “individuals are always-already subjects” (p. 86-87). That is, the social structure takes advantage of this always-already-ness of the subject in order to hail them into behaving accordingly to particular events and certain situations. An always-already subject, Lacie is then constituted by dominant ideologies that push for self-disciplining and self-monitoring for the sole purpose of maintaining an ideal image as propagated by hegemonic discourse. When Lacie considers the airport incident as an obstacle toward the realization of her desire and dream, her actions seem way out of line with the expectation that others have toward someone with a 4.2. Therefore, the methods of correction and discipline serve, first, to deter Lacie from future violations, and to demonstrate later that the social hierarchical structure, as determined by a system of rating, propagates a set of hegemonic ideologies which exploit the practice of interpellation to govern.

The Prospect of Rehumanization

The fact that Lacie refuses to give up her journey and persists in following through with her original plan has at its core her determination to pursue the dream centered on the myth she wholeheartedly believes in. Despite technical issues with her rented car, she does not stop. And when Naomi calls to ask about her whereabouts, Lacie takes care to reassure her friend that she would make it on time. And she even makes several attempts to hitchhike, but with no success. Those who drive by rate her poorly, further lowering her score. But Lacie keeps on walking and she is on a mission: to deliver the speech at Naomi’s wedding so that her dream can come true. Yet when Susan, a truck 183

driver with a rating score below 2, stops to offer her a lift, Lacie acts, with hesitance at first, but subsequently accepts it. This moment marks the beginning of the rehumanizing process of Lacie.

Inside the car, once Lacie finishes relaying what has happened to her through the day, Susan then discloses, and with sympathy, how “You remind me of me” in that she built her life around obtaining an excellent rating. However, the death of her husband to pancreatic cancer completely changed her view about the rating system. Susan says, “A couple of months in, we heard about this experimental treatment. It was very expensive.

It was very exclusive. I did everything I could to get him a spot there. Tom was a 4.3.

They gave his bed to a 4.4.” She continues, “So when he died, I thought, fuck it. I started saying what I wanted, when I wanted. Just drop it out there. People don’t always like that.” Susan then elaborates, “It is incredible how fast you slip off the ladder when you start doing that. It turned out a lot of my friends didn’t care for honesty. Treated me like I had taken a shit at their breakfast table.” Rather than being upset about the way her friends treated her the moment she no longer cared about maintaining a positive image online, Susan felt liberated, “But, Jesus Christ, it felt good. Shedding those fuckers. It was like taking off tight shoes.”

Susan’s explanation of why her own rating dips so low thus articulates how the rating system interpellated her to focus her attention on perfecting both her public image and her online persona. In fact, this interpellation resulted in how she falsely believed that it was her consciousness which motivated her to “live for it” and to put “all the work.” In finally comprehending the injustice and the implications that the pervasion of technology 184

entails, Susan resisted but the punishment was worse than she anticipated. She rebelled but her rebellious effort made her an outcast. To this end, it is possible to argue that the ranking system transform people into numbers, thereby effacing any trace of individualistic nature of them. Predictably, the narrative unequivocally articulates technological potentials for destabilizing the liberal humanist subject. As Susan acknowledges, she comes to be rehumanized at the moment she relinquished her intent to self-monitor her actions and to self-discipline her behaviors. The rehumanizing process, as Susan discloses, fundamentally means an abandonment of a dependence on technology in order to reclaim values of human integrity, such as authenticity, honesty, and truthfulness.

Despite advised by Susan to reconsider her obsession with the rating system,

Lacie responds, by first saying that “I can’t just kick off my shoes and walk the earth or whatever.” Lacie reasons that “Look, you had something with your life, real things, good things, and you lost it all, and I’m sorry. So now you’ve nothing left to lose. But I don’t even have the something worth losing, not yet.” Lacie then adds, “You know, I mean, I’m still fighting for that. I don’t know. Enough. To be content? Like, to look around and think, well, I guess I’m okay. Just to be able to breathe out, not feeling like… like… Like just…” Lacie concludes, “And that is way off, like, way, way off. And until I get there, I have to play the numbers game. We all do, that’s what we’re in. That’s how the fucking world works.” Monumentally important in her response must be the fact that Lacie cannot articulate the motivation behind her decision to have a perfect online profile and a respectable virtual persona. Not knowing what she wants and what she aims for means 185

that Lacie has lost touch with her own reality, contributing to her profound sense of alienation. This moment of honesty and of letting her guard down is rhetorically significant in that it highlights alienation as “an issue in human relations where people can be alienated from organizations where they work, from family, friends, and from their ‘selves’” (Fishman & Langman, 2015, p. 7). By extension, alienation then can be understood from the perspective that is much different from the Marxist one rooted in commodification.

Through her reading of the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, Bell (1979) hints at the process of objectification and the key role that it plays in the formation of alienation.

In particular, she writes that “In acting on the world, one objectifies oneself and must recognize oneself in that objectification; yet at the same time one cannot do this” (p.

414). “Fundamental alienation,” Bell then claims, “may be identified more or less with objectification – in being, in the consequences of one’s actions, and in and through others in society” (p. 418). Birt (1986) similarly echoes this claim, elaborating that “Sartrean alienation is historical and a consequence of exploitation and oppression. In another, deeper sense, alienation seems to be structurally rooted in human existence (now conceived as praxis) and in man’s fundamental relations with the world and others” (p.

294). Both scholars explicitly attribute the root of alienation to objectification. Based on their interpretations of Sartre’s work, it appears possible that Sartre may have agreed with

Karl Marx on the one aspect of alienation as rooted in the historical-material condition but he adds an additional ontological dimension to the metaphysical conception of alienation. For Sartre, then, alienation plagues human existence because human beings 186

are always objectified in the eye of others. Put the other way around, alienation is inherently unavoidable.

In “Nosedive,” the rating system heightens the degree of objectification, making

Lacie more susceptible to the possibility of alienation because she can never find fulfilment and satisfaction in what she already has. Lacie’s sense of self, mainly constructed through online human relations, has no footing on reality and has never belonged to her. As she continues to allow her subjectivity to be defined by other raters and to be delimited by the rating system, she can never know her true self and can never realize what can truly bring her joy. Also recall the myth that the rating system promotes.

A myth that is grounded upon artificiality. A myth that is constructed to reward those who follow the demand of the rating system. A myth that hails her into submitting to its hegemonic ideologies. Against this background, it is this myth that seriously worsens her state of alienation.

Moreover, as her above response to Susan’s advice clearly articulates, Lacie cannot envision what can make her happy. She cannot visualize how happiness may look like. And she does not even have a substantial definition of it. But she acknowledges that she must strive for this intangible thing, a thing that is not well-defined, that is foreign to her, and that is a must-have. More specifically, Lacie calls what she seeks a “that” and she sees her end goal a “there.” To this end, Lacie is alienated such that she does not have a clear idea of who she is and of what clearly inspire(s) her to continue her quest to become well-liked and to reside in that glamorous and luxurious gated community. Yet,

Lacie still harbors the belief that only the rating system matters and that once she 187

improves her ratings, all of her personal problems would then disappear. I thus contend that Lacie’s mischaracterization of her own identity and her alienation from her own reality can be best read as the outcome of the two following factors that build upon each other. On the one hand, hegemonic ideologies that indoctrinate her to a false sense of trust in the fairness of the rating system are later normalized and transform into a myth.

On the other hand, and simultaneously, this myth that contains these hegemonic ideologies distorts her perception of reality, hailing her to become a subject that must act correspondingly to them.

The rehumanizing process of Lacie reaches its apex the moment Susan drops

Lacie off under a bridge and tells her to find another ride. Lacie even lies to a group of people attending a sci-fi conference, close by the venue the wedding will take place, to hitchhike. When Naomi discovers her low rating and tells her not to come, Lacie refuses and crashes the wedding. No longer troubled by how she looks and how she acts in front of other people, Lacie arrives at the reception, disheveled, drenched and unkempt, delivering a speech that is much different from the one she had previously prepared.

Disregarding the guests who give her negative ratings, she eventually speaks of the truth about her friendship with Naomi.

Of course, her action has consequences—that is, Lacie has to be restrained by security, subsequently being transported to prison. With eye implants removed and under no surveillance from the rating system, Lacie can confront her alienation head-on by both renouncing her false consciousness and abandoning her blind faith in the myth that she so deeply believes in. As a result, Lacie regains her autonomy. It may sound oxymoronic but 188

being incarcerated allows Lacie to be liberated. The protagonist can now perform “free conscious activity,” the kind of activity that possesses “means and ends […] not dictated

[…] by any extrinsic determinants, whether natural or social” (Brassier, 2019, p. 99).

Regaining human emotions that she had previously ignored, Lacie is engaged in a heated shouting match with a prisoner held inside a cell in front of hers, cursing at him and not giving a single damn about what she says.

In essence, the ending scene articulates the limitation of human rationality to determine the fate of human nature and to shape the nature of human existence in the face of technology. One might deem the rating system the root cause of Lacie’s situation. Yet one needs to recognize that Lacie must be held accountable for it, too. Indeed, both are to blame for it. The episode then hints at the tension between humans and technology linked to the construction of reality. To that end, “Nosedive” questions the substance of the assertion that the humanist liberal subject can only remain intact if and only if the technology is kept at bay. The crux of this assertation is unsubstantiated, I believe, because it assumes technology and humanity as the two preexisting categories that must stay separate and must be pitted against each other. “Let technology creep too deeply in every domain of human life and humanity would suffer the consequence,” warns humanism. “To be fully human? Make sure to remain untainted by technology,” too, warns humanism. But such warnings are foolish, irrational, and unrealistic because the liberal humanist subject, as articulated in the characterization of Lacie Pound, has always overestimated its self-professed capacity for shielding against technological influences.

That is to say, the liberal humanist subject has never been human. 189

Summary

View together, “Fifteen Million Merits” and “Nosedive” both take as their central theme the concept of alienation rooted in technological infiltration into each fiber of the public lives of Bing Madsen and Lacie Pound respectively. “Fifteen Million Merits” introduces viewers to a society in which almost every aspect of everyday life is commodified and there is no way to resist the ramifications of this commodification.

“Nosedive” offers a narrative that addresses the negative outcomes of a mindless intent to embrace meritocratic ideologies and strive for the kind of myth they create.

On the one hand, in “Fifteen Million Merits,” Bing can be understood as a posthuman who has been victimized by the aspect of estranged labor. On the other hand,

“Nosedive,” Lacie can be comprehended a posthuman who has been cheated into upholding values that she does not clearly grasp. However, both narratives share one thing in common—that is, both societies, of which they are part, have been significantly transformed by the pervasion of technology. And an intimate relationship with it has dearticulated the linkage of social forces and cultural factors that have created the illusion of how boundaries, which humanism has sketched out to contain a liberal human subject, are impervious and cannot be violated.

In retrospect, technological influences on the construction of the two societies contribute to the process of alienation that removes any traces of human emotions and human yearning for social relations from the two protagonists. Recognizing the interplay of alienation and hegemony in the characterization of the two main characters provides an explication of the operation of ideologies and their roles in dehumanizing them, 190

thereby hinting at a consideration of them as representative of the posthuman. “Fifteen

Million Merits” and “Nosedive” suggest that the human category is in and of itself likely to be susceptible to forces that it can never control and therefore it remains a problematic concept.

191

Chapter 6: Be(com)ing Cyborg

One explicit way in which contemporary culture has fulfilled the Frankensteinian

fantasy is the proliferation of transplants and implants in the ‘spare-part’ surgery

or prosthetic body-technologies. In fact, how realistic is the fantasy of cybernetic

fusion between the human body and the technological support-system?

—Rosi Braidotti, Metamorphoses

In the midst of the cultural, political, and social era of postmodernity when state- of-the-art technological developments are constantly generated at an accelerating rate and are continually utilized for a wide array of anthropocentric purposes, the above question raised by feminist philosopher Rosie Braidotti (2002, p. 223) seems to be both critical and timely in that it urgently asks us to envision and imagine the way in which recent technoscientific innovations can contribute to the emergence of the cyborg as a hybridity and as a posthuman, which is so deeply embedded within a complex technologically integrated circuit and so vastly enmeshed within a complicated cybernetic network that it is impossible to argue for the stability and rigidity of categorical boundaries, which have previously acted as the line that demarcates the human from the machinic. For Braidotti, this blurring of human/machine categories represents the meta(l)morphosis of the human body into one of hybridity. A cyborg body that is constituted by the intermixture of human organic flesh and nonhuman inorganic matter. A posthuman body that persistently resists being clearly defined within the parochial tenets of the traditional and conventional body/machine dichotomies. And a hybridized body that refuses the ontological divide between the human and the machinic. To that end, it is in this 192

multiplex and entangled corporal structure of the cyborg or the posthuman that we can realize how “cybernetic fusion” is no longer a fantasy. Rather, this fantasy has become a social reality and a matter of fact. In other words, it is thus not unrealistic to envisage possibilities for a theoretical reconceptualization of what it means to unapologetically possess a hybridized human/machine body and to contemplate potentials for an aesthetic, ethical and moral reconfiguration of the human identity that refuses to perceive itself as the only sentient being, that embraces the technological other in the construction of its embodied existence, and that rejects an irrational fear of its psychical flaws and its physical imperfections.

Even though we can notice, in Braidotti’s question, some tacit skepticism toward this technological turn and the hopefulness of creating an ontologically unitary human/machine entity, we can at least acknowledge that this symbiotic human/machine transformation signifies a qualitative shift toward the formation of a posthuman body and a posthuman subject that can replace a traditional conceptualization of a liberal humanist subject which is grounded upon the false presumption of the superior status of the human.

If the centrality of this liberal humanist subject becomes resituated, then, the human and the machinic co-evolve and become interrelated to an extent that it is both futile and fruitless to separate them or to consider one to have control over the other. Rather than traveling the predictable and downtrodden path that typically treats technological devices, namely implants, and transplants, as the inorganic other, consider another provocative notion that endows them with the enacting and transformative capacity for reconfiguring the human condition. Embracing the latter line of thinking obviously means embracing 193

that technology comes to be an agential and relational actant that works in tandem with the human to espouse the realization of the posthuman. And it is in this intricate embeddedness of the human and the technological that the materialization of cyborg or posthuman subjectivity comes to be possible.

But if, hypothetically speaking, technological apparatuses are thought to transform more than physical and bodily human parts, then, what happens to the dynamics of the complex entanglements between the human and the machinic? What if the machinic has a much more active and much more significant role in the becoming of the posthuman as a hybridized subject? What if the machinic or the technological is granted more agency and thereby can determine and dictate the development of a posthuman identity? And if the technological is considered as the key actor to influence the way in which the posthuman understands its own self and experiences its own reality, what, then, can we learn of what it means for us to account for the state of understanding of posthuman embodied subjectivity?

This chapter is an attempt to tackle these questions so dear and near to posthumanism. I engage with Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic theory to analyze “The Entire

History of You,” Donna J. Haraway’s cyborg figure to examine “Men Against Fire,” and

Karen Barad’s agential realism to investigate “Arkangel.” The intention to utilize each of the three theorists separately for my textual analysis of each of the three Black Mirror episodes rests in my observation that each narrative articulates a very unique version of the cyborg subject, meaning that the three protagonists represent three concrete ways of becoming cyborg. 194

Rosi Braidotti, Donna J. Haraway, and Karen Barad have made key contributions to the theorization of posthumanism equally, but they all have approached and have contemplated the notion of the posthuman in their own distinctive perspectives. It is in this nuanced and subtle distinctiveness in the way the three scholars do their own posthumanist theorizing that galvanizes me to work with their theoretical musings separately. In doing so, I seek to contend that to capture the intricacies and the complexities of the ontology of a cyborg requires a critical attention to how the human and the technological relate with one another.

What “The Entire History of You,” “Men Against Fire,” and “Arkangel” have in common is the articulation of the cyborg figure and how they together underscore a grave crisis of the human identity that has continually haunted humanism and those who adhere to this tradition. Collectively the three episodes compromise the intellectual and theoretical appeal of the self-proclaimed notion of human exceptionalism and human rationality that lay claim to the formation of human distinctiveness as the constitution of the liberal humanist subject.

The technological turn, the specter of anti-anthropocentricism, and the abstract form of relationship between humans and technology are not unthinkable phenomena but are rather viable and concrete problems that can address and can speak to the violences that humanism has continually afflicted upon the nonhuman other. Put differently, the technological other annihilates and eradicates the thresholds of humanism that have downplayed its capacity to rearticulate and renegotiate conventional understanding of the human, its body, its subject, and its subjectivity. 195

“The Entire History of You” (Season 1: Episode 3): The Articulation of an

Enhanced Cyborg

Popular imaginations of cyborgs depend fundamentally on either the optimistic valorization of these figures as a promise or the pessimistic perception of them as a menace—that is, cyborgs can evoke either hopefulness or terror. But regardless of this dialectical tension concerning how we come to think about them, we can be certain that cyborgs come into existence at the liminal and in-between space, one that is bounded between categorical boundaries of the human and the nonhuman. Ask the posthumanist and feminist philosopher Rosi Braidotti to elucidate the ontological status of a cyborg and she will most likely suggest that it is a nomadic subject whose subjectivity is always becoming and is always relationally situated. “The Entire History of You” certainly contains this kind of nomadic subject, as articulated through the characterization of the protagonist.

Synopsis

Thanks to the installation of the Willow Grain—an affordable pea-sized and round-shaped device—behind their ear, what people see and what they hear are always and unconsciously recorded from their own vantage point. This state-of-the-art implant would then serve as an immaculate archive of memories that can be retrieved easily and quickly through an external personal handheld remote.

As users of the grain, Liam Foxwell (Toby Kebbell), and Ffion Foxwell (Jodie

Whittaker) can perform re-do, a process that would allow them to rewind and replay memories they have previously saved in the grain. Moreover, what they record is made 196

into interactive videos that the users not only can edit and manipulate but can project them onto a screen for others to view.

After leaving work, Liam shows up at a dinner party attended by his wife, unannounced. While there, he notices how coy and demure Ffion seems to be when interacting with Jonas (Tom Cullen), a man he has no recollection of. Once they leave the party, Liam confronts his wife and prods her into explaining how she and Jonas came to know each other and how they had met. Once Ffion admits, but reluctantly, that the two of them used to date, she immediately reassures her husband that he should have nothing to be concerned about because her relationship with Jonas was a thing of the past.

The next morning, to Ffion’s dismay, an inebriated Liam shows her one of his re- dos of his memories at the party the previous night to demonstrate to her the difference in the way she had behaved toward Jonas the moment Liam arrived. Despite her explicit display of irritation regarding his action, Liam is undeterred and persists in his interrogation. Utilizing his remote control, he then zooms in on one of the three screens on the wall, directly facing him at the dinner table the night before, which played memories of the host at a previous party that had happened a long time ago. As he hits play on this screen, Liam discloses what he discovered: it was Ffion and Jonas kissing on the sofa in the background. His wife lied about their relationship.

Infuriated by this discovery of Ffion’s dishonesty, Liam drives to Jonas’s house to confront him. Unwilling at first, Jonas lets Liam in. Once inside, Liam physically assaults

Jonas, demanding that either Jonas delete all of the memories of Ffion or Liam do it himself by removing the grain of Jonas. 197

Following his confrontation with Jonas, Liam crashes his car into a tree and passes out. The moment he wakes up, Liam replays the altercation at the house of Jonas, and he discovers that while watching Jonas delete his memories, Liam obtains a section of Jonas’s re-do that records him having sex with Ffion approximately a year and a half ago, around the time when Jodie, their daughter, was conceived.

Once at home, Liam divulges what he uncovers to Ffion, who then admits that she did indeed have sexual intercourse with Jonas eighteen months ago but guarantees that they did have protected sex. Despite Ffion’s assertion that Jodie is his daughter, Liam wants proof, insisting that she projects her re-do of the memory. And when Ffion says that she deleted it, he presses on, asking her to provide the evidence of the erasure. That is, if she already erased it, a blank space would appear on the entire history of her recorded memories. Ffion panics, making a desperate attempt to delete the memory, but

Liam aggressively makes her stop. And she has no other choices but to show him the re- do. As it turns out, Ffion and Jonas did not use a condom, therefore confirming Liam’s suspicion that Jodie may not be his daughter.

Wandering around his now unkempt house alone while playing re-dos of his previously recorded happy memories with his family, Liam is shown to be inside his bathroom, staring at the mirror and using a razor blade to remove the grain from behind his ear.

The Technology/Human Meta(l)morphosis

The grain plays a crucial part in this transforming the majority of the characters into cyborgs. Once installed, the eye retinas of Liam and Ffion obtain an additional 198

function, acting as their personal screens that directly broadcast re-dos of their recorded memories for their private consumption. Nevertheless, the grain would never stop recording; thus, it appears that the behavior of the majority of characters will always be under scrutiny by both the state and those who are in contact with them. For the grain records and stores everything, even the most insignificant and the most peripheral events, which may later reveal themselves, and in the most unexpected manner, that would serve as evidence so detrimental and destructive that it can be utilized to indict the characters for their dishonesty and deceptiveness. In other words, because the characters have no full control of the grain’s recording capacity as well as have no complete understanding of the extent to which it can record, the secrets they attempt to hide will always run the risk of being exposed and being uncovered. In his analysis of the episode, Blackwell

(2018) particularly perceives the grain as a surveillance apparatus, which unambiguously subjects Liam and the other characters to a perpetual mode of self-disciplining and self- monitoring. As he notes, “while the threat of being watched always looms over their heads, these characters can also ‘turn the tables’ and utilize the grain and its archives to actively monitor others” (p. 57). In this panoptic society, they constantly alternate between being a watcher and being watched. While Blackwell accurately highlights the important role of the grain to the construction of a surveillance society, I argue that this device and its popularization destabilize and problematize Liam’s human identity by transforming him into a cyborg. And as a machine/human hybrid, his embodied subjectivity becomes fractured due to his dependence on the grain to make judgments of his reality. 199

Certainly, no viewers can miss that Liam’s life’s descent into chaos begins at the moment he witnesses his wife’s unusual display of behavior toward another man at the dinner party, which first provides a seed of suspicion, subsequently sprouting into a full- blown obsession so single-minded that it puts him on edge and feeds into his unbending intent to search for the truth. Consider, for example, how upsetting Liam is when Ffion remains both evasive and seems to be disinclined to tell him about her romantic escapade with Jonas once they get home after the party. Liam seems to be even more frustrated with the inconsistency of her account, leading him to call his wife a “bitch.”

However, later that night, Liam apologizes to Ffion, and they end up having sex.

As Liam is unable to fall asleep, he goes downstairs, drinks a copious amount of alcohol while perusing and going over re-dos of the dinner party. Thanks to the special features of the grain, Liam can focus on the way Jonas and his wife have previously interacted and behaved toward one another, and, thereby, can dissect and deconstruct recorded segments of the event. The permeant presence of the grain and the source of digital archives it offers can be argued to influence how Liam proceeds to make sense of the situation. It is not for nothing that the protagonist re-winds, re-watches, and re-scrutinizes recorded segments of the dinner party because he knows that a meticulous analysis of re- dos enables him to pay particular attention to minor details that he may have overlooked, thus allowing him to have a less ambiguous and clearer grasp of why his wife has dodged his questions and has been elusive in her responses in the first place.

While we can make the case that the grain is utilized to serve Liam, we can, at the same time, notice that this technological device does more than passively aiding him. 200

Indeed it actively has a tremendous effect on how he comes to perceive the situation. For, without the grain, Liam would have handled it differently. As an integrated part of his physical body, the implant functions as the main actor, galvanizing him to continue with the pursuit of a satisfying answer that would lay his doubt to rest. A dependence on the grain for evidence to validate his suspicion articulates that Liam’s embodied subjectivity can only fully be understood in relation to this device. In other words, the intimate interconnectedness between Liam’s body and the grain facilitates both the materialization and the realization of his sense of self and his subjectivity.

In Nomadic Theory, Braidotti (2011) carefully distinguishes identity and subjectivity, suggesting that “Whereas identity is a bounded, ego-indexed habit of fixing and capitalizing on one’s selfhood, subjectivity is a socially mediated process of relations and negotiations with multiple others and with multilayered social structures” (p. 4).

Braidotti fundamentally accounts for the difference in mechanisms for the emergence of identity and the formation of subjectivity. On the one hand, Braidotti’s conceptualization of identity as static and unvarying, in this context, indicates the tendency on the part of a thinking subject to depend on a predetermined set of rigid and set categories built and erected by social structures, from which this thinking subject can then pick and choose in order to understand itself most conveniently and practically so that it can represent itself, can render itself stable, and can demarcate itself from the other. A subject defines its selfhood through categories, thereby placing constraints on other possibilities to view it.

On the other hand, subjectivity, for Braidotti, is always nomadic in the sense that it is always becoming due to the fact that a subject develops its subjectivity not by itself but 201

through the way it relates to others, both human and nonhuman, simultaneously.

Subjectivity is therefore constituted out of a web of associations and connections among external and internal forces. In other words, subjectivity is always in process, is always relational, and, as a result, can never be clearly defined or easily situated. Braidotti’s conceptual approach to understanding subjectivity is of great significance to make sense of Liam’s subjectivity. It is impossible to deem his subjectivity as solely constructed by his own consciousness but instead we must recognize how the grain, with a capacity for recording, replaying, and rewinding, significantly informs how he perceives his reality as well as influences how he comes to experience it. Therefore, Liam’s subjectivity is the effect of eternally synergistic negotiation between how much he, as a conscious and autonomous subject himself, can make judgments of his reality on his own and how much those judgments are to be impacted by the grain. Whether the character recognizes it or not, one thing remains true: the intimate relations with the grain determines the way he is subjected.

A case in point. In paying close attention to some trivial details toward the sudden change in the way Ffion comported herself at the dinner in his re-dos, Liam grows distrustful of her explanation that she and Jonas simply had a normal conversation. First,

Liam fixates on a close-up of Ffion’s face during one particular and brief instance at the dinner when she affectionately and warmly glanced at Jonas while attentively listening to his joke. Then, Liam immediately fast-forwards to the next moment his wife looked at him in an indifferent, nonchalant and restrained manner. He states that “But moment later you’re so stiff. You don’t know how to stand around him. Your gauges are all over the 202

place, hot and cold.” To which Ffion replies, and with irritation: “This is just stupid.”

With jealousy, Liam addresses, “But you can’t hide it, not completely. See how you look at him.” What this instance articulates is that had he never had the grain implanted, his distrust would have dissipated and the whole situation would have looked much different.

But the device provides him with an opportunity to take notice of the subtle shift in the way that Ffion reacted toward him and Jonas during dinner the previous night. This insignificant detail, which may have been easily discounted and may have initially escaped his attention, turns out to be one so significant that it helps confirm the suspicion he has of the truth about the relationship between his wife and Jonas.

Critical insights into what happens between Liam and Ffion in this particular incident reveals the extent to which technology can affect human perceptions of reality and can compromise human rationality. Sure, we can argue that Liam’s decision to dwell on this one re-do and to focus his attention on this particular trivial detail to support his speculation is obviously a conscious one in that he consciously make the choice to never let go of his suspicion and to keep on digging to search for the truth. And if we approach his handling of the situation from the humanist perspective, then, we may presume that he is to take full responsibility for his paranoia as well as his obsession over his wife’s extramarital affair with another man. But doing so certainly downplays the key role of the grain on adding more fuels to this paranoia and, subsequently, exacerbating this obsession.

The grain equips him with special ways of knowing and navigating his social reality through the form of re-dos. With it, the protagonist is invested with a greater 203

capacity for anticipating the future based on what has already transpired. Simultaneously, he can look back at the past in order to identify overlooked and neglected details so that he can understand what comes to constitute the problem he encounters in the present.

These possibilities cement his belief in the grain. His trust in its power to act as his personal assistant and as a legitimate reservoir of valuable information and reliable data about his life, those that he knows he can depend on, in order to know his reality, confirms the interconnected relationship between the two. One implication of the articulation of this interconnectedness is that while human rationality and the technological co-constitute Liam’s obsession, it seems quite remarkable that more power is granted to the grain that prescribes the way he deconstructs the meaning of the event.

Highly influenced by what the re-do reveals, Liam’s subjectivity cannot be fully explained without reference to or considering the presence of this device.

Adhering to this line of thinking, the episode articulates effectively the inseparability of the protagonist and the machinic and clarifying the nature of this human/machine hybrid subject underscores that the grain has never been the other and has never been a mere appendage of his physical body. For, as a cyborg subject, the formation of his embodied subjectivity is surely dependent on his relations to the implant.

Read nomadically, Liam unequivocally articulates a posthuman subject that is known as

“a conceptual persona that illuminates the complexities of the present, defined as both the actual and the virtual” (Braidotti, 2017, p. 12). A posthuman subject with an artificially reconstructed and technologically incorporated posthuman body. And a posthuman subject with a posthuman subjectivity that cannot be wholly and fully situated within the 204

humanist framework which celebrates and embraces mostly the dualistic mind/body distinction.

Take, for example, the confrontation between Liam and Jonas. Also consider

Liam’s erratic acts of violence toward Jonas: first, forcing his way inside Jonas’s house, and, later physically attacking Jonas in an attempt to make him project his re-dos on the screen and erase Ffion-related memories. Now recall how the formation of the character’s embodied subjectivity is determined by his relational experiences with the technological other. That is, his judgment of reality and his subject-positioning rest on constant

(re)negotiations between the influence of rational consciousness and that of the technological. Nevertheless, as the incident articulates, it is the grain that prompts him to act out of character, therefore both compromising his rational consciousness and tampering with his capacity to apply rational thought to handle the situation. Rather than blaming Liam for his own personal ruination, I suggest that the grain plays a role, too, but even a more key role in leading him on the path of destruction. In invoking this claim, I intend to shine a spotlight on how this implant actively diminishes the monopolization of human consciousness on the creation of the character’s subjectivity, thereby reconfirming itself as a formidable and powerful constitutive force in this process. As this pursuit of truth becomes possible thanks to the support of the grain, the perceived assumption of

Liam’s jealousy, enabled by human consciousness, as the main cause of his hell-bent obsession turns out to be an erroneous one. Unless the character can make a rational choice and can form rational thought without consulting his re-dos, then, the implant makes itself even more indispensable to the becoming of his subjectivity than we may 205

have anticipated. In short, a reliance on this technological device to know his truth opens up rational consciousness to the possibilities of being susceptible to corruption.

The Power of the Grain

The capacity of this technological apparatus that allows its users to record and replay memories is paradoxical in two ways. On the one hand, the creation and adoption of the implant clearly represent the belief, which is rooted in and propagated by the

Enlightenment thinking, that “a self-regulatory and teleologically ordained use of scientific rationality” (Braidotti, 2011, p. 28) should occupy the central position toward striving for human progress and human perfection. We can think of this technological innovation as investing the human subject with an improved and enhanced ability to overcome human psychical and physical limitations because it is originally intended to be empowering and emancipatory so that people can preserve their memories more effectively, can share them with others more easily, and can retrieve them more effectually. The implant liberates its users from the fear of missing out and the problem of forgetting. On the other hand, by providing grounds for recorded memories to be kept forever and to be played back at will, the grain blurs and effaces temporal boundaries between the past, the present, and the future.

Thanks to the re-dos, the past becomes notably central to the construction of the present among the characters. The potentials for re-assessing, re-constructing and re- viewing the re-dos transform how they live and how they perceive other people. The re- dos become the touchstone for how they go about their lives. Because looking back at their past and analyzing re-dos are incorporated into their daily routine, these activities 206

come to constitute the way they make sense of their reality. Thus, they cultivate a habit of constantly dwelling on moments of the past. In invoking the significance of the implant on interpersonal communication and social interaction among these characters, I want to draw attention to its ability to serve as an active agent that can diminish human autonomy and can compromise liberal individualism. This posthumanist understanding of the technological tasks us, as the audience, “to think again and to think harder about the status of human subjectivity and the ethical relations, norms and values that may be worthy of the complexity of our times” (Braidotti, 2016a, p. 13).

Furthermore, humanism thrives on the notion that the liberal humanist subject is granted with a certain set of inherent traits and innate attributes that can differentiate itself from the nonhuman (Braidotti, 2002, 2011, 2013). And the capacity for thinking abstractly is one of them. Abstract thinking then enables the human subject to make memories. As a marker of human distinctiveness, memories are then products of this self- proclaimed ability that can never exist independently of the human subject. To that end, memories are private, specific and unique to the one who captures and makes them. The function of memories is to remind the human subject of a plethora of instances or moments that bring joy, cause anger, create sadness, or generate happiness. Therefore, the human subject has full control of this memory-creation process because it can consciously and autonomously sort out what it feels, sees, hears, and tastes, and can mentally convert these materials into things to be remembered and to be treasured.

However, the grain entirely transforms this humanist conceptualization of memories because they become concretized, become digitized and become materialized. More 207

strikingly, memories have become more public, have become less personal and have gained a corporeal structure. That is, the grain offers the abstract nature of memories its materiality. The concrete, digital and material form of memories, as contained in the re- dos, galvanizes us to confront a fact that the majority of the characters have lost the ability to forget because they are not invested with the ability to remember. Very much in the same vein, the grain effaces this rudimentary aspect of remembering and forgetting.

In the context of Liam, his present is to be influenced by a constant reassessment of his memories. He can never live in the present that is haunted by a perpetual interpretation and evaluation of the past. This tendency therefore minimizes human consciousness and universal rationality in crafting the way in which he comes to perceive his reality.

Within the interrelated human/machine framework, embracing and maintaining universal rationality as the main principle to explain human action remains insufficient because the protagonist’s failure to move on is constituted by the technological other. The grain serves as the deciding factor that propels him to continuously dwell on the past.

And because his rational consciousness is contained within this particular instance, he becomes stuck and chained to his obsession that renders impossible his ability to find a way out of this conundrum. Against this background, the implant can shape human decision making, thereby controlling the condition of his perceived reality. Put another way, attempts to attribute his erratic behaviors to jealousy from a spouse who discovers the act of extramarital sex run the risk of overlooking the profound influence of this technological device. In downplaying his autonomy and compromising his rationality,

“The Entire History of You” articulates Liam’s enactment of aggression and his display 208

of volatile reactions as ones that have stemmed from the presence of the grain and his whole dependence on it to know his truth. Over the course of the episode, it becomes clear that the grain has always been key to Liam’s emotional transformation from suspicion, to obsession, to anger and to finally a reaffirmation of the state of his wife’s infidelity.

The Tragedy of a Cyborg

What ultimately matters in the conclusion of the episode is the articulation of a failed attempt of becoming a cyborg. That is, the characterization of Liam articulates the unintended outcome of being a hybridized human/machine subject. When Braidotti

(1994, 2002, 2011) asks us to think nomadically and to embrace nomadic thoughts, she encourages us to envision a thinking subject that rejects being confined within predetermined categorical boundaries. A thinking subject that has always wrestled with the universalism of human consciousness. A thinking subject that is never locally settled and specifically contained. Celebrating cyborgs as nomadic subjects that come to build bridges over the chasm between the human and the machinic, Braidotti (2002) notes that

“[they] incorporate, rather than merely affect, humans, and thus promote the fantasy of fusion, the ecstasy of the merger between the organic and in organic” (p. 251). Clearly marked by hopefulness, optimism, and sanguineness, this interpretation of the cyborg figure warrants the conceptualization of the nomadic subject, one that “combines qualitative shifts with a firm rejection of liberal individualism, and connects a distinct sense of singularity with respect for complexities and interconnections” (Braidotti, 2002, p. 260). Becoming cyborg then carries potentials for transcending and renegotiating 209

humanist ideals of universal rationality. Becoming cyborg also calls for reinventing the human self and reimagining the human subject, thereby seeking alternatives to the conventional understanding of human embodied subjectivity.

Being collectively constituted, the nomadic subject is open to external changes, is against being rationally individualistic, and is not internally bounded. And in the words of Braidotti (2011), “The becoming-machine or meta(l)morphoses need not be cast in the apocalyptic mode or mood” (p. 76). Transforming the human subject into a nomadic posthuman one therefore promises an opportunity for addressing the limitation of humanism. However, the characterization of the protagonist seems to challenge and undermine this hopeful posthumanist vision. Liam’s intentional and conscious, yet violent and forceful, act of extracting the grain from his own body underscores that the technological other must be eradicated and removed if he is to reclaim his pristine and pure former self and to preserve a unitary human identity.

Because the merging of the human and the technological other can be asserted to lead to catastrophic repercussions that can be both unthinkable and shocking, the unification between the two into a cyborg, nomadic, and posthuman subject thus sparks a flurry of problems that disturb and distort the reality drawn and sketched by humanism.

That is to say, to be human then is tantamount to a refusal and a rejection of “the fantasy of fusion” due to the fact that this fusion disempowers rather than empowers human identity and embodied subjectivity. In sum, this dialectical tension between the human and the machinic must not be overcome if the human subject wishes to remain fully human. 210

Given the limitation of identifying human consciousness as both the marker and the prerogative of the human subject, an intent to consider subjectivity as corresponding to conscious agency is exceedingly problematic. Drawing on the scholarly work of

Donna Haraway, Braidotti (2016b) perceives the technological other as “enacting a qualitative shift in our understanding of how the human is constituted in its interaction with nonhuman others” (p. 680). If we take Braidotti’s perspective seriously, we must then recognize that the formation of the subjectivity of the protagonist is always in a constant state of flux, is always changing, and is always embedded within the way he practically interacts with the grain. As Braidotti (2013) further suggests, “all technologies can be said to have a strong bio-political effect upon the embodied subject they intersect with” (p. 90). This sort of effect caused by the technological other, despite demonstrating the messiness of transgressing boundaries, pushes us to reconsider humanist tenacious and unyielding efforts to uphold the superiority of human rationality and human consciousness. In this case, Liam is a quintessentially embodied exemplar that warns us of how an intimate relation with technologies can alter human rationality and, as a result, can only lead to a tragic ending.

“Men Against Fire” (Season 3: Episode 5): The Articulation of a Reprogramed

Cyborg

Donna J. Haraway (1991) finds in the figure of cyborgs the potential for challenging the social order of capitalism and confronting the hierarchical system of patriarchy. In her optimistic vision, cyborgs bring about radical practices of doing politics because they ostensibly cut open categorical boundaries, thereby indicating a 211

transformational transition to a reality in which hybridity comes to be the new norm and hybrid beings is no longer a fantasy. But Haraway’s positive perception of cyborgs can be undermined and can be placed in jeopardy the moment they are purposefully created to aid and pursue the anthropocentric quest of domination and oppression. “Men Against

Fire” approaches cyborgs in this light, articulating the abuse of the cyborg soldiers to serve the cause of their creators.

Synopsis

As members of a military division with a mission to hunt down and eliminate

“roaches”— aggressive and dangerous humanoid beings, Stripe Koinange (Malachi

Kirby) and Hunter Raiman (Madeline Brewer) are two young soldiers who are technologically enhanced through an implant system, called MASS. By constructing an augmented reality, MASS tremendously heightens their senses and allows them to promptly analyze data collected during combat, therefore assisting them with the decision-making process in the field.

Following an order, the team raids a farmhouse in search of roaches. There, Stripe uncovers a few of them hiding upstairs. Once discovered, one of the roaches waves a hand-held device, emanating red light at the tip, at him. Stripe then shoots one and wrestles with another before stabbing it to death with a knife.

Nevertheless, it seems that Stripe’s accidental exposure to the device causes his

MASS to glitch because his sex dream is disrupted, which automatically wakes him up.

Assuming it broken, Stripe requests a check-up in the morning but the test reveals that his implant operates normally. And a subsequent consultation with Arquette (Michael Kelly), 212

a high-ranking officer of his unit, puts his worries over the possible malfunction of his

MASS to rest.

The following day, when the team besieges a deserted building, the roaches fight back, firing shots at the soldiers to prevent them from entering. Once Stripe and Hunter manage to sneak inside, he discovers a woman, whom he assumes, being held hostage, and urgently presses her to hide before his teammate sees her. At that exact moment,

Hunter appears and immediately shoots her.

Shortly, when he encounters a frightened mother (Ariane Labed) and her terrified child (Toby Oliver) in another room, Stripe knows that he must stop Hunter from killing them. As Hunter points her gun at them and readies to fire, Stripe launches himself at her, who, before being knocked unconscious, shoots him in the stomach. An injured Stripe, together with the mother and son, immediately flees the scene, leaving Hunter behind.

Hiding inside a cave, the mother elucidates that the roaches Stripe and his squad have been trying to exterminate are in fact human.

Following the trail accidentally left behind by Stripe and the other two, Hunter locates to the cave. She abruptly appears during the midst of their conversation. Catching them off guard, Hunter instantly opens fire, aiming at Catarina and Alec and killing them both on the spot. Then she knocks Stripe out cold with her gun. At the military base, an incarcerated Stripe faces his punishment.

In the future, Stripe, discharged from his military service, gets dropped off in front of a beautiful and lovely house where a woman eagerly awaits him. Unfortunately, what Stripe sees is a deception and an illusion because the MASS implant alters his mind 213

in order to disguise and mask the unattended and dilapidated condition of the house before his eyes.

The Cyborg Soldier

“Men Against Fire” has the cast of characters constituted by artificially regenerated cyborg soldiers created to prevent and neutralize serious and deadly threats posed by their nonhuman enemy. As cyborgs, they resemble the image of OncoMouseTM,

“a transgenic mouse,” as Haraway (1998) highlights, and “a figure both in secularized

Christian salvation history and in the linked narratives of the Scientific Revolution and the New World Order—with their promises of progress, cures, profit, and if not eternal life, then at least life itself” (p. 23). Just like their manmade relative, OncoMouseTM, a human/animal hybrid, the chimeric human/machine cyborg soldiers are produced to save humanity from the imminent danger plagued by roaches. In the wake of Haraway, we have witnessed the arrival of a new conceptual model that deemphasizes the humanist liberal subject as one that can be detached from the nonhuman and a new mode of investigation that is in favor of a kind of posthumanist knowledge that embraces the posthuman subject that comes into being at the intersection of various discursive and material axes that crisscross and converge.

The realization of the existence of the cyborg soldiers is testament to the potential of technologies for equipping the human with techniques to intermix with incompatible and unrelated species. Seen as “the site of possible being” (González, 1995, p. 267), their cyborg bodies are not fully human and yet they are also not fully machinic and, therefore, can be interpreted in multiple ways. In “A Cyborg Manifesto,” Haraway (1991) notes that 214

“The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism” (p. 151). By accident, particular dominant cultural, historical, political and social structures give birth to this cyborg figure. A cyborg figure that inhabits and resides within a liminal space constituted by the blurring of categories. A cyborg figure that will never be whole, thereby being rejected by those who create them in the first place. Despite this perceived trouble, Haraway (1991) then adds that “But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential” (p. 151). Cyborgs may have emerged out of specific historical moments, but the story of their origin and of how they come to existence always remains a mystery.

Artificially procreated, cyborgs have evolved, have thrived on their own and have taken on hybrid identities that can never be understood within the binary/dichotomous/dualistic humanist framework. By extension, the cyborg figure demands that we re-evaluate the humanist notion of a categorically bounded human subject that has always been antagonistic to the influence of the nonhuman on the formation of its subjectivity. It also encourages us to think creatively and think imaginatively, but always with compassion and always with empathy, to (re)define not only the human identity but also that of what is typically considered as the other. To this end, the cyborg figure is a political one (Haraway, 1991, 1995, 2003, 2016a). The image of a cyborg is a myth but one that, despite its contested and complex origin, can de- articulate, articulate and then re-articulate what the human/machine interconnection truly means. 215

If this cyborg myth promises emancipation, liberation, and salvation, then, it works to dismantle the hegemonic Western dualistic binary system (Haraway, 1991;

Vint, 2008). The cyborg figure comes to represent hope, comes to mean subversion and comes to define resistance. Becoming cyborg comes to constitute “a way of seeing, thinking, and acting together that begins to change the way humans and the many others to whom they are connected know and live together now and in the future” (Schneider,

2005, p. 21). But this vision of hope evidently seems to be wishful thinking in the context of this fictional world of MASS-altered soldiers.

At first glance, Stripe, Hunter, and the rest of their squadron may have perfectly fitted into the description of the cyborg figure, one that comes into being by transgressing categorical human/machine boundaries. Nevertheless, a closer look at these enhanced cyborg soldiers reveals that they are not “illegitimate offspring” of their fathers because they are built to serve the human and to fight for a human cause: to protect the purity of the human body and to thwart the contamination from those monstrous creatures they call roaches.

Furthermore, their reconstructed bodies and their enhanced human senses are not that “unfaithful to their origins” because they are, in the end, born out of human ambitions to manipulate the technological to minimize human weaknesses and to exploit it to maximize human strengths for anthropocentric purposes. These soldiers are not made by accident but are intentionally produced. Rather than challenging the status quo and subverting social order, they are created to maintain them. The whole purpose of becoming militarized cyborgs is to save humankind. 216

In “Men Against Fire,” the cyborg soldiers possess high combat skills and are sufficient in locating and terminating roaches. Take, for instance, Stripe’s enhanced shooting and fighting ability when confronting the enemy, even though he has never been on the field before. His success is so great that his teammates are impressed, with Hunter, in particular, who jokingly proclaims that “Yeah, you fucking Terminator. Damn! First time out, he gets two. Sweet dreams for this asshole. Gonna get a treat tonight.” What

Raiman means by “sweet dreams” or “a treat” alludes to sex dreams created by MASS, which is capable of arousing new sensations, a sort of fantasies that bind them to induced hallucinations in order to domesticate them, make them manipulatable, subjugate them to follow orders, and exploit them to carry out the government agenda. The influence of

MASS is so invasive that the system structures both the conscious and unconscious state of the soldiers, and it even controls their dreams. During their sleeping hours, they are mentally imprisoned in a MASS-monitored virtual and simulated reality.

At a minimum, it is clear that MASS penetrates each fiber of their lived sociality and sensible existence, therefore, subjecting them to ongoing surveillance by the state.

These cyborg soldiers are monitored not only in the outside world but in the inside one as well. Put the other way around, with these induced hallucinations, MASS comes to constitute the perceived reality of the soldiers, by controlling it, distorting it, molding it, and shaping it. To that end, the significant role that MASS plays in the lives of these soldiers is that they do not exist independently of the implant. They are cyborgs that are mentally and corporeally situated in a terrain, totally dominated by the technological other. And they are cyborgs with actively penetrable memory systems, entirely controlled 217

and wholly manipulated by a kind of power that does not certainly come from within them.

Not only does MASS brainwash Stripe, but it is so fully integrated into his body that it has become an indispensable part of his body. Not an external object inserted to assist him, but Stripe and MASS have melded into one coherent and orderly, albeit hybrid, entity. That is, when his MASS malfunctions, Stripe considers himself to have a disease and to be sick, as a patient that needs to get treated. Here, at the very least, is a pivotal instance that rhetorically articulates the discourse of the blurring of boundaries between reality and the constructed image that renders impossible any effort to reject the impact of MASS on Stripe’s a sense of clarity. Stripe is invested with an advanced and enhanced capacity for fighting against his enemy but at the expense of being immersed in a simulated reality that is utterly constructed by MASS. Schneider (2005) highlights the importance of Haraway’s academic writing by asserting that “her view of human subjectivity and physicality is that they are neither ‘the whole show’ of ‘life on earth’ nor that subjectivity is centred and whole inside the corporeal body/mid of a single human being”(p. 160). He continues that “human subjectivity itself is not ‘integrated’ by

‘reason’ but rather can be understood to include quite disparate, shifting, and often contradictory parts” (p. 161). The penetration of MASS into the mind of Stripe is so deep that this cyborg soldier does not seem to have a hold of his own reality. For MASS does all the work: reward him with sex dreams, improve his fighting skills, and bring order to his life. Stripe’s subjectivity comes to be mostly constituted by MASS because it constricts his sense of truth and shapes his perception of reality. 218

The Technique of Dehumanization

Despite the assurance made by both the doctor and Arquette that Stripe’s MASS works just fine, they are proven wrong. His previous exposure to the device during his first mission caused it to malfunction because he started to regain his ability to taste and smell his surroundings and at the same time discover the truth about roaches. And he gets shot by Hunter while helping a woman and her son escape during his second raid.

Fleeing, they hide inside a cave where the mother discloses that it is the MASS system that controls and changes his perceptions of his reality, causing him to see her people as disgusting monsters. More specifically she states, “[The government] put [MASS] in your head to help you fight, and when it works, you see us as something other. One of us,

Luka, was making a… a machine. Light flashes. Said it can interfere with the implant.”

After revealing her name as Catarina and her son’s name as Alec, she explains to Stripe the reason why they are hated by the rest of society, “Ten years ago, it began. Post-war.

First, the screening program, the DNA checks, then the register, the emergency measures.

And soon everyone calls us creatures. Filthy creatures. Every voice. The TV. The computer.” According to her, the state even goes one step further, saying that “we have sickness in us. We have weakness. It’s in our blood. They say that our blood cannot go on. That we cannot go on.” Catarina’s explanation of the method that the government utilizes in order to turn society against her people articulates the discourse of dehumanization, and thereby convey a rhetorical message about how the state depends on this technique to make the act of killing other human beings more morally redeemable and more ethically acceptable. 219

More specifically, to wage war means to have and to make a good excuse. We can see this as an ethical issue, one that needs to be addressed such that we can make sense of why the war breaks out in the first place and can reason why the conflict can only be resolved through physical destruction and bloody means. Another important question that lingers in our minds regarding the purpose of war is what our enemy has done to deserve such a death sentence. How do we justify killing human lives of our enemy? Are their lives not as valuable as ours? Are their lives ungrievable? Judith Butler takes great care to address these ethically challenging questions in her 2009 Frames of War book. Applying her theoretical model that highlights the grievability and the ungrievability of life can help explain the injustice and the discrimination the people who are called roaches come to be exposed to.

From the beginning, the lives of Catarina and her people do not have meaning and are not perceived to be those worthy of living. Their bodies are disposable because they are “exposed to socially and politically articulated forces as well as claims of sociality”

(Butler, 2009, p. 3) that do not provide them with opportunities to thrive and prosper. The government has developed particular frames that come to be so restricted that attempts to think of the bodies of the minority population outside of these frames become unthinkable and impossible. The state takes advantage of biased and prejudiced frames to contain how they are perceived. In doing this, it renders their lives unrecognizable and, thereby, ungrievable. In the words of Butler (2009), “the possibility of being sustained relies fundamentally on social and political conditions, and not only on a postulated internal drive to live” (p. 21). Catarina and those who are like her can never be 220

recognized, can never be legible, and can never be given possibilities to make their lives meaningful. And because their lives are ungrievable, her people “cannot be mourned”

(Butler, 2009, p. 38). If their lives have no value, then, the issue of guilt reveals itself to be irrelevant to the question of who are to be held accountable for the killing of others: whether it is the state or MASS-altered soldiers, we can never be sure and can never know the answer. Prejudiced or inauspicious media framing and the state’s dependence on scientific methods and findings to conclude the minority population as undesirable create dire conditions that clearly paint their lives as ungrievable. Put another way,

Catarina’s account of why her people are treated that way articulates the idea that violence and brutality will always be justifiable as long as the lives of the minority population are not viewed by the government and the state as ones that deserve to live and to exist.

Following the trail left behind by them, Hunter locates the cave, shoots Catarina and her son dead, knocks Stripe unconscious and brings him back to the base. Later,

Arquette pays Stripe a visit in his cell. Despite Stripe’s sullenness and sulkiness, Arquette determinedly wants to see him in his cell. Showing him the hand-held device, which

Stripe has previously referred to, Arquette acknowledges, and with contempt, that,

“Looks like [the roaches] reverse engineered it from some of our drone parts and so on.

The light here transmits a code. It’s like a virus. It burrows into your MASS, trying to shut it down from within.” He proceeds to confess that “those roaches are getting more ingenious than we give them credit for.” When Stripe confronts him with the fact that

“[The roaches] look just like us,” Arquette does not even bother to deny it, and further 221

adds that MASS “is the ultimate military weapon. It helps you with your intel. Your targeting. Your comms. Your conditioning. It’s a lot easier to pull the trigger when you’re aiming at the bogeyman, hmm?” Arquette further divulges that “It’s not just your eyes, though. Takes care of your other senses, too. You don’t hear the shrieks. You don’t smell the blood and the shit.” The tendency to transform the enemy into nonhuman subjects that can represent traits of animals is not a new phenomenon or an unfamiliar practice.

Metaphors, such as termites, rodents, insects, or vermin, function to “not only portray enemies as straightforwardly villainous, but also go further to deny their basic humanity” (Steuter & Wills, 2008, p. 37). As they point out, “The less human the enemy, the more insidious and pervasive it appears, the louder the call to extermination” (p. 38).

To dehumanize the enemy has been a common practice during wartime because it makes killing tolerable and defensible. To that end, it is evident that the dehumanization of the minority population, by transforming them into roaches, enables possibilities to render acceptable acts of sadism and violence toward those who are part of this group.

Therefore, MASS is created with the purpose of dehumanizing their enemy, thus preventing soldiers from sympathizing with their foes while simultaneously enabling them to kill their targets with efficiency and without contrition.

The Legacy of Eugenics

What is most interesting about “Men Against Fire” is the fact that the episode incorporates eugenic thoughts into the narrative to articulate the reason behind the killing of roaches. Consider what Arquette would disclose during his confrontation with the 222

incarcerated Stripe. When Stripe adamantly insists that “[the roaches] are human beings,”

Arquette responds that “Do you have any idea the amount of shit that’s in their DNA?

Higher rates of cancer. Muscular dystrophy. MS [multiple sclerosis]. SLS [Sjogren-

Larsson syndrome]. Substandard IQ. Criminal tendencies. Sexual deviances. It’s all there.

The screening shows it.” Arquette then reasons that “Is that what you want for the next generation? Don’t feel bad about doing your job. The villagers won’t do it. The folks back home won’t do it.” He concludes that “They don’t have MASS. MASS lets you do it. You. You’re protecting the bloodline. And that, my friend, is an honor.” His full disclosure of the reasoning behind why the government’s decision to eliminate Catarina’s people clearly reminds us of the discourse of thoughts and ideas associated with the field of eugenics.

Francis Galton (1904) defines eugenics as “the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race” (p. 1) and as one which also deals

“with those that develop them to the utmost advantage” (p. 1). Levine and Bashford

(2010) write that “Galton understood eugenics to be the rational planning of, and intervention into, human breeding […] based on statistical probability and on an understanding of the mechanisms of heredity” (p. 6). Thus, it is understandable that the scientist “proposed to erect a ‘science of improving stock’ or ‘of the cultivation of race’ on the basis of heredity theory” (Müller-Wille & Rheinberger, 2012, p. 8). As a “science of human hereditary improvement” (Lovett, 2007, p. 9), it propagates the idea that scientists could and should apply scientific methods and biological theories of their time to determine who should reproduce and who should not be allowed to reproduce. Inspired 223

by this logic, these scientists promoted reproductive practices that would reflect eugenic ideas. At the turn of the twentieth century, eugenic ideas gained immense popularity, leading to endorsements of eugenics-influenced programs that would encourage individuals with the most desirable and the fittest traits to procreate (Lovett, 2007). In fact, many famous social reformers, including W. E. B. Dubois or Margaret Sanger, were influenced by eugenics to develop projects aimed at social uplifts for members of racial minority groups and women respectively (Carey, 2012; English, 2004).

However, rather than depending solely on “the age-old adage that like begets like,” Muller-Wille and Rheinberger (2012) note that “[eugenicists] convinced themselves and others that elimination of the ‘feeble-minded,’ ‘paupers,’ ‘criminals,’

‘vagrants,’ ‘Jews,’ ‘colored people,’ or more generally of ‘unfit’ and ‘alien’ population elements” (p. 100) would ensure and guarantee the betterment of the humanity. When eugenicists firmly believed that selective procreation held the key to a more superior quality of human species and secure a better future for next generations, they did not mind sponsoring and supporting negative, problematic, racist and unethical eugenic practices: sterilization, segregation or anti-miscegenation laws (Kline, 2001; Lubin,

2005). In particular, the atrocity and the horror conducted by the Nazi regime under the idea of “racial hygiene” remains the most documented and most tragic illustration of these practices (Levine & Bashford, 2010; Proctor, 1988).

Recall Arquette’s description of the targeted population which certainly has a rhetorical connotation. He coherently states, but with disgust, that people like Catarina and her son have “shitty” DNA. DNA that, once passed down, would inhibit the progress 224

of the dominant population and, thereby, would adulterate and contaminate the gene pool of the majority group. For Arquette, the state must not afford that to happen. It must not allow people of the minority group to continue procreating, even if it may have to resort to the most heinous, the most vicious and the most extreme measure: a methodical genocide or a calculated massacre. What Arquette seems to articulate is that the state had better be safe now than regret later for its failure to address and to handle this issue in a timely fashion. At the very least, this is the goal that the state has set for itself. To protect its majority “bloodline,” the state has decided to exterminate, to kill, and to murder those whom it deems to be genetically inferior. Therefore, this line of reasoning rhetorically has its roots in a logic guided by eugenic thinking.

Arquette also reveals that because ordinary citizens do not want to take part in this brutal and heartless act of killing, the state must take matters into its own hands.

Therefore, Stripe should not feel guilty. Instead, he should feel honored and proud. For he acts on behalf of the state to preserve “the bloodline” and this action is patriotic. On top of that, Arquette signifies the significant role of MASS in assisting and targeting this mission. A MASS-altered cyborg is important to maintain dominant subjective social order even though this order is founded on discriminatory principles and invidious ideologies.

By characterizing the episode’s narrative as one influenced by the Foucauldian biopolitical theoretical framework, Leon-Boys and Kristensen (2018) shed light on the fictional state’s reliance over biological and genetic differences as a valid justification for its terrorizing and violent reaction toward its enemy. Through this biopolitical lens, they 225

(2018) also criticize that “the actual processes of racialization inherent to biopolitics are never described” (p. 11) and that “the color-blind casting produces a future devoid of modern patterns of racialization – and thus an incomplete analogy for the modern workings of race” (p. 13). On top of their criticisms, I add that the characterization of

Stripe and the construction of this dystopian society both manage to tap into and speculate on how eugenically influenced ideas may take shape and may be utilized within this technoscientific age.

Explaining why the state does what it does to the minority population, Arquette then mentions that Stripe need not feel personally victimized by the system because he

“agreed to have [his] implant put in.” He continues: “Set up. Every soldier does. We can’t just embed it and feed you a dream. Your mind would reject it. You have to accept it.

Willingly. It’s exactly what you did.” Once he establishes his absolute authority over the future destiny of Stripe, Arquette offers him two options: “Option one, you agree to have your MASS reset. All the recollections of the past few days, including this conversation, erased.” Arquette, however, warns Stripe against choosing the second option: not only will he be imprisoned but he must constantly re-watch and incessantly re-live uncensored instances of him barbarously and belligerently killing the roaches that turn out to be humans. “MASS is a friend,” Arquette asserts, “Without it, you will remember everything that you did. Maybe you should see what life would be like without it.” What a nightmarish conundrum, Arquette acknowledges that “I have it all logged, Stripe. We can feed you everything that you did. You’ll see and smell and feel it all. Is this what you want? On a loop? In a cell all alone?” As Arquette stresses over and over again, MASS 226

has always been Stripe’s friend because it can mask his guilt, thereby allowing him to continue with his life unscathed, and without contrition or regret. But this assumed friend has always been manipulative and deceptive because it hides the truth from Stripe, submitting him to a life of lies and dishonesty, one that he can sadly never escape.

Therefore, Stripe is presented with a dilemma, one that can never enable him to reclaim and redeem himself as human. On the one hand, to have his MASS reprogramed means that he will continue to kill and to murder other human beings, an inhumane act that violates his moral conscience as human. On the other hand, to be incarcerated and to re- experience his horribly violent actions would have been too much for him to bear.

To recapitulate. Stripe is damned if he chooses the first option. For this choice means more killing and more murdering. But he is doomed if he picks the second option.

For he can never be able to forget the heinous crime of killing that he has committed. In other words, he can never be human and can never be rehumanized. Such a paradoxical situation creates emotional trauma and psychological pain that undoubtedly traumatize him, as can be clearly seen in the episode.

Over the course of the narrative, MASS has always been part of the physical structure of the brain. That is, it is clear that the implant and Stripe have become one unitary subject. However, Stripe’s identity has never belonged to him, but instead, it is constituted by MASS. This advanced technology programs its carriers, it makes them act in certain ways. It induces them to implement their responsibilities against their will, causing them to cultivate a false sense of morality. Stripe is just a programmed military soldier, completely controlled and utterly manipulated by the hands of the government. 227

What is deposited in him is an order about killing and eliminating all enemies, those that the government agency, by way of technology and way of eugenic thinking, dehumanizes. In deeming the lives of the minority population ungrievable, the state instills in Stripe a belief that his action is justified while he should not feel guilty of it.

And sadly, Stripe is a cyborg but one that is so far from fulfilling Haraway’s utopian dream of a more just and more progressive society.

“Arkangel” (Season 4: Episode 2): The Articulation of a Supervised Cyborg

Cyborgs are products of the fusion of technology and humans. More specifically, cyborgs come into existence through the intra-action of these two entities. That technology and humans can intra-act means that both are to be granted agency and come to be co-constitutive agents in the process of the emergence of cyborgs. In this context,

Karen Barad’s agential realism is the theoretical framework that I intend to draw on in order to examine intricacies of the complexity of the interconnectedness of technology and humans, as articulated in “Arkangel” through the characterization of a cyborg daughter.

Synopsis

Ever since the birth of her only daughter, Sara, overprotective single mother

Marie Sambrell (Rosemarie DeWitt) has always been wary of the safety of her only daughter.

When Marie finds her three-year-old Sara (Aniya Hodge) disappearing from the playground, she becomes emotionally distraught and petrified. Panickily searching for her missing daughter, Marie restlessly runs around the neighborhood and anxiously asks 228

bystanders whether they have bumped into her. As luck would have it, Sara is finally found uninjured.

Traumatized by the incident, Marie signs her daughter up for the free trial of the

Arkangel system—a child-rearing and child surveillance technology that would help monitor Sara more effectively. At first, it appears that the Arkangel system works wonderfully as advertised because the filter feature distorts visually and audibly anything that Marie deems violent and dangerous for Sara to be exposed to. However, one day, after Marie leaves for work, Sara witnesses first-hand her grandfather suddenly having a stroke, but she cannot respond properly due to the filter option activated.

A few years later, her grandfather passes away. However, minimal exposure to inauspicious situations and undesirable events gradually takes its toll on the young nine- year-old Sara (Sarah Abbott). One day, mulling over her friends’ description of bloody and violent events at school, Sara illustrates it on paper in her bedroom, but her illustration is of course censored. Frustrated, Sara uses a sharpened pencil to hurt herself so that she can see blood, but with no success. As Marie rushes into Sara’s room to make her stop pricking her finger, she becomes belligerent and angrily slaps her mother. After the visit to the child psychologist with her daughter, Marie decides to put away the device in the attic.

With the Arkangel implant deactivated, the fifteen-year-old Sara (Brenna

Harding) now becomes confident, outgoing, and sociable. One night, in order to meet up

Trick (Owen Teague) by the lake, Sara lies to her mother that she would be at a friend’s house. Later that night, after a few attempts to call Sara but without any success, Marie 229

becomes worried and calls her friend’s parents who then tell her that Sara has never been to their house. Panicking, Marie, upon arriving home, immediately ransacks the attic for the Arkangel tablet. Once reactivated, the mother accidentally witnesses Sara having sexual intercourse with Trick, via her daughter’s own eyesight.

Because the Arkangel system continually monitors Sara’s medical state, Marie is the first to know about her daughter’s pregnancy. And with the intention to terminate it,

Marie secretly puts an emergency contraceptive pill in Sara’s breakfast drink. However, at school, Sara is informed that the cause of her vomiting is the bad reaction to the EC pill, which makes her suspicious of her mother.

Immediately arriving home, she rummages through the kitchen and finds the discarded and empty EC package. Aware of Marie’s action, Sara searches her mother’s room and finds the Arkangel tablet hidden behind the pillow. In utilizing the parental hub tablet to relay videos of her recorded memories, Sara discovers that her mother had seen her and Trick having sex, leading her to have an altercation with Marie.

“Arkangel” concludes with Marie getting beaten up by Sara who runs away from home.

The Cyborg Daughter

It may have come as no surprise that “Arkangel” capitalizes on the notion of a cyborg to raise a host of issues related to the abuse and the misuse of technology as a parenting method. And Sara is a textbook definition of a cyborg.

After the traumatic incident at the playground where Marie loses sight of Sara, she decides to participate in the free trial of the Arkangel system. At the company 230

headquarter, Marie and Sara are greeted by a friendly employee, Jasmine, who assures the mother of the safety of the program, by saying that, “Response [from other participants] so far is just incredible. The sense of security, peace of mind. I mean the stories we’ve been hearing, they’re truly inspirational.” As a state-of-the-art technological innovation, the Arkangel system is intentionally created for anthropocentric usage. It is regarded as an obedient servant and a docile assistant that can make parents less concerned and less worried about the unanticipated perils linked to the unexpected threat their children may encounter. Therefore, the Arkangel system warrants security and guarantees child protection.

Once inside the experiment room, Jasmine injects the implant into one side of

Sara’s head temple and subsequently shows Marie to an interactive tablet, called

“parental hub.” Jasmine then informatively walks Marie through each feature of the tablet as well as the user interface. First, Marie can easily locate her daughter’s whereabouts, and “if she ever goes missing,” Jasmine reveals, “all you have to do is tap here, enter your PIN, and law enforcement is automatically notified.” Second, Marie can see her daughter’s vitals and thereby can check her health status. Third, the Arkangel system equips Marie with a set of unique options and “parental control” to better protect Sara: a direct and instantaneous access to Sara’s vision, a capacity for recording what she sees, an ability to replay her “optic feed,” and, most importantly, content monitoring, which means that “If she witnesses something that causes her cortisol levels to rise, like stress, it can kind of paint out whatever’s triggering it.” To demonstrate to Marie how the filter option works, a violent video is shown to Sara who, in viewing it, displays “a cortisol 231

spike.” Nevertheless, when the filter feature is activated, the visual-audio content Sara is being exposed to becomes distorted. Thanks to this option, Marie can censor almost anything that she thinks might be dangerous, indecent, or stressful to Sara. For Marie, the motley assortment of advanced features invested in the Arkangel system seems extremely helpful and remarkably beneficial in that she can be certain that her daughter’s safety is secured, and her overall well-being is monitored.

Ideally, the Arkangel system seems to the best complementary parenting device.

In concluding the session with the statement, “It’s all optional,” Jasmine rhetorically alludes to the notion that the decision to turn on the features and capitalize on the program’s offering lies mostly in the hands of parents. More specifically, Marie’s maternal concerns over Sara’s well-being are exploited such that she finds it appropriate to enroll her daughter in the free trial of the Arkangel system. In doing so, Marie voluntarily and willingly invites this corporate agent into her family and allows it to be an indispensable part of her mother-daughter relationship. Marie’s impression of the

Arkangel system as a reliable surveillance device resides in its capacity to let her know exactly her daughter’s whereabouts and to monitor what Sara may be exposed to. In his analysis of the episode, McHendry (2019) theoretically defines the capacity of the

Arkangel system for parental surveillance as surveiller-parenting— “a mode of parenting that centralizes surveillance as a significant expression of networked power established by relational flows between parents and corporation” (p. 214). As a result, the Arkangel system comes to be the viable and perfect solution that Marie, as a single mother, has always needed in order to put herself at ease. 232

Nevertheless, it appears that Marie may have overlooked one important aspect: the system may violate Sara’s privacy and may alter how the reality is presented to her.

Depending on the Arkangel system at the same time opens up a set of ethical questions that can inspire us to reckon the extent to which the technological can be employed to control and surveil children, particularly when they are not old enough to give their consent. As McHendry (2019) intimates, the installation of the Arkangel system has an underlying implication: Sara’s agency becomes compromised, restricted, and withheld.

But as a single mother, Marie clearly considers this child surveillance device to be a necessary assistant that can help her safeguard her daughter more effectively. This particular consideration thus outweighs other problems that Marie may never even contemplate now but those that can happen in the future, ones that may lead to unanticipated outcomes. All told, what is clear is that transgressing human/machine boundaries presents itself as a valuable opportunity that can allow the human to be at peace when knowing that the mechanical is put in place so that human problems can be solved, can be taken care of, and can be looked after.

At a minimum, it is clear that the injection of the implant automatically turns Sara into a cyborg. But her cyborg subject position emerges out of the merging of constitutive forces that exist independently of her. That is, it is her mother and the Arkangel system that come to constitute the particular way that Sara is subjected. In this context, Karen

Barad’s agential realism proves a useful and productive theoretical model to make sense of the complexities in the formation of Sara’s subjectivity because the feminist science studies scholar questions a tendency to assume preexisting and established conditions as 233

those that determine how a subject comes into being and asks how New Materialism can provide both a novel and original canvas that can enable creative and unconventional ways of giving meanings to this subject. Therefore, we are tasked to recognize the entangled nature of matter and meaning or the interconnectedness of a wide array of enacting and enacted factors, discursive and material, that can never be separated if a phenomenon is to be defined.

Writing about Barad’s proposal of agential realism, Harman (2016) specifies that

“When two things are entangled, it means that they are not autonomous, but rather that they mutually co-constitute each other” (n. p.). That is, agential realism avoids privileging one thing over another and emphasizes that these two things come into being through and within their intra-action. For Barad (1996), agential realism is an attempt to remedy and rectify the false and problematic presumption that only the subject is granted the capacity to give meanings to or to define the object. “Agential realism,” according to

Barad (1999), is then referred to as “an epistemological and ontological framework that provides an understanding of science as ‘material-discursive’ practices” (p. 2). By placing an emphasis on the matter-and-meaning entanglement, Barad’s philosophical standpoint rejects the conventional perspective that demarcates the subject as an active agent and the object as a passive matter. In doing so, Barad (1999) opens onto a whole new theorization of agency as one that reckons “a sense in which ‘the world kicks back’

(i.e., nonhuman and cyborgian forms of agency in addition to human ones) without assuming some innocent, symmetrical form of interaction between knower and known”

(p. 2). 234

No longer confined to some sorts of dualisms that construct binary and either/or categories to account for any explanation of reality, agential realism highlights the emergence of co-constitutive components through an intra-active entanglement. “Intra- action,” Barad (2000) maintains, “signifies a dynamic involving the inseparability of the objects and agencies of intervention (as opposed to interactions which reinscribe the contested dichotomy)” (p. 15). When the subject and the object become inseparable, the notion that reality can objectively be generated and can be given meanings to by the active human subject is challenged. Further, “intra-actions enact agential separability— the condition of exteriority-within-phenomena” (Barad, 2007, p. 140). Through agential realism, Barad reemphasizes that the becoming of the human subject depends on or interrelates to a whole set of the phenomenon that it is a part of.

An agential realist ontology, according to Barad (2003), underscores “a causal relationship between specific exclusionary practices embodied as specific material configurations of the world […] and specific material phenomena” (p. 814). In particular,

Barad (2003) states that “It is through specific agential intra-actions that the boundaries and properties of the ‘components’ of phenomena become determinate and that particular embodied concepts become meaningful” (p. 815). Boundaries are erected temporarily, and properties are never permanently defined because they can always be rearticulated and renegotiated in accordance with “agentially situated cuts” (Barad, 1996, p. 182). This idea is of great significance and incredibly thought-provoking in that it enables the feminist science studies philosopher to nudge us away from a traditional conceptualization of apparatuses as “inscription devices, scientific instruments set in 235

place before the action happens, or machines that mediate the dialectic of resistance and accommodation” (Barad, 2003, p. 816). Because “apparatuses are dynamic

(re)configurings of the world, specific agential practices/intra-actions/performances through which specific exclusionary boundaries are enacted” (Barad, 2003, p. 816), they should never be regarded as having a fixed nature or unchanged essence.

On top of that, when apparatuses are theoretically defined as “specific material reconfigurings of the world that do not merely emerge in time but iteratively reconfigure spacetimematter as part of the ongoing dynamism of becoming” (Barad, 2007, p. 142), they take on a new interpretation. Hollin, Forsyth, Giraud, and Potts (2017) write that

“Any given phenomenon, for Barad, is understood as being composed of specific intra- actions, with discreet identities […] only emerging after an agential cut has taken place”

(p. 933). For these scholars, apparatuses should not be simply conceptualized as static and uniform instruments that are particularly located in order to allow observers dissect, evaluate, and measure the phenomenon at hand. Because component parts that constitute a phenomenon are always entangled and are always intra-acting, apparatuses can be said to erect certain conditions through which the potentials for boundaries are built, which in turn can enable particular meanings to be given to this phenomenon. In doing so, apparatuses exclude or hide other alternative approaches to understand or comprehend this phenomenon.

If reality is considered to be constituted by phenomena, then, the interconnectedness of these phenomena lays claim to the emergence of this reality and proposes a distinct way of comprehending a subject. That is to say, under certain 236

conditions allowed by certain agential cut, categorical boundaries are set up and established, thereby securing certain insights into describing and refining things. In the words of Barad (2007), “apparatuses are the material conditions of possibility and impossibility of mattering; they enact what matters and what is excluded from mattering

[… ] Hence apparatuses are boundary-making practices” (p. 148). To that end, things come to be defined, come to be labeled and come to be named at that exact moment when

“they are agentially enacted and become determinately bounded and propertied within phenomena” (Barad, 2007, p. 150). From the perspective of agential realism, Sara’s posthuman subject obtains its meaning by a reference to the interplay of different apparatuses or the merging of co-constitutive or enacting and enacted, forces such as the

Arkangel system or Marie’s maternal concerns, which then produces a particular phenomenon that is Sara’s posthuman subjectivity. Put another way, both her posthuman subject and her posthuman subjectivity do not precede or preexist and do not exist on their own. But instead, they have always been entangled within the intra-action of the

Arkangel system and a desire from her mother to keep her safe. In short, it is through the way in which these two co-constitutive agents and forces intra-act that Sara’s subject and subjectivity come into existence.

The Trouble with Parental Supervision

Predictably, Marie’s overprotective practices of parenting, combined with the intrusion of the Arkangel system, have a negative impact on Sara, who has no idea how pain feels like, a fact that has led to her inability to express her emotion like her peers. It is then understandable why Sara becomes emotionally withdrawn, why she becomes 237

frustrated with her situation, why she resorts to hurting herself with a pencil, and why she reacts in such an aggressive manner toward her mother. In recognizing that Sara’s sense of reality comes into being through the intra-action of Marie’s overprotective parenting method and the Arkangel system, we come to understand that her embodied cyborg subject is always becoming, never solely belongs to her, and unmistakably emerges out a matrix of externally human and nonhuman co-constitutive forces which mutually inform one another and operate together in such ways that reject the conceptualization of her as a liberal humanist subject that has a conscience and is endowed with a capacity for developing human emotion, thereby placing her in a liminal state of perpetually confronting the in-betweenness of being a human/machine hybrid, thus highlighting how she remains unanchored, unmoored, and unrooted but perpetually makes desperate attempts to unravel the effects of this human/machine interconnectedness in order to situate the location that accepts and allows this complex and multiple subject that is hers to claim.

To reiterate, Sara’s posthuman subjectivity comes into being and materializes within and through the embeddedness of the maternal instinct, which prevents her from experiencing undesirable and unwanted things, and the technological apparatus that constructs, influences and solidifies it. Bridging the theoretical frameworks of poststructuralism and agential realism, Højgaard and Søndergaard (2011) note that

“Subjects are part of the intra-action processes that make up the world” (p. 347).

According to them, subjects do not precede their intra-action and, therefore, are not sole actors to actively construct their sense of reality. Rather, “It is the co-constitution—the 238

intra-action of subject and object—that forms the subject matter (so to speak) of the analysis” (Højgaard & Søndergaard, 2011, p. 347). By undermining the privilege of the liberal human subject, they push for a reconceptualization of subjectivity that “should be seen as intra-acting with and thereby also enacted by discursive as well as material agentiality” (p. 349). That is, an individual’s embodied subjectivity should always be understood to come into being within and through intra-acting practices that involve both this human subject and other nonhuman objects. The intra-active process takes into account all co-constitutive forces that simultaneously do the enacting and are being enacted (Højgaard & Søndergaard, 2011). Sara’s display of aggression and apathy can be argued to have at its roots the (re)configuring and (re)articulating of her reality through interferences from both her mother and the Arkangel system. It is through this ongoing intra-action among the two co-constitutive enacting and enacted actors, which always work in tandem with each other, that contribute to the emergence of a subject that lacks fundamental and rudimentary human attributes. Sara finds it impossible to freely express her feelings or to earnestly show her emotions because her becoming is situated within an arrangement of discursive-material practices that she certainly has no control over. Sara’s posthuman subject would never have existed on its own because it is the interconnectedness between the mother’s maternal instinct and the promise that the

Arkangel system provides that contribute to its becoming. In short, the set of established conditions restricts the construction of Sara’s perceived reality.

Later, Marie takes her daughter to a child psychologist, Dr. Usborne, who blames the Arkangel system for Sara’s hostile and withdrawn behaviors. In particular, when 239

Marie asks, “So is this, like, an autism thing?” Dr. Usborne responds, “The spectrum is wide, but in my opinion, she’s not on it.” Then, Marie states, “But what about the pencils, like, self-harm? And these pictures are…” Rather than providing an answer, Dr. Usborne poses a question, “Has Sara ever shown any undue anger before now?” This conversation carries particular weight given Marie’s ignorance toward unforeseen possibilities of how the system comes to shape her daughter’s development of human emotion and human empathy.

Marie’s logic resonates with a humanist conviction that the technological is created to follow human directions and to passively serve the human. That is, the technological needs the human subject to operate and function normally. Marie’s perspective articulates this idea because the Arkangel system is perceived as a passive and submissive servant, it can never intrude and invade the integrity and probity of human distinctiveness. For Marie, the assimilation of this technological innovation into

Sara’s body should not have any impact on the formation of her human subject because it should not confound or obfuscate how Sara perceives her reality. That Marie has never in the first place considered the significant role of the Arkangel system in transforming Sara into a violent and withdrawn child can be argued to have stemmed from a deep belief that the technological object tends to be considered inferior to the human subject in terms of the capacity for making free choices and the ability for acting independently.

Understandably, the first conclusion Marie draws toward Sara’s condition is that she is autistic. Put another way, the intra-action of mutually constitutive and enacting components, such as the Arkangel system, its moderation feature, her friends’ perceptions 240

of her cyborg nature, and her mother’s genuine motherly concern, contributes to Sara’s asocial tendency and belligerent behaviors.

What happens to Sara represents a sort of modern paradox—that is, technology is created to solve human problems but at the same time it can create more problems that are not expected and cannot be easily solved. Again, in this case, it seems that the

Arkangel is the culprit that alters and reshapes Sara’s state of mind because Dr. Usborne suggests, “The Arkangel never launched nationwide. It was banned in Europe. It’ll be pulled here, too, by the fall. You can’t remove the implant, but you can get rid of the parental unit. The screen. Just throw it away. Problem solved.” Dr. Usborne’s consideration of the Arkangel system as the one responsible for the problematic way that

Sara behaves unambiguously misses the mark. As Barad (2003) points out, “We are not outside observers of the world. Nor are we simply located at particular places in the world; rather, we are part of the world in its ongoing intra-activity” (p. 828). Therefore, I contend that Marie and the Arkangel system co-constitute the constructed reality of Sara.

Following his suggestion, Marie decides to stow the tablet away in her attic. The next day, an unmonitored Sara walks to her school, feeling ecstatic and liberated.

The Ramification of Privacy-Trespassing

The deactivation of the Arkangel system does wonder to Sara who, now in her teens, is outgoing and outspoken and has a crush on Trick. One day, in order to hang out with him, she lies to Marie. But Marie finds out that she is lied to and subsequently reactivates the system to locate her whereabouts. In doing so, Marie accidentally witnesses her daughter having sex with Trick. The incident plants a seed of doubt in the 241

mind of Marie, as she becomes more concerned with Sara’s reckless behaviors and more mistrustful of her rebellious manners. This sort of distrust of Sara results in Marie’s reconsideration to utilize the Arkangel system to monitor her. Later, being alerted to aberrant changes in Sara’s heart rate, Marie switches on the system. Through Sara’s vision, Marie shockingly witnesses a man hand cutting a line of cocaine and subsequently unbelievably sees her daughter snorting it. She becomes angry. With the assistance of image manipulating technologies embedded in the system, Marie learns that it is Trick who offers Sara the drug. She confronts him at his work, utilizing the footage of intimate moments between him and her daughter as leverage to demand that he break up with her daughter. Trick complies with Marie’s demand, ignoring Sara’s calls and texts. Marie breaks the promise that she has previously made to Sara: to not turn on the Arkangel system and to utilize it to surveil her.

Returning from work and discovering the mess in the kitchen, Marie goes to her room and turns on the tablet to know the location of Sara. However, when Marie looks at the screen, what she sees is the image of her own back. The confrontation between the two pans out as follows. When Sara says, “You watched me,” Marie replies, “No, I… honey…” And when Sara subsequently asserts, “You watched me with him,” Marie responds, hoping to persuade her that it was by accident, “I didn’t mean to.” Marie slowly approaches Sara, who appears angry, and attempts to retrieve the tablet. When Sara refuses to let the device go, Marie reasons that “I was trying to protect you. I was trying to keep you safe.” This instance articulates the crux of the problem linked to Marie’s decision to reactivate the Arkangel system. That is, Marie does not spy on her daughter 242

because she wants to. Rather she believes that she needs to do so because of her genuine worries and sincere concerns over Sara’s state of being. As a mother, she does not wish to see that her daughter’s life could be at stake. But then one ethical question begins to emerge. That is, whether or not it is acceptable for Marie to violate Sara’s own private life without her consent.

Glenn and Dvorsky (2010) poignantly offer an account of how an agential realist ontology enables reconceptualization of what it means to have dignity. Rather than considering dignity as an innate human characteristic, they consider it as “a measurement

(or assessment) of the quality in which persons are treated, the depth of their interactions, and the degree to which they are capable of engaging in life” (p. 57). For them, agential realism “recognizes a dynamic reality in which agency is not an attribute but an ongoing reconfiguration of the world” (p. 58). Therefore, they challenge us to move away from a tendency to establish boundaries to understand human attributes as categorically bounded and static.

Applying this line of thinking to make sense of Marie’s motherhood undermines the perception of her maternal instinct as an inherent human attribute and proposes the idea that her parenting method is a phenomenon that is contingent on the way in which she treats her daughter’s well-being as her most important motherly mission, the way in which she and the Arkangel system as a protection device intra-acts, and the way in which the situation calls for particular responses. From this perspective, we can see that

Marie’s worries and concerns over her daughter emerge out of this intra-activity. In the words of Jodie Foster (2018), the director of the episode: “If you create a false reality for 243

your child, under the guise of protecting them, you’re altering the natural course of how a person discovers their own life. You’re breaking their independence and controlling them” (p. 244). The Arkangel system exploits Marie’s fear and concerns such that it makes her genuinely believe that what she does is not wrong because she has her daughter’s best interest at heart. For Marie, to surveil Sara without her knowledge and consent is an acceptable way of protecting her. As a result, this violation of her daughter’s privacy is justified. But it seems that, for Sara, her mother’s spying on her and watching her intimate sexual moments with Trick is improper, offensive, repugnant, and unjustifiable.

Tension quickly escalates as Sara violently pulls the tablet away from her mother and frantically tries to turn it off, causing it to malfunction. At the same time, Sara accidentally reactivates the filter on function. Sara uses the tablet to beat her mother up.

With the filter distorting her vision and hearing, Sara, unaware of the level of violence that she displays, continues beating Marie until she destroys the tablet and leaves her mother unconscious. Regaining consciousness, Marie realizes that Sara is nowhere to be found inside their house. Therefore, she runs outside and calls out for her daughter, but in vain. For Sara has run away from home by hitchhiking a passing-by truck.

In sum, juxtaposing the reactions between the mother and the daughter with regard to how to make sense of this reality, we can definitely see this as a particularly poignant example of the working of apparatuses that enact certain agential cuts to give meanings to a phenomenon. As Barad (2007) eloquently writes, “Humans do not simply assemble different apparatuses for satisfying particular knowledge projects but are 244

themselves specific parts of the world’s ongoing reconfiguring” (p. 184). On the one hand, the Arkangel system and the desire of Marie to protect Sara from harm and danger come together such that they intra-act and both become as enacting forces that render her actions as defensible. On the other hand, the violation of Sara’s own privacy is evidently understood as a result of the intra-action between her being subjected to unwanted surveillance, the existence of the Arkangel system, and her mother’s own actions and intention.

Summary

In this chapter, I draw on three strands within the posthumanist theoretical framework developed by Rosi Braidotti, Donna J. Haraway, and Karen Barad, three dominant feminist scholars who have worked extensively on taking apart categories, to analyze “The Entire History of You,” “Men Against Fire,” and “Arkangel” in order to call particular attention to the theme of the cyborg as posthuman and the way that each narrative articulates its own version of this hybrid transgressive figure. Based on my analysis, I maintain that all three episodes can be understood as ironic interpretations of the utopian dream that Donna J. Haraway has envisioned in her seminal text, “A Cyborg

Manifesto.”

Rhetorically, the three narratives collectively articulate a challenge to uphold the vision of hope linked to the merging of the technological and the human. They introduce three distinctive approaches to the articulation of the discourse surrounding the dystopian aspect of the technology/human fusion. The overarching bleak tone in the three episodes indicates that becoming cyborg and becoming posthuman may produce unintended 245

outcomes and that the kind of liberation promised by the process of transgressing categorical boundaries may never turn out the way we anticipate. As my analysis in this chapter demonstrates, becoming machine/human hybrid clearly does not allow for the possibilities to imagine and envision a more just and more egalitarian society. That is, categorical boundaries between the human and the machinic should never be crossed and should always remain static if the three protagonists hope to live and lead lives that they think they can have authority over. In other words, as articulated in the three narratives, having technology implanted and installed in the human body can result in negative repercussions.

In “The Entire History of You,” Liam’s human rationality is mostly dictated by the grain which in turn comes to structure the way he perceives his reality. His tragedy has its roots in the overdependence of the technological to search for the truth. Due to the presence of the grain, Liam is always stuck in one particular moment such that he can never let go and can never move on. His posthuman subjectivity is constituted by the grain and the capacity to re-view and re-watch instances of his recorded memories. For

Liam, the only possible way to continue with his life is to remove the grain from his body. In doing so, Liam can reclaim agency in order to regain full control of his life. In this episode, the human and the technological can never be fused if Liam wishes to thrive and prosper in the reality of his own construction.

In “Men Against Fire,” MASS allows Stripe to smoothly carry out and effectively complete his assigned mission as a solider: to eliminate roaches, a threat to his society.

To protect human progress means to exterminate monstrous creatures that, unfortunately, 246

turn out to be humans those who the state deems as genetically inferior. Thus, the role of

MASS is so significant that it enables its users to kill without regret and without guilt.

And in transforming the minority population into disgusting termites, the state renders its genocide morally justifiable. However, MASS dehumanizes not only Stripe’s enemy but him as well. If Liam has the ability to get rid of the grain, Stripe does not that option.

Because MASS controls his reality, Stripe can never escape from its influences. From this perspective, Stripe can never be rehumanized. Again, this episode underscores the danger of the technological to take over the human mind, which can wreak havoc toward humanity.

In “Arkangel,” the technologically sophisticated child-rearing and child- monitoring system complicates and problematizes the mother/daughter relationship between Marie and Sara. The omnipresence of the Arkangel system, coupled with

Marie’s paranoid, highlights how the application of the technological can bring about inauspicious consequences in the most unexpected manner. Sara’s agency is compromised as a result of the intra-action of Marie’s maternal concerns over her daughter’s safety and the role that the Arkangel system plays in feeding off these concerns. For Sara, becoming cyborg means to be constantly subjected to the prospect of constant parental surveillance. Also, Marie’s false presumption of the influence of the technological on the emergence of Sara’s posthuman and cyborg subject leads to a sad ending.

Together, “The Entire History of You,” “Men Against Fire,” and “Arkangel” seem to convey a rhetorical message within the narrative: resituating the human from its 247

central position only means problems, troubles, and catastrophes. It is true that the technological, as articulated in the grain, MASS, and the Arkangel system in the three narratives respectively, is granted with the power to change and alter the human condition and is invested with capacities for delineating the posthuman condition. However, the way in which they tackle and address the integration of the technological into human ways of life clearly entails a feeling of wariness and certainly evokes a sense of cautiousness in that becoming cyborg may have undermined the notion of the liberal humanist subject as understood within a humanist framework. The undermining of this liberal humanist subject seems to be a negative thing. The technological may have reconstructed human relationships and may have restructured human emotions. But this sort of reconstruction and restructuring is not welcome. That is, to be human means a rejection of the cybernetic fusion. And to be human means a refusal of allowing the technological to gain more power over the human condition. To that end, what Liam,

Stripe, and Sara encounter in the end can be viewed as disturbingly depressing in that they are shown to have lost their human side.

It can be obviously assumed, on the surface, that the articulations of the three posthuman or cyborg subjects in the three episodes can be perceived as cautionary tales in that it is imperative and important to erect clearly demarcated boundaries between the human and the technological so that the human subject can be saved from being invaded and intruded by the inorganic other. However, at a deeper level, the three episodes shine a spotlight on the temptation to become cyborg and call particular attention to the tension associated with the promise of technology and cyborgism. Rather than perceiving 248

technology as the nonhuman other that lacks agency, consider what it can do to humanity.

More rhetorically, “The Entire History of You,” “Men Against Fire,” and “Arkangel” remind us that technology plays a more active role in the construction of reality than we have presumed and that it is never technology to be blamed for the dire situation that the three characters are being placed into. From the perspective of posthumanism, what

Liam, Stripe, and Sara experience are all the effect of the intra-action of technology and humanity, thus representing the interconnectedness between these two co-constitutive agents.

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Chapter 7: Be(com)ing Fractured

And perhaps cyberspace, with its capacity to externalize our innermost fantasies

in all their inconsistency, opens up to artistic practice a unique possibility to stage,

to ‘act out’, the fantasmatic support of our existence, up to the fundamental ‘sado-

masochistic’ fantasy that can never be subjectivized.

—Slavoj Žižek, The Žižek Reader

Cyberspace. That technologically constructed futuristic space where fundamental rules of mechanical physics do not apply. That virtual domain, place, and site where the impossible comes to be possible, the unimaginable comes to be imaginable, and the unthinkable comes to be thinkable. For, according to the urbanist Michael Benedikt

(1991), cyberspace can be understood as “[a] new universe, a parallel universe created and sustained by the world’s computers and communication lines” (p. 1), which can be fundamentally described as “the entirety of the data stored in, and the communication that takes place within, a computer network, conceived of as having the properties of a physical realm; the environment of virtual reality” (Prucher, 2007, p. 31), which can finally come to mean that “there is a space/place behind the computer screen” (Wolmark,

1999, p. 3).

In speculative fiction, architectural dimensions of cyberspace come in a variety of colors, forms, shapes, and sizes. In this speculative future, data recover flesh and regain the body, a fact that enables the materialization of cyberspace. And in this speculative fabulation, cyberspace has consistently been constructed and defined as one in which norms are rearticulated and renegotiated such that a new social order can come into 250

being. “As a virtual environment,” Graham (2002) evidently observes, “cyberspace represents a populist and dynamic realm, free of centralized or bureaucratic control, in which cultural and social constraints dissolve” (p. 160). In “A Declaration of the

Independence of Cyberspace,” John Perry Barlow (1996) vociferously expresses his disdain for possible interventions by the state government toward the development of cyberspace because they can compromise and disrupt the potentials of this new technology for creating a sort of utopian and heavenly social structures.

Or so it seems. Cyberspace is that utopian domain/place/site/space, one that certainly underscores “a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of Society” (Foucault, 1986, p. 23). From this Foucauldian perspective, cyberspace can be therefore regarded as a heterotopic somewhere that exists between reality and fantasy or actuality and imagination. It then comes as no surprise that cyberspace basically delineates “a techno-paradisiacal escape from the banality of everyday reality” (Dinello,

2005, p. 147).

In Bodies in Technology, the philosopher Don Ihde (2002) considers cyberspace as “a phenomenon that fits neatly into our existential involvement with technologies” (p.

13). That is, cyberspace comes to operate as a breeding ground for the realization of humanity’s wildest dreams, and the envisioning of visions of its fantasy. Cyberspace also acquires a function of shifting boundaries between the real and the virtual, and, along this line, advances changing conceptions of space, time, and body. Simultaneously, among users interested in cyberspace, something special and unique surfaces. Cyberspace imbues agency in them such that they are invested with the capacity for creating new 251

identities the way they want them to be. Therefore, users find in cyberspace a realm of alternative options that potentially renegotiate the limitation of humanity. That is, cyberspace has challenged the underlying assumption of the existence of lived physicality as the one reality that matters to humans.

The two Black Mirror episodes, “USS Callister” and “Striking Vipers,” illustrate the way in which cyberspace operates as a pathway into making unreal realms real. Inside each of the two cyber-landscapes, the conception of the human subject is insufficient to account for the complexities of their virtual entities. Yet each of the two narratives constructs cyberspace in such a unique and distinctive way that it provocatively reimagines the body and the mind as part of a cybernetically information-material network. Against this background, two ethical questions emerge: How can the human subject articulate itself when inhabiting an environment problematically transformed by virtual technologies? How can it account for its interrelatedness and interconnectedness within this virtual environment with regard to the formation of its embodied subjectivity?

Even though both episodes deliver complex, layered, and nuanced depictions of fictional game worlds where the real and the virtual become blurred, the way they construct these two worlds is quite contradictory. Whereas, in “USS Callister,” the protagonist considers cyberspace as a form of escapism to live out his phallocentric fantasy, in “Striking

Vipers,” cyberspace is constructed as one enabling the two male characters to rethink their heterosexual sexualities by forming assemblages with their avatars.

In this chapter, I ask how cyberspace plays a key role in the becoming of fractured posthuman identities. Rather than seeking to advance a common assumption of 252

cyberspace as the other space developed to fulfill the promise of utopian dreams, I probe the ways in which the two narratives portray cyberspace as a possibility to problematize the unitary essence of the liberal humanist subject, and, thereby, can complexify its embodied subjectivity, which can be considered as technoscientific rearticulations of the convention of linking together of the mind-body dualisms in order to articulate posthuman subjectivity. In other words, the fundamental issue here is not an emphasis on an attempt to maintain a unified human subject, but rather an embrace of a fractured posthuman subject, which makes itself most dramatically manifest in cyberspace. And that, in turn, calls for a reconsideration of the importance of the body on the formation of embodied subjectivity.

“USS Callister” (Season 4: Episode 1): The Articulation of a Misanthropic

Cyberspace

It is noticeably nothing new to claim that cyberspace offers its users a chance to enact new subject positions and to become whoever they want to become. The perfect place for challenging norms and experimenting with the unconventional. But what would happen when cyberspace becomes a site of manipulation? What would happen when a geeky male programmer misuses his talents to turn cyberspace into a space of violence, in which humiliation and bullying come to be morally acceptable and ethically redeemable? I raise these two questions to illustrate why “USS Callister” makes an interesting case, by articulating how cyberspace can serve as a legitimate means that the protagonist abuses and exploits to realize his phallocentric dream of domination and oppression. 253

Synopsis

Under the bold and proactive leadership of the charismatic and composed Captain

Robert Daly (Jesse Plemons), crew members of the spaceship, USS Callister, manage to neutralize an imminent threat caused by their adversary Valdack (Billy Magnussen).

Although their enemy flees in the end, they at least defeat him by destroying his ship.

With its destruction, they dedicate this victory to Captain Daly, praising him for his audacity, calmness, and fearlessness in the face of adversity. In particular, two female members of the crew affectionately kiss him to celebrate his triumph.

However, USS Callister is revealed to be part of a simulated reality created by game designer Robert Daly. As the co-founder of Callister Inc., Daly modifies his company’s multiplayer game, Infinity, and, at the same time, incorporates vintage aesthetics and televisual elements of his favorite television program, Space Fleet, to construct his own virtual universe. And Captain Daly and other crew members are identical replicas of the real Robert and his co-workers. However, in stark contrast with the confident and self-assured character on cyberspace, the real Daly, despite his talent and giftedness as a game designer, seems to be aloof, introverted, and unsociable.

The arrival of the new programmer Nannette Cole (Cristin Milioti) intrigues

Robert Daly and attracts his attention. For, the first day at work, Nanette takes the initiative to introduce herself to Daly in his office, confessing her admiration toward his creativity and works. Yet, their conservation is disrupted by co-founder James Walton

(Jimmi Simpson). Later that night, at home, an annoyed Daly enters the simulated reality.

But this time, the agreeable and affable Captain Daly of the previous night is replaced by 254

an aggressive and repulsive Captain Daly, who angrily castigates and indignantly humiliates his crew members.

The following day, Robert overhears co-worker Shania Lowry (Michaela Coel) advising Nannette to stay alert to when interacting with him. Later that day, the moment the last person leaves the office, Robert surreptitiously goes over to Nannette’s workstation, rummages her trash can, and picks up her coffee cup, which contains her

DNA—the main ingredient needed to create a digital clone of the real Nanette that only exists in Daly’s simulated world. And USS Callister has a new member, Nanette.

Inside the cockpit, Nanette meets other crew members, who divulge that they are virtual replicas of employees of Callister Inc. Her attempt to escape from the ship is hampered by the fact that Captain Daly, in overseeing this virtual universe, holds the power to reconstruct, reshape and restructure bodily parts of the crew members, and therefore can determine their fates. Nanette has no other options but to follow his commands.

Captain Daly and his crew subsequently arrive on a planet where they fight against Valdack and a monster, two exact copies of two other staff members the real

Robert dislikes at work. Once they defeat Valdack, Captain Daly orders his crew to let him go. During this mission, Nanette discovers that Captain Daly can communicate with the real world via a handheld transmitter, called omnicorder.

Following this discovery, the virtual Nanette convinces the rest of the crew to let her send a game invite to the real Nanette to seek help. Unfortunately, upon receiving the message, the real Nanette consults Daly, who tells her that it is a spam. Later that night, 255

inside the game, as Captain Daly, he furiously and outrageously demands answers for what they did behind his back. And when one crew member jumps to Nanette’s defense,

Captain Daly transforms her into a monster in cold blood.

Later noticing a wormhole in the distance, Nanette recognizes it to be the gateway to Infinity’s next update, she contemplates a new escape plan and immediately runs to the cockpit to tell her team. However, Walton objects to what she comes up with because he is afraid that their punishment will be worse than ever. On top of that, Walton tells

Nanette about a previous traumatic event in which Robert would steal a lollipop his son left in the office and would clone his son in the game so that Captain Daly could throw him out of the spaceship in order to make Walton submit to him unconditionally. Nanette assures Walton of not allowing it to happen again. Together, with all members on board, they set the plan in motion.

During Daly’s next visit, Nanette suggests the two of them exploring the faraway planet Skillane. While there, Nanette takes off her clothes, jumps into a nearby lake, and urges him to do the same. At first, Captain Daly resists but finally decides to join

Nanette. When he removes his clothes, Captain Daly also leaves the handheld device he uses to control the game behind. Once both of them are in the water, the rest of the team surreptitiously teleports the device onto their ship and quickly utilizes it to hack into the real Nanette’s personal PhotoCloud account and to search for her inappropriate and improper sexual photos in order to blackmail her into breaking into Daly’s apartment to steal all of the objects with their DNA. And they succeed. The real Nanette complies with their demand, first placing a pizza delivery to his apartment, then hiding at the balcony of 256

his apartment to wait for a timely opportunity to sneak inside. The arrival of the pizza disrupts the mission between Captain Daly and Nanette. For he needs to exit the game to answer the door. The moment Captain Daly disappears, the virtual Nanette instantly gets teleported back onto the ship while the real Nanette collects all the DNA samples.

Upon re-entering the game, Captain Daly realizes the subterfuge of the crew.

Enraged, the captain seizes control of a crashed spaceship on Skillane and chases after the USS Callister spacecraft, which heads toward a dangerous area filled with asteroids.

As Nanette and the rest of the crew, together with Valdack and the monster, speedily approach the wormhole, one of the asteroids hits their spaceship, causing it to malfunction. At that critical moment, Walton makes a heroic sacrifice by getting out of the control room to mend the spaceship’s propulsive device and therefore gets himself burned alive. And due to his action, the crew passes through the wormhole alive and enters the unmodified simulated universe of Infinity.

Now Nanette and the rest of the crew delightedly revel in their newfound freedom. As for Captain Daly, Infinity’s update renders his modified version of the game obsolete, and without the omnicorder, he gets stranded in the virtual reality that he builds, has no way to exit it, witnesses it quickly crumbling down before his eyes. As for the real

Daly, he sits lifelessly and unresponsively in his apartment.

The Perils of Toxic Masculinity

To say that “USS Callister” reminds viewers of the aesthetics of Star Trek is not wrong. According to program designer Joel Collins (2018), the setting of this space universe “was meant as an homage” (p. 229). Rather than making the episode a cheeky 257

parody of Star Trek, Charlie Brooker (2018) deems it a tribute with an intent “to do this little spoof Star Trek thing at the start and enjoy mocking some tropes” (p. 229). Based on the opening scene of “USS Callister,” the characterization of Captain Daly is quite similar to that of Captain Kirk: authoritative, commanding, and charismatic.

Opening “USS Callister” this way, viewers may have assumed that its narrative would be a story about space adventures. But it is not. For, in the next scene, the viewers are introduced to a character who, despite uncannily having the identical physique of

Captain Daly, is not actually him. Also named Robert Daly, this character is the chief technical officer at Callister Inc. But although Robert co-founds this game design company with James Walton, his co-workers take no notice of him, show him no much- needed respect and even avoid socializing with him. More specifically, his brief interaction with several employees at work betrays a lack of self-confidence and social skills. Clearly his aloof manner, introverted inclination, and unsociable proclivity exacerbate his isolation. Despite his withdrawn personalities, Robert is a talented game designer and is the mastermind behind the creation of the popular multiplayer game

Infinity. Robert capitalizes on virtual technologies to develop cyberspace in which uploaded disembodied consciousness of players inhabits virtual bodies to battle with other players. Robert Daly unequivocally epitomizes the kind of archetypical character whose talents as an ingenious programmer compensate for both his geekiness and deficiency to form meaningful human social rapport.

It thus comes as a surprise to Robert when Nannette Cole, a recently hired programmer, takes the initiative to introduce herself to him in his office, confessing her 258

admiration of his programming skills and letting him know that he is the main reason behind her decision to work at Callister Inc. As Nanette casually looks around his office, she is intrigued by a wide array of figurines, models, and posters on display. Robert takes her curiosity as a clue to start a conservation with her, disclosing to her that they are collectible items from his favorite television program, Space Fleet, and revealing that

Callister Inc. is named after the spacecraft, USS Callister. Precisely, Robert’s obsession with Space Fleet, together with deeming himself a hardcore fan, confirms his “geek” status.

Yet, their casual exchange is cut short when Walton drops by Robert’s office to ask him about the progress concerning the update of Infinity. Spotting Nanette there,

Walton immediately makes a personal request to show her around the company, a request that she shyly accepts. Watching them leave his office and later witnessing the conviviality shared among the employees both certainly annoy and markedly irk Robert.

Most definitely, these incidents come to solidify Robert’s remarkable ineptitude to establish his authority in his own company and his impoverished display of assertiveness and amicability toward others, reconfirming the protagonist as one that is far from embodying hegemonic masculinities.

Later that night, at his apartment, thanks to a grain-shaped pea-sized device placed on the side of his head, Robert transports himself to cyberspace. It is now clear that a link can be made between Captain Daly and Robert Daly. Explicitly contrasting the characterization of Robert Daly with that of Captain Daly unequivocally signifies possible potentials of cyberspace for providing users with sanctuary or haven so that they 259

can seek solace and find refuge. In his investigation of depictions and speculations of a variety of unexpected, both positive and negative, repercussions of the prospects of technological incorporation into each fiber of human society in science fiction, Dinello

(2005) calls particular attention to the multifaceted way that the genre approaches the theme of cyberspace. Regardless of a number of caveats that concern an overtly and wildly optimistic outlook toward cyberspace, Dinello observes that “[it] promises a technological escape from everyday reality and becomes a kind of dream space, a visualization of the subconscious, a waking hallucination” (p. 170). Harris (2000) concurs, perceiving actual reality as constituted by such mundanity and humdrum of physical life that cyberspace is created as a response to both “our fears of displacement by machine” (p. 39) and “our presumed feminization” (p. 39). It is understandable why cyberspace offers users an opportunity to become “camouflage-fatigued commandos who experience the pleasures of our fearless bravado while waging war deep within the trenches of our PCs” (Harris, 2000, p. 39). Given Robert’s asocial and reserved personalities which make it extremely difficult for him to foster meaningful human contact in actual reality, cyberspace comes to be the site in which he can re-invent himself. That is, Captain Daly represents what Robert seems to lack and what he seems to desire.

Differences between the actual and virtual selves of this character abound.

Whereas Captain Daly exudes confidence and masculinity, Robert does not. If the authoritative and commanding manner that Captain Daly projects can be obviously deduced from not only his clothes but also his comportment, then, it is evidently possible 260

to draw attention to the similar elements to explain Robert’s shortcomings in real life.

Such contradictory differences between the two thus showcase the significance of cyberspace, as a form of escapism, in the life of Robert—in fact, Captain Daly is his digital alter ego.

At first sight, it is not wrong to presume that what Robert experiences professionally and personally evokes sympathy from viewers. Nevertheless, this sympathy quickly evaporates the moment they witness how Robert, as Captain Daly, behaves. Inside cyberspace this time, any trace of his former cordiality and self- assuredness completely dissipates. Captain Daly now becomes hot-tempered and revulsive while angrily humiliating his crew members. He first yells at them, “So

Valdack’s out there somewhere and you village idiots are asleep at the wheel. You’re not just disgraceful, you’re disgusting, all of you.” Then he indignantly continues, “So can you do one thing? Can you find Valdack? I’m not asking. I’m telling you! Understand?”

This display of anger and rage is the product of the discontent and dissatisfaction Robert harbors toward those with whom he works. In inhabiting Captain Daly virtually, Robert manages to rectify the injustice that he encounters in reality. For Robert, cyberspace comes to symbolically indemnify him for the way he is maltreated in reality, rhetorically rendering this virtual milieu an important outlet for letting out his stacked-up indignation.

In embodying Captain Daly virtually, Robert can define his destiny. Cyberspace, Zoë

Sofia states (1999), can “offer the illusion of mastery and mobility within the computer’s micro-universe” (p. 61). Robert’s perception of cyberspace corroborates exactly her claim. Cyberspace, as a result, serves as a hopeful resource for Robert to find a new 261

voice, to envision himself differently and to be the master of this artificially created domain.

However, a closer look at what this character utters and how he utters them in this exchange reveals that he finds in cyberspace an alternative simulated world of opportunities that potentially enable him to indulge a sort of violence taken away from him in actual reality. Far from upholding an optimistic conviction formalized by Sofia

(1999) that “Virtual worlds and bodies offer a pleasurable fulfillment of the defensive and ultimately misogynistic fantasy of escape from Earth, gravity, and maternal/material origins” (p. 65), we can argue that Robert perceives cyberspace as more than just a utopian site where reality is negated and where normative structures are renegotiated.

That is, cyberspace, as this exchange between the captain and his crew members strongly emphasizes, is reconstructed as a realm of possible potentialities for the character to enact fanciful hallucinations of punishing and disciplining his co-workers but vicariously through their virtual clones.

Contradictory modes of the characterization of Robert and Captain Daly rhetorically allude to the discourse of hegemonic masculinities. According to Connell and

Messerschmidt (2005), masculinities are not fixed categories but are relations to social practices within the binary gender/sex system. They posit that “Masculinities are configurations of practice that are constructed, unfold, and change through time” (p. 852).

Their claim indicates that masculinities are both situationally relational and discursively dynamic. There are different approaches to enact masculinities; however, hegemonic masculinities reign supreme in that the majority of men aim to fashion and model their 262

gendered practices and social behavior after them. Hegemonic masculinities,

Messerschmidt (2019) later adds, “produce simultaneously particular social relations and social meanings, and they are culturally significant because they shape a sense of what is

‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ gendered behavior for copresent interactants in specific situations” (p. 90). In essence, hegemonic masculinities are ongoing effects of discursive practices and performative processes delimited by gender expectations that are socially and culturally rooted in heteronormativity.

Because a determined set of gender norms with specific performative patterns associated with hegemonic masculinities typically get picked up by the media, they become reified in public imaginary. For example, Lewington, Sebar, and Lee (2018) assert that the Australian edition of Men’s Health tends to import hegemonic masculine traits into stories that offer advice on what it would take to be a real man and how a true man should act, thereby pressuring male readers into believing that the only way to be a respected man would be to celebrate, embrace, and perform these traits. Accepting hegemonic masculinities as unfixed means accepting that they can change, can evolve, can metamorphosize, and can even appropriate other nonhegemonic masculine norms. In her study about manosphere, Ging (2019) argues that, with an intent to challenge feminist movements and resist feminist objectives, “ostensibly contradictory masculine formulations—alpha, beta, jock, geek, straight, gay, Christian, and atheist—can coalesce around any number of contentious issues or flash point events” (p. 653). And it is in this theoretical context that gives rise to toxic masculinity, particularly in cyberspace. As

Conway (2019) asserts in his analysis of narrative tropes and character archetypes in the 263

game God of War, “toxic masculinity [which] arises from an extreme adherence to, and enforcement of, the hegemonic paradigm” (p. 6) has been quite dominant in the construction of its earlier storylines. Thus, toxic masculinity is given fuller form in popular cultural goods.

More tellingly, the ramification of enacting toxic masculinity is remarkably negative and seriously problematic. This kind of masculinity inculcates on men a host of absolute values that can be detrimental to their well-being and can distort (or warp) their viewpoints about masculine identity—that is, a display of emotion is tantamount to being weak or an intention to seek out help from other people is equal to being unmanlike. In other words, toughness comes to be the shared norm among men. Act strong! Be aggressive! Man up! Stay competitive! Resort to violence when allowed! These are some of the stereotypical manifestations of toxic masculinity disguised as representations of hegemonic masculinities.

Applying this toxic masculinity perspective in the narrative context of “USS

Callister” then illuminates why Robert, vicariously through the digital figure of Captain

Daly, enacts such nasty and godawful behavior toward his crew in cyberspace. Robert’s failure to act assertively and decisively in real life renders him susceptible to bullying by

Walton and simultaneously makes him appear invisible to his co-workers, both of which tremendously emasculate his male identity. According to Hamer and Gubka (2020),

Robert could have utilized cyberspace as a potential channel for doing “the kind of training that would improve him and help him flourish as an individual by letting him practice his social skills and his courage” (p. 148). But he does not see cyberspace in this 264

way—in fact, for Robert, cyberspace is a great catharsis for releasing emotional pain and bottled anger, for seeking revenge, for doing things to people that he never even dares in real life, and for practicing toxic masculinity. In doing so, it appears probable that Robert can experience a sense of masculinity he has always desired but has never been able to embody in reality. Therefore, Captain Daly’s penchant for violence stems from Robert’s dissatisfaction with reality, on the one hand, and him being influenced by archetypical norms associated with toxic masculinity, on the other.

The Virtual God

In the virtual domain of Robert’s making, Captain Daly is literally a virtual God.

Not the benevolent kind. But one that abuses his almighty power to evoke a sense of terror, so profound that the crew must submit to his reign. The captain deploys humiliation and shaming, too. Two key incidents in “USS Callister” articulate the violence that Captain Daly practices as a scare tactic to dominate each member on the spaceship.

Awaken only to discover herself deep in space, the virtual Nanette is traumatized.

Frantically, she runs toward the cockpit of the spacecraft. There, the virtual Nanette is greeted by the rest of the crew, who then tells her that she is inside a game. As the virtual

Shania explains, “Daly’s got his own modded version of Infinity, reskinned to look like his favorite TV show.” When Nanette asks, “Space Thing? Space Thing?” Walton responds, “Space Fleet. Hence the groovy décor.” Shania sarcastically adds, “And this tasteful get-up.” In order to make it easier for Nanette to understand, another crew member states, “This is his development build, sealed off so he can control it. He keeps it 265

offline so the custom code he’s written can’t be detected or deleted.” Walton elaborates,

“Yes, it’s a bubble universe, ruled by an asshole god.” The conversation, not without sarcasm and mockery, between them has two rhetorical functions within the narrative.

First, it encapsulates why the USS Callister spacecraft and its universe are the way they are. Robert’s incorporation of the vintage aesthetics and televisual elements of his favorite television program, Space Fleet, to modify the virtual realm of Infinity seems to be infused with a genuine craving for an alternative world reflective of his vision. That the crew members obviously look askance at Robert’s artificially created universe vividly illustrates how the aesthetic of cyberspace has always been fraught with unusualness and anomaly. As Harris (2000) notes, programmers tend to consider themselves as “anarchic pioneers, pictorial misfits who have incorporated the fantasy of disobedience into the very look of our PCs” (p. 31-32). A Space Fleet inspired universe seems to be his own unique way of challenging expectations and judgments that restrict his action and limit his behavior in actual reality. In USS Callister, Robert’s “fantasy of disobedience” eventually comes to fruition and he can enact who he strives to be. This modification of

Infinity indicates how Robert blends seamlessly his desire for authenticity and his conviction that cyberspace is that one place where he can make it possible.

Second, tacit in Walton’s perception of Captain Daly as “an asshole God” is the articulation of the complexities of his behavior inspired by toxic masculinity. We can most definitely make an educated guess about the way that he would react to the virtual

Nanette when she challenges his authority by making an attempt to run away from the cockpit. But the moment she reaches the door, she is immediately teleported back. 266

Undeterred, she confronts him directly and this bold move has consequences—in fact, the captain, with a finger snap, removes her eyes, nose, and mouth from her face. The virtual

Nanette has no options but to be subservient. With the power to alter and reshape bodily parts of the crew members, Captain Daly can decide their fates. This moment alludes to the idea of cyberspace as a transitional space that equips people with the ability to take on the role of God. As Heim (1991) asserts, “What better way, then, to emulate God’s knowledge than to generate a virtual world constituted by bits of information?” (p. 69). In cyberspace, “human beings could enjoy a God-like instant success” (Heim, 1991, p. 69).

The construction of this alternative virtual world, while perceived as the main emancipatory space serving his needs for escaping from actuality, provokes the notion that, in strategically carving a mini virtual world out of Infinity, Robert manages to make it his own home turf, one in which he can dictate its terms and conditions that enable him to become omnificent, omnipotent and omniscient. In other words, the virtual offers him more than a sanctuary because it invests within him the capacity for “reclaim[ing] the

(infantile) illusion of magical creative power” (Robins, 1996, p. 90). By modifying the virtual universe of Infinity to construct USS Callister, he sets up boundaries that delimit what and who can be allowed inside it. In doing so and in virtually embodying Captain

Daly, Robert reinvents himself as a divine being.

Despite his almightiness, the struggle for absolute domination over his crew members is real, thereby galvanizing Captain Daly to resort to autocratic and brutal forms of oppression. According to Graham (2002), “The loss of physical presence, of material situatedness, entails a diminishment of moral sensibility, because the ethical imperative 267

of the unknowable autonomous other no longer pertains” (p. 163). In the virtual environment of USS Callister, the primary beneficiary is Captain Daly himself because cultural traditions and social practices associated with reality are suspended and are supplanted by a new set of norms created entirely by Robert so that his captain can do whatever he wants even if what he does can be obviously viewed immoral and unethical.

Following this logic, it is unsurprising when Steffen Hantke (2019), in his critical reading of the episode, reckons that Captain Daly abuses his God-like power to enslave his crew members and subjugate them to his vicious and tyrannical rules such that their “roles here remain permanently fixed as subalterns doing the dirty work and praising the universe’s vain deity in ludicrous excess of his reasonable accomplishments” (p. 197).

In their writing about cyberspace or virtual reality, Hunter and Mosco (2014) demonstratively connect the appeal of virtual dystopias to the symbolic figure of the sublime—the conceptual imagery that humanity tends to use in order to elucidate events and incidents it cannot scientifically grasp and cannot rationally comprehend. “The astonishment, awe, and terror that are faced in virtual dystopias,” they emphasize,

“transport people out of their everyday experiences and allow them to contemplate their place in the universe or existence […] to experience a sense of social cohesion, community and belonging that might be lacking in ‘real’ life” (p. 736). However, this emphasis on the transcendent aspect of cyberspace is completely undermined when

Robert exploits the virtual space to embrace toxic masculine behavior. In rendering acceptable the act of torturing his crew members and when doing so brings him gratification and satisfaction, we do not find the image of God in Captain Daly. Rather, 268

he exemplifies the devil: diabolical, sadistic, and wicked. How ironic that cyberspace, which is clearly supposed to promise the prospect of transcendence and to act as an antidote to the chaotic and unjust physical world experienced by Robert, has instead created Captain Daly—a demon without any redeemable qualities!

Let us consider, then, the other key moment in which Captain Daly’s godlike power is on full display after Robert knows about the game invite sent to the real Nanette.

Later that night, inside cyberspace, a furious Captain Daly demands answers for what the crew has done behind his back. When Shania quickly jumps to the virtual Nanette’s defense, Captain Daly transforms her into a beetle monster.

The horrible act of “monsterfying” Shania, while reaffirming his omnipotence thanks to Robert’s control over the game, provides evidence that, in invoking it, Captain

Daly surely claims the crew members as his properties. Okay, reality may have been harsh to Robert and may have belittled his manhood, but that does not justify Captain

Daly’s appalling and nasty behavior in the virtual domain. Robert’s intent to reframe social structure and reshape it into one that is most definitely founded on authoritarian ideologies to give Captain Daly all the advantages in this game world obviously buttresses the claim made by Hankte (2019) that the captain quintessentially represents

“the embodiment of white male tyranny” (p.195). According to Paul (2018), although players can find in video games potentials for reimagining themselves and inhabiting alternative worlds that can help them think differently, those potentials are profoundly limited. He lays the responsibility for the restricted scopes in game designs and the perpetuation of aggressive viewpoints embraced by players on the popularization of a 269

panoply of pernicious meritocratic norms, making gaming culture extremely toxic with

“some of the jerkiest” (p. 71). More specifically, Paul insists that “working with a keyboard has been transformed from secretarial work that should be done by women into a techno-cultural geek masculinity dominated by middle- and upper-middle class white men” (p. 80). In short, the origins of the omnipotence invested within Captain Daly in the form of a virtual God may be found in a synergistic interaction between toxic masculinity manifested in a kind of brutal virility that gives Robert an opportunity to rectify his failed masculinities and the normalization of toxic gaming culture. To that end, they thus make it possible for the protagonist to embrace or even celebrate violence as enacted in Captain

Daly. It is then my contention that Robert’s cyber-world is a continuation of the phallocentric real world because he builds it using the androcentric scaffolding in order to position Captain Daly at the head of the system in which male domination warrants absolute submission, on the one hand, and resistance to male authority guarantees punishment, on the other.

Autonomous Conscious Digital Clones

In “USS Callister,” the virtual characters may have looked like their originals, but they act with conscience. They gradually find their way to be on their own and they gain control over their existence in the digital world eventually. They achieve personhood with subject positions and subjectivities, obviously the equal of their originals.

Underneath this narrative trope is the articulation of the discourse of DNA as a key component of human nature as well as is an attempt to deconstruct and destabilize the fixity of the human category. 270

Recall the earlier moment in which the virtual Nanette comes to learn that she is now trapped inside a game world with no way out. “None of us can. Because you’re not actually you. I know it’s mental, but you’re a copy of you,” the virtual Shania insists. But the virtual Nanette refuses, and with vehemence, to believe that—that is, she disregards the idea that she herself is a digital clone. She is adamant that she is her true self. Another crew member then explains to her that “Daly’s created an identical digital version of you, of all of us. From your DNA. He’ll have harvested it somehow.” He also adds that “I theorize an advanced biometric DNA virtual clone.” According to the virtual Shania, “He fed your DNA in, he put you inside his computer and, bam, you pop up here like a Pop-

Tart. Yeah, we’ve all been through it. He brings us in for different reasons, shit we did in the office.” Even though the virtual Nanette remains dazed and confused, trying to make sense of the whole situation, she persists that what she experiences is not real, reasoning that “This is a dream. Yeah, it has to be.” To which Walton sarcastically and empathetically responds, “It’s more like an eternal waking nightmare from which there is no escape.”

Implicit in this exchange is a hint of irony. It is ironic in the sense that the complete erasure of the distinction between actual and virtual worlds comes at the exact moment that the virtual Nanette, as a digital being, dismisses the notion of being virtual.

If the virtual Nanette considered herself to be real, then, what would happen to the real

Nanette in flesh and bone in real life? And, most importantly, if the virtual Nanette deemed USS Callister to be her actual reality, then, what would we make of the physical world inhabited by the real Nanette? Asking these questions enables the interrogation of 271

cyberspace as a cultural artifact that rhetorically calls into question the unitary nature of liberal humanist subject because this ironic moment articulates how identity, which is supposed to be uniformed, becomes fractured. As Hayles (1996) eloquently posits, “In a virtual world, it is as real as it gets” (p. 21). In cyberspace, the virtual Nanette is authentically real. It is therefore unsurprising that she deems the whole situation dreamlike and maintains why she continues to reject the notion that her existence is merely illusory.

Another important idea that merits a critical analysis in this instance is the way that the crew members elucidate their ontological status by highlighting how DNA comes to be seen as principle ingredients that engender their creation. In his influential and classic book, titled The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins (2006) takes care to argue that genes are immortal because they contain DNA, the carrier of coded genetic information, which can be replicated, and in an identical manner. In the words of Dawkins, “The replicators that survived were the ones that build survival machines for themselves to live in. The first survival machines probably consisted of nothing more than a protective coat”

(p. 19). Because genes are replicators, human bodies become survival machines in the sense that they are driven and directed by genes. In the evolutionary competition for survival, genes are selfish to the extent that they make sure that they will most certainly get passed down, by exploiting any surviving tactics that can improve their chances of doing so. To that end, genes are software, programming human social behavior and determining human physical characters. According to Ridley (2016), “The gene-centred view of evolution that Dawkins championed and crystallized is now central both to 272

evolutionary theorizing and to lay commentaries on natural history such as wildlife documentaries” (p. 462). For Dawkins, then, only genes matter. Lippert-Rasmussen,

Thomsen, and Wamberg (2012) observe that biotechnological advances allegedly transform the nature of humanity by tampering and tinkering with its bodily limitations, thus signaling a transition into the posthuman era. In particular, they write, “Humans are complex beings who cannot easily break away from what their genes have allowed them to become – although their cultural software may be very adaptable” (p. 12). Because an emphasis on genetic code as the building block of human biology begs for a reconceptualization of what it means to be human, it obviously comes to call into question “the idea of man as a unique individual and specimen” (Balling, 2012, p. 131).

Editing and manipulating genes, in particular the cloning technique, thus come to be the new method of determining and regulating the future of humanity.

Popular depictions of the interior workings of biotechnological engineering on screen are a challenge because, as Jackie Stacey (2008) insists, images, metaphors, and tropes, commonly used to visually signify genes, are insufficient to account for, or even do justice to, their complexities and at the same time generate the kind of “genetic imaginary” in which “posthuman life forms are invented whose histories can be controlled and whose futures might be extended, but who threaten to exceed the controlling gaze of scientific technologies and thus continuously trouble their authority”

(p. 96). However, this challenge never thwarts the usage of cloning to construct and create life as a narrative trope which is evidenced by the frequency that this technique is incorporated into a host of science fiction stories, perpetuating the notion that genetic 273

knowledge holds the key to unlock potentials for human transcendence, on the one hand, and to threaten the unitary truth of human identity, on the other. Not surprisingly, the narrative toys with the concept of cloning and, thereby, secures the idea that to clone identical copies of humans requires genetic materials. Nevertheless, even though the virtual bodies of these crew members may share the same genetical make-up, they are their own subjects—that is, self-consciously autonomous virtual entities with personhood, perspectives, and positionality.

Notice, then, another instance occurring later on in the episode, when the virtual

Nanette cries, scolding herself for infuriating Captain Daly who turns the virtual Shania into a monster because of a game invite she sent, that narratively weaves together the discourse of gene as the building block of human physicality and the notion that digital clones are conscious beings. Following her discovery of the wormhole as “the Christmas update patch preinstalling itself,” the virtual Nanette proposes a new escape plan and discusses it with a crew member.

Nanette. Yes, but what if we fly into the wormhole?

Kabir. We’d hit the system firewall.

Nanette. Exactly. Yeah.

Kabir. And have our rouge coding deleted… Whether it’s dying would depend

on your position regarding sentient code—

Nanette. We would cease to exist, that’s true. But we’d be free. We’d be… free.

This exchange functions as a rhetorical vehicle for confirming that the crew members now clearly define themselves as fully autonomous entities with their own consciousness. 274

When they develop their point of view and a sense of self-awareness, they come to understand their dire situation. As the virtual space comes to be their presumed reality, their subjectivities are shaped not by physical humans but by the way they position themselves and are positioned in this alternative environment. It matters to them that they are invested with agency and ability to act without the fear of being monitored and punished. Against this background, it is my contention that Nanette explicitly articulates an existentialist ontology: it would be better for them to die and be free than to live and be entrapped. In acknowledging their intentionality toward the abstract concept of freedom, the crew members manage to abandon their statuses as digital and virtual copies and come to rearticulate themselves as independent subjects that can stand on their own and can make their own choice.

However, Walton objects to Nanette’s plan because if they fail and Captain Daly finds out, their punishment will be worse and more severe. Walton’s hesitation to be part of this plan stems from him still being traumatized by a previous incident that involved

Tommy, his son. That is, Robert once managed to salvage the lollipop Tommy left in the company and used it to replicate Tommy in the game so that Walton was forced to watch

Captain Daly cold-bloodedly throw his son out of the spaceship. Witnessing that was too much for him to bear and he would never want that to happen again, thus, subservience and subordination are the only choice for him to make. Hearing his story, Nanette asks him to trust her, and promises to “get that fucking lollipop.” With all members on board, they set the plan in motion. What Captain Daly did to Walton is pure evil. Even retelling this story seems to inflict psychological pain on him. Walton’s frustrations with the 275

possibility of Tommy being cloned and tortured indicates that the trauma he experiences is authentically real. And the sympathetic way other crewmembers react to what happened to him is clearly genuine and surely sincere. This touching and warming moment communicates a rhetorical message: in displaying a complex and nuanced set of emotions, these virtual copies have shown that, in this virtual environment, they have the ability to care for one another. On top of that, the crew members are created from human

DNA and have the capacity for abstract reasoning. Would we consider them as humans even though they inhabit cyberspace? And if we do so, then, what do we think of the concept of humanity deeply rooted in the material and physical world? It is in this context of the narrative that the problematic nature of the human category reveals itself.

Rhetorically, this whole instance articulates that the virtual and the actual worlds seem to exist separately and on parallel dimensions. It is Robert’s home computer system that connects these two realms. Being the sole builder of USS Callister, Robert is the only person who is granted the ability to enter and exit, which means that Robert can deftly move between them and can return to his physical body anytime he wishes and wants.

But the crew members clearly cannot. For them, then, the virtual comes to be the real and, obviously, cyberspace comes to be their actual reality. This observation is further supported by the idea that the virtual Nanette continues to exist without the presence of the body as a physical shell. That the real Nanette is unaware of the existence of her digital clone makes it possible for her to concoct this escape plan. For the real Nanette has no clue about the person behind the blackmailing and, thus, must obediently do what she is asked. In the light of this instance, the virtual Nanette should never be considered 276

as the embodiment of the consciousness of the real Nanette within cyberspace because they have never been connected or related in the first place even though they have the same genetic makeup. In USS Callister, this virtual subject becomes the real subject, but a posthuman one whose subjectivity is solidly grounded and relationally situated in the amalgamation of a positionality within this cyber world and its relations to both other virtual creatures and Captain Daly.

Given the emphasis of the narrative on imbuing virtual copied clones with traits and qualities manifestly associated with humans, it hardly comes as a surprise why the virtual Walton makes a bold decision to save his comrades. We can see more easily that the virtual Walton dies a noble death. In so doing, he has allowed his other crew members to defeat Captain Daly and to attain the freedom they all dream of. Here is evidence that the crew members are no longer just clones—that is, they possess traits that certainly make them one-hundred percent human rather than merely virtual beings.

The Demise of Toxic Masculinity in Cyberspace

Lest we forget how sadistically and perversely Captain Daly has treated his crew members, the episode ending is a rhetorical reminder that one can never get away with one’s misdeed and wrongdoing. Eventually, Robert gets what he deserves. However, what happens to Robert—that is, sitting lifelessly inside his own room in real world— needs further critical attention.

It seems most likely that rather than creating Captain Daly from Robert’s DNA, the captain is the materialization of Robert’s disembodied consciousness in the virtual domain. Only when Robert enters games and transports himself to cyberspace, using an 277

uploading device, would Captain Daly materialize. Whereas the virtual selves of the crew members and the actual selves of their originals are unrelated, the same thing cannot be said about Robert and Captain Daly. Whereas crew members and their originals maintain distinctive points of view in the virtual world and the actual world respectively, Robert and Captain Daly are both connected in that they share the same consciousness. And whereas crew members and their originals exist independently, Robert and Captain Daly cannot due to the fact that his consciousness cannot be in two places at once—either inside cyberspace or real space, separately, never at the same time. To understand

Robert’s circumstance, we must begin with the claim made by the scholar N. Katherine

Hayles (1999a), based on her scholarly work on cybernetics, in How We Became

Posthuman: “When information loses its body, equating humans and computers is especially easy, for the materiality in which the thinking mind is instantiated appears incidental to its essential nature” (p. 2).

Her claim carries weight because, technically, it renders possible the transformation of human consciousness into immaterial information that can move across both biological and nonbiological substrates. More specifically, Hayles (2010) maintains that “The cybernetic perspective implies that human and animal bodies, no less than cybernetic mechanisms, are media because they too have the capacity for storing, transmitting, and processing information” (p. 148). In assuming “humans, animals, and machines as information-processing devices receiving and transmitting signals to effect goal-directed behaviors” (Hayles,1999a, p. 37), one commonality emerges among them: data or patterns of information play a key role in explaining how they are formed. 278

“Cybernetics, in its ambition to create frameworks that apply equally to machines and to bodies,” according to Hayles (2010), should be considered as “one of the forces driving twentieth and twenty-first century thought to interpret the mind/body in computational terms and to think about computers as cognizers capable of evolving in ways that parallel the emergence of humans as thinking beings” (p. 153). She (1999a) goes even further to make the case that “Information is the putative origin, physicality the derivative manifestation” (p. 37). In this sense, mechanisms for the construction of cyberspace are deeply indebted to “the abstraction of information from its material base” (Lynes &

Symes, 2016, p. 127). This reconceptualization of information as disembodied indicates how it “is perceived to be uninhibited by the limitations of time and space, remaining unaffected by changes in context” (Lynes & Symes, 2016, p. 127). Dinello (2005) concurs, stipulating that “The cyberspace body—constructed from bits of coded data— reinforces the cybernetic principle that anything can be reduced to patterns of information” (p. 166).

Once divorced from its material body, information becomes versatile and protean in that it can come together and commingle in complex and intricate manners to generate kaleidoscopic and psychedelic visual representations, as displayed in cyberspace, that can call into question the priority given to physicality. In pointing out the fragilities of physical existence and specifying the vulnerabilities of the material, cyberspace thus renegotiates the way they have been conventionally discerned and have been traditionally known. Within this cybernetic framework, the subjectivity of Captain Daly can be argued to be constituted by the linking together of Robert’s consciousness and computational 279

data that construct the virtual world of USS Callister. In broad prospect, the narrative of the episode articulates a particular kind of a posthuman subjectivity: Robert’s subject wishes to leave the body not because he is clearly interested in the possibility of immortality. Rather Robert intends to splice and weave his consciousness into computer networks so that physical presence can be forgotten, and he can form new subjectivity in cyberspace. With the collapse of his modified virtual realm, Robert’s consciousness is entrapped inside it. The fact that his consciousness cannot return to his physical body evidently comes to explain why Robert is in an inert and vegetative state because it has no place to be situationally tethered.

“Striking Vipers” (Season 5: Episode 1): The Articulation of a Queer Cyberspace

At its heart, “Striking Vipers” is a story about self-discovery. It, too, asks us to engage with questions about the potentials of cyberspace for allowing us to imagine what we may deem unimaginable. The narrative then is an unapologetic attempt to present possibilities to renegotiate a certain type of hegemonic masculinities typically associated with straight men of color, by illustrating the constraints of societal norms that come to thwart nonconforming gender expressions and unconventional sexual practices. Yet what is most significant about it must be the complex articulation of the tension related to the ability to exist between the virtual and the actual and the allusion to the ramifications behind the blurring of the two worlds. In short, “Striking Vipers” articulates a vision of cyberspace as fundamentally transgressive, but in a hopeful manner, by depicting avatar- player assemblages as queer and by hinting at what would happen when virtual reality and actual reality collapse. 280

Synopsis

At a bar, a young Danny Parker (Anthony Mackie) nonchalantly approaches a young Theo (Nicole Beharie) and begins flirting with her. As it turns out, Danny and

Theo are a real couple, pretending to not know each other to spice up their dating life.

And the moment they get home, they proceed to have sex.

Awaken in the middle of the night, Danny quietly roams around the apartment and finds his roommate, Karl Houghton (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), in the living room, playing the fighting game, Striking Vipers. Untired from their night out together with their girlfriends, Danny and Karl spend the whole night, combating each other as Lance and Roxette, respectively.

Fast forward to 11 years later, Danny, now married to Theo with a five-year-old son, invites people over his house to celebrate his birthday and is pleasantly surprised to see Karl, with whom he has not kept in contact for one year. Once they catch up with each other, Karl shows Danny his birthday present: Striking Vipers X, the newest edition of the fighting game they used to play together in the past, as well as a device that enables them to be fully immersed in its virtual reality.

Later that night, in their own homes, Karl finds Danny online and invites him to play the game. The two start the game, playing their favorite characters, Lance (Ludi Lin) and Roxette (Pom Klementieff) respectively. After a few bouts of fighting, Lance and

Roxette wrestle with one another and they suddenly kiss. Danny and Karl, too, can feel the kiss. The incident most definitely obfuscates Karl and Danny, who immediately exits the game. 281

However, the next time they play, their avatars immediately have sex, leading to the two men engaged in virtual sex. The more they do it, the more Danny’s relationship with Theo is impacted. After a confrontation with his wife, Danny decides to put an end to his virtual sex with Karl.

A year later, a pregnant Theo secretly asks Karl over for an intimate dinner to celebrate Danny’s birthday. At dinner, alone together, Karl confesses to Danny that he has not been able to experience the same sort of feelings and the similar kind of emotional connection that the two of them used to have, as Roxette and Lance, either online with other players.

Later that night, Danny enters the game, playing the character of Lance. The moment he sees Karl as Roxette there, they have sex again. In the midst of this sexual moment, Roxette utters, “I love you!”

Unsettled by what he hears, Danny suggests to Danny that they see each other in real life in order to determine whether they do share the exact same feelings in actual reality as when they are playing the characters of Lance and Roxette.

The two of them exit the game and meet up at a deserted parking lot. While there,

Danny and Karl kiss but neither of them feels anything. They then fight. A police car drives by and arrests them. Theo arrives at the police station and bails Danny out of jail.

On their drive home, an upset Theo demands an explanation.

A year later on Danny’s birthday, Danny sits in front of his television set, waiting for Karl online to play Striking Vipers X. Theo gets dressed up, going out to a bar on her own. 282

Queer Avatar-Player Assemblages

In his writing about “Striking Vipers,” Slade (2020) asserts that the episode

“presents the defects of an unwavering devotion to both monogamous matrimony and uninhibited licentiousness” (p. 242). According to him, the premise of its narrative rests in an exploration of “alternative possibilities for sexual intimacy by reversing roles, challenging traditions, and pushing socially constructed boundaries” (p. 249). Slade is absolutely right in making these points, as substantiated by the provocative way that the episode ends—that is, Danny and Theo work out a new set of rules, so unconventional and nonconforming that the meaning of their matrimonial relationship comes to be redefined. Nevertheless, I would like to draw attention to another aspect of “Striking

Vipers,” one that I certainly believe to be of great significance, and on equal terms: the articulation of avatar-player assemblages and the way that the narrative queers these hybrid entities.

No viewers would miss that Striking Vipers, and later Striking Vipers X, plays a pivotal role in driving the plot. Even the title of the episode hints at its prominent presence within the narrative. More specifically, it all started with this fighting video game through which a special bond of fraternal friendship was first forged between

Danny and Karl. They would play it throughout the night, laughing, joking, and losing themselves in it. No wonder that the birthday gift that Karl gives to Danny is the newest edition of the game franchise.

It is through Striking Vipers X that the two men later come to experience sexual fantasies they never know they could have much enjoyed. And these personal reckonings 283

are made possible thanks to virtual technologies that first enable the transferal of their consciousness to the game world and then facilitate its embodiment in the avatar body.

The mechanism behind this process is showcased within the narrative at the moment when Danny and Karl try out Striking Vipers X for the first time.

Seeing Danny online after his birthday, Karl appears both excited and hyped up.

Speaking to his friend on voice chat, Karl eagerly instructs him how to utilize the device, stating, “All right, so grab the experiencer disc I got you, put it on and jump in. Seriously, man, it’s insane. You’re gonna freak. You’re gonna shit your pelvis through your asshole.” The vernacular and informal language with which Karl expresses his excitement allegedly functions as a rhetorical vehicle for signaling both the awe and the thrill that people tend to have and exhibit when they discover new technologies that can alter and change the way in which they normally and typically experience their physical world. The virtual space or cyberspace bridges the connection between the actual conditions that structure human existence and the imaginary potentialities that allow for human transcendence.

Cyberspace typically provides the conceptual basis for speculating how, through their computer screens, people can be transported to distinctive realms where they are given the opportunity to envisage their desired and preferred identities without the fear of derision or ridicule. “With its virtual environments and simulated worlds,” the philosopher Michael Heim (1991) ideally writes, “cyberspace is a metaphysical laboratory, a tool for examining our very sense of reality” (p.59). Despite his perceived validation of cyberspace as a possible alternative world to rethink physical existence, his 284

philosophical perspectives toward its ontological being come with a caveat: cyberspace is paradoxical in that, on the one hand, it can liberate humans but can change their lived sociality and human interactions, on the other. Take Heim’s caution into account, cyberspace should never be considered as a neutral space. In the words of the feminist scholar Anne Balsamo (1996), “In the speculative discourse of VR, we are promised whatever body we want, which doesn’t say anything about the body that I already have and the economy meanings I already embody” (p. 128). For Balsamo, this vision of virtual reality as facilitating the construction of new identities may appear too optimistically promising because cultural traces of body-based identities in reality linger in the minds of the users and can, then, find their way onto cyberspace, eventually delimiting the conditions that give rise to virtual identities. But cyberspace, according to

Robins (1996), remains “a zone of unlimited freedom” (p. 91), an aspect that seems to be too alluring and too tempting for people to pass it on.

Cyberspace engrosses contemporary society a great deal (Hayles, 1993). Why?

Because it can rearticulate a conventional understanding of the human subject. How? By delineating the prospect of tinkering and tampering with the constraints of the material world. Placed within a complex cybernetic network, humanity has gradually found a way to diminish its dependence on the body to construct its subjectivity. Inside cyberspace, it

“can have the benefits of physicality without being bound by its limitations” (Hayles,

1993, p. 173). Sando (2010) further attributes a fascination with cyberspace to a similarity shared between play with virtuality, asserting that both concepts “extend our horizon and playground – the first mentally, and the second materially” (p. 54). Play and 285

virtuality both work by setting up rules and encouraging their players to envision themselves anew bounded by these rules and to act within boundaries sketched by these rules.

Acknowledging such transformative potentials of cyberspace means acknowledging that this virtual space is far more than a space of frivolity and insignificance. In cyberspace, humans can definitely metamorphosize such that they actualize subject positions they desire or want. If this is the case, then, Karl’s initial fascination with this updated version of this fighting game seems to stem from his conviction that cyberspace can invest within him the ability to encounter something unique, something he understands that can rarely happen in reality. But what Danny and

Karl come to experience in cyberspace may be more than what they have previously expected.

In the game world of Striking Vipers X, voices of Danny and his avatar, Lance, and those of Karl and Roxette briefly meld together into one muffled sound each whereas the latter’s physical sensations in the game are transferred to the former’s physical human bodies. In transporting Danny and Karl to a virtual realm, Striking Vipers X connects both worlds, forming new links that undermine the privileging of embodied subjectivity typically tethered to the physical body. Here is the perfect articulation of Crick’s (2011) game body: “a ‘visible object’ and a ‘viewing subject’ for the player” or “an ‘object- subject’ that sees and is seen” (p. 263). Crick explains that “From the moment a player starts a game, the view that appears on the screen exists by itself as intrasubjective, that is, a subjective view from inside the game” (p. 263). As the philosopher Dan Zahavi 286

(2019) further insists in his introduction book on phenomenology, “Not only can the body expand its sensorimotor repertoire by acquiring new skills and habits, it can even extend its capacities by incorporating artificial organs and parts of its environment” (p. 84).

Game bodies are embodied and they come into being at the exact moment that players and avatars interact phenomenologically. Players may have initially adopted the viewpoint of their avatars but later would experience game actions and game activities through a shared perspective. No longer themselves with their own first-person perspectives, players’ subjectivities are in relation to how they react in front of the screen through and with their avatars. It is this embodiment inside the game that forms their experience of the game body. Following this logic, the demarcation between the point of view of each pair, Danny and Lance or Karl and Roxette, is rendered impossible—that is, subjective inside-game points of view developed by Danny and Karl would be much different from those in their actual world. Put differently, the two men’s game bodies are the mediated effect of the intra-action of their physical bodies and the virtual bodies of

Lance and Roxette respectively. To that end, their perspectives of the virtual world come to be phenomenologically situated as a result of them inhabiting and residing inside the bodies of their avatars.

In a collection of essays repackaged into the book, Space, Time, and Perversion,

Elizabeth Grosz (1995) sets out to challenge conceptual and theoretical structures that downplay the significant role of the body in the formation of subjectivity. In a chapter titled “Space, Time, Bodies,” Grosz formulates an argument that space and time may be two concepts that enable the understanding of the body, but it is this body that introduces 287

the condition for recognizing the operating mechanism of space and time. Grosz states that “The kinds of world we inhabit, and our understanding of our places in these worlds to some extent are an effect of the ways in which we understand space and time” (p. 97).

In questioning common practices of privileging space over time, she proclaims that “The subject is no more clearly positioned in space than in time; indeed, the immediacy of the

‘hereness’ of corporal existence is exactly parallel to the ‘nowness’ of the subject’s experience” (p. 98). But it is evident that the virtual world of Striking Vipers X problematizes this conception of space and time.

There is no denying of the key role that the physical body comes to play in the formation of the subject. However, the kind of feeling and sensation that Danny and Karl experience vicariously through Lance and Roxette in the virtual world comes to call into question whether the duality of space and time as theorized based on physicality can help to elucidate what happen to these two subjects. As Graham (2002) points out,

“Cyberspace is indeterminate, too, in that it suspends ‘normal’ conventions of body, space, time and place. It is a world of sense without mediation, and representation without materiality” (p. 170). Thus, I contend that the tendency to give priority and to place more values to embodied subjectivity deeply rooted in the material world seems to restrict how to think about the virtual bodily experience. In making this contention, I do not mean to dispute or minimize Grosz’s idea of re-situating the physical body in critical, theoretical, and philosophical projects that strive to make sense of subject position and subjectivity. Rather I would recommend reconsidering the possibility of virtual bodies to influence the formation of the posthuman subject. I believe that Graham (2002) is correct 288

when she eloquently writes that inside cyberspace, “the subject is both materially and digitally embodied” (p. 189). And to push this contention one step further, I borrow an idea from Coessens (2011) who deems virtual space a responsive space—that is, “a space which can meet in a logical and balanced way expectations concerning effects, control and operations by its human inhabitants or travelers” (p. 71). The narrative of the episode hints at this idea because it articulates the importance of cyberspace, as a responsive space, in the formation of posthuman subject positions. The process of interweaving

Danny’s consciousness with Lance’s body, and Karl’s with that of Roxette, produces hybrid posthuman subjects that can only become legible and understandable outside the conventional perception of space and time associated with the material world. That is, in inhabiting their avatars’ virtual bodies, Danny and Karl subjectively live through them, leading to the formation of the kind of virtual bodily experience that emerges from a posthuman point of view mostly influenced by this hybrid embodiment.

A few words should be said, too, about the fact that the disembodied consciousness of Danny and Karl materializes in the virtual domain by way of selecting prefigured and preformed avatars supplied by the game developer(s), meaning that the contours of the virtual bodies of Lance and Roxette are prefixed and predetermined.

According to Heller (2016), when people present themselves online, they “engage in double consciousness all the more with [their] own self-made avatars believing an avatar to be the self and the other at the exact same time” (p. 43). She continues, “The user/maker is embodied through the image of the avatar in the virtual world and this completes a sense of psychical co-joining” (p. 46). Roxette and Lance may not have been 289

personally created by Karl and Danny respectively. Yet in picking them, each man imbues his ideas into each of their avatars. Rather than merely a shell made ready to be inhabited, Lance and Roxette give Danny and Karl a chance to roam in the virtual world, as neither “object” nor “subject.” As avatars, Lance and Roxette passively exist in the virtual domain, awaiting an opportunity to be activated. And once activated, they come to be hybrid subjects, melding with Danny and Karl to take actions and to combat in the game—in fact, Lance and Roxette indicate the potential for deconstructing the essence of unitary selves that Danny and Karl have.

Moreover, to actively navigate and fight in the virtual world, each man and his avatar must form an assemblage. In other words, each pair (Danny-Lance and Karl-

Roxette) is a quintessential illustration of the notion of an avatar-player assemblage. The

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (2002) defines an assemblage as “a multiplicity which is made up by many heterogeneous terms and which establishes liaisons, relations between them, across ages, sexes and reigns – different natures” (p. 69). For Deleuze,

“the assemblage’s only unity is that of co-functioning: it is a symbiosis, a ‘sympathy’. It is never filiations which are important, but alliances, alloys; these are not successions, lines of descent, but contagions, epidemics, the wind” (p. 69). Based on Deleuze’s definition, an assemblage is constituted by components, parts, or elements that may initially seem to be too incompatible and too different for them to merge. But, somehow, they manage to do so.

In his reading of Deleuze and Guattari, Fancy (2010) concludes that an assemblage never stands still because its constituents never stop moving and can always 290

rearrange and can always reorganize. They can link, unlink and relink in the process of forging an assemblage. And the most important aspect of an assemblage is that its constitutive parts remain autonomous. Manuel Delanda (2016) distills the essence of an assemblage in his book, titled Assemblage Theory. In it, he writes that “the parts that are fitted together are not uniform either in nature or in origin” and “the assemblage actively links these parts together by establishing relations between them” (p. 2). Assemblage theory, thus, challenges the monolithic nature of things and celebrates a nested set of synergetic dynamics between the parts and how they operate at different scales in order to produce an assemblage.

More specifically, Delanda identifies four characteristics of assemblages as follows: they “have a fully contingent historical identity, and each of them is therefore an individual entity” (p. 19), “are always composed of heterogeneous components” (p. 20),

“can become component parts of larger assemblages” (p. 20), and finally “emerge from the interactions between their parts, but once an assemblage is in place it immediately starts acting as a source of limitations and opportunities for its components (downward causality)” (p. 21). Danny and Karl exist independently from their avatars and vice versa.

To be able to play the game they must reside inside their avatars. Transferring each man’s consciousness to his own avatar then creates an assemblage. But most importantly, other players who also pick their avatars might form different kinds of assemblages and may never experience what Danny and Karl come to experience in the virtual world. This observation is most likely supported by the fact that it is through embodying the avatar- player assemblage that a kiss happens. 291

Technically, Danny and Karl never kiss but they feel it through Lance and

Roxette respectively and this kiss unsettles them both. However, the next time they play, their avatars immediately have sex. They attempt to make sense of what happened afterward in the virtual milieu of Striking Vipers X. When Roxette jokingly says that “So, guess that’s us gay now,” Lance replies that “Huh. Don’t feel like a gay thing.” This exchange between Roxette and Lance articulates the notion of cyberspace to bestow on

Danny and Lance the possibility of exploring and experimenting with their sexualities.

According to Haraway (1992), “The virtual seems to be the counterfeit of the real; the virtual has effects by seeming, not being” (p. 324-325). Her description of cyberspace paints a picture that the virtual and the real are considered to remain at dialectical positions. “Virtual space seems to be the negation of real space; the domains of SF seem the negation of earthly regions” (p. 325), she writes. “But perhaps this negation is the real illusion” (Haraway, 1992, p. 325). Clearly, both Danny and Karl regard what happens between them in cyberspace as a fantasy, something that they would never contemplate doing in actuality. Thus, their presumed conclusion that sex between them in virtuality is far from being considered as gay.

Besides, Lance’s statement that “Don’t feel like a gay thing” carries a rhetorical connotation. The crux of their refusal to see themselves as gay is obviously their own perception that, because Lance and Roxette are of the opposite sexes, the sexual tension and physical attraction between the two, one that leads to the subsequent decision to engage in sexual intercourse in the cyberworld, are fundamentally grounded upon this fact. Danny and Karl may have physical reactions and bodily responses to sexual 292

activities between Lance and Roxette but this kind of sexual sensations they vicariously encounter through their avatars are purely heterosexual.

Packed into this brief conversation is a crucial implication: although cyberspace may unmistakably rearticulate the heterosexual identities of Danny and Karl by allowing them to experience what, in my view, can be viewed as homoeroticism, it is highly structured by heteronormative ideologies such that, in virtually embodying Lance and

Roxette, as heterosexual man and woman, what transpires between Danny and Karl in

Striking Vipers X, rather than functioning to transgress hegemonic structures of sexual norms in actuality, unfortunately, reinforces them in cyberspace. In this sense, Danny and

Karl technically retain their heterosexuality in the material and physical world due to the fact that their virtual sex inside the game is between a male avatar and a female one.

Thus, we need be careful in perceiving their virtual sex as gay.

In another key moment inside Striking Vipers X, Danny and Karl, as Lance and

Roxette, share an intimate conversation that articulates how cyberspace is the harbinger of an era of posthumanism, in which patterns of information and computational codes operate to create virtual bodies that can be materially and digitally inhabited by human subjects. First, Lance asks, “How does it feel? I mean, like, for you, being in a woman’s body while…” Roxette responds, “Crazy. It’s crazy. I mean, it’s different. Like… the physical feeling of it? It’s more sort of… satisfying. I can’t really explain it.” She continues, “Like, one’s a guitar solo, the other’s a whole fucking orchestra. But the tune’s basically the same. Difference tempo, though.” To which Lance nonchalantly says,

“Yeah, I think you’ve run that analogy to the ground.” 293

A twisted knot of issues rests at the core of this dialogical exchange. Danny’s question stems from a curiosity over Karl’s bodily experience rooted in embodied subjectivity of the avatar-player assemblage. For Karl, it is through the avatar-player assemblage that he comes to understand a profound sense of being feminine and being womanlike. Boellstorff (2011) cogently notes that “avatars are not merely representations of bodies but forms of embodiment, centered on constitutive emplacement within a world” (p. 504). In elaborating his idea, he (2011) suggests that “virtual embodiment is always embodiment in a virtual place” (p. 504) and that “the pluralization of place that virtual worlds entail holds foundational implications for online corporeality” (p. 504).

Boellstorff’s insightful conception of virtual embodiment foreground the structure of the virtual in crafting the prerequisite(s) to which avatars can be created. Moreover, if Grosz

(1995) perceives corporeality “as the material conditions of subjectivity” (p. 103), online corporeality, naturalized in relation to the set of rules and norms particularly associated with the virtual, comes to foster the construction of online subjectivity that can be argued to deviate from that of offline.

In Body Images, Gail Weiss (1999) notes that “To the extent that [the new, virtual realities] offer themselves as a way of reconfiguring our own corporeal possibilities, they may indeed serve as sites of wonder and passion” (p. 114). In this sense, when humans access and enter cyberspace, their subjectivity is situated differently while their embodiment is produced within the entanglement of these co-constitutive components: virtual environments, virtual bodies of the avatars, and the consciousness of the users. If physical embodiment and virtual embodiment come to indicate two distinctive effects of 294

how the same human subject positions itself, then, these come to downplay its own agency of creating a coherent and unified identity. The serendipitous opportunity for Karl to inhabit a female body in the virtual reality of Striking Vipers X serves as a path to transcendence for him, which empowers his capacity to rethink physicality as the conceptual and theoretical foundation for the construction of self and accept the fractured nature of his identity. The same thing can also be applied to Danny, too.

Further, the way the body is discursively, historically, materially, and medically theorized comes to influence how embodiment is experienced. As Allucquére Rosanne

Stone (1999) asserts, “the unitary, bounded, safely warranted body constituted within the frame of bourgeois modernity is undergoing a gradual process of translation to the refigured and reinscribed embodiments of the cyberspace community” (p. 91). Virtuality then signals a radical reconceptualization of the idea of the body as bordered, bounded, and confined. Along these lines, Hayles (1996) provocatively writes that “The virtual body partakes both of the ephemerality of information and the solidity of physicality or, depending on one’s viewpoint, the solidity of information and the ephemerality of flesh”

(p. 12). To that end, cyberspace becomes a catalyst first creating avatar-player assemblages, and then queering them, thereby restructuring and reconstructing Danny and Karl as posthuman subjects whose posthuman embodiment is produced in relationality to virtual bodies they inhabit.

The Collapse of the Virtual and the Actual

Virtual sex gives Danny and Karl complete satisfaction. It is certainly true. They want more and they do get more. But the increased frequency of them logging online has 295

an influence on their life in reality. The fact that Danny and Karl become more attached to one another online has an inauspicious impact on the former’s relationship with his wife. Danny’s withdrawn and aloof state of mind enervates Theo, leading her to wonder whether her husband commits adultery. At their wedding anniversary dinner, Theo confronts Danny, claiming that his recent behavior has her concerned, and that she, despite enjoying the attention from other men, would never cheat. Danny reassures Theo that he never has an affair and confirms that he always stays faithful toward her.

Following this event, Danny decides to stow the game away and, days later, calls Karl to say that he would put an end to what happened between them in the simulated world of

Striking Vipers X. In particular, when Danny says that “It means I can’t do it anymore.

It’s not fair to Theo,” Karl responds that “But it’s not cheating. It’s not real. It’s like… porn or something.” Of rhetorical significance in this instance is that the virtual has complicated and has reshaped how Danny makes sense of his actual reality. Given this technologically engineered and enhanced context, occupying this virtual realm implies

“an imagined assemblage of human and machine so intertwined that the division between the two is no longer discernable” (Batchen, 1998, p. 237). Therefore, the importance of what Danny and Karl express rhetorically articulates that what Danny experiences in the virtual space extends beyond his rational understanding of human emotions as mostly grounded in reality.

On the basis of the experience shared between the two men, Karl seems to invoke an old adage that cyberspace is an imaginary place inside a computer system and behind a computer screen. But emotions, gratifications, and satisfactions the two men find in the 296

virtual realm of Striking Vipers X indicate otherwise. In the words of Heim (1991),

“Perhaps because the cyberspace system, which depends on the physical space of bodies for its initial impetus, now seeks to undermine the separate existence of human bodies that make it dependent and secondary” (p. 66). “The ultimate revenge of the information system comes,” he adds, “when the system absorbs the very identity of the human personality, absorbing the opacity of the body, grinding the meat into transformation, and deriding erotic life by reducing it to a transparent play of puppets” (p. 66). Karl’s dismissal of cybersex between Lance and Roxette as porn is problematic in that it undercuts the capacity of the virtual as an important agent that comes to influence the embodiment of subjectivity. In cyberspace, the stability of the self that humans tend to see as their own to control and construct becomes obviously compromised and evidently undermined. To that end, it plainly makes sense why Danny decides to end this virtual affair with Karl.

How Danny and Karl are subjected comes to be obfuscated because of a possibility given to them to inhabit two parallel worlds, thereby hinting at the idea that connecting the virtual and the actual milieus comes to have unintended ramifications.

According to Stone (1999), “many of the usual analytical categories have become unreliable for making the useful distinctions between the biological and the technological, the natural and artificial, the human and mechanical, to which we have become accustomed” (p. 85). Brey (2014) argues that demarcating what is real and what is fictitious becomes impossible the moment virtual reality comes to be introduced to everyday life due to its capacity for presenting “ontological confusion” on this issue (p. 297

53). Indeed, when physical and virtual worlds come to be blended, “virtual other body is incorporated (literally) into our sense of self” (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2014, p. 590).

Accepting the virtual bodies as an extension of the self means accepting that embodiment can be apportioned and distributed. When presence becomes mediated and can be transplanted to virtual realms, then, it is possible to see how “the technology has become part of the self, and the mediated reality to which we are attending has become an integrated part of the other” (Waterworth & Waterworth, 2014, p. 598). The notion of presence as we normally know it comes to be altered. What Danny and Karl experience then articulate this notion of embodiment as distributed, making Lance and Roxette, respectively, pivotal in extending their sense of self. In this sense, the narrative begs for a relaxation of the reins that come to bind us to the kind of theorization that positions the autonomous liberal self as the locus of the formation of identity so that the connection between the two male protagonists to the virtual world, virtual bodies, and virtual avatars can be reckoned as an essential factor that can help us to fully understand the kind of subjects that they are as they participate in the virtual domain.

Speaking of her own experience with a conceptual art installation, Hayles (1999b) for example elegantly discloses that “I am one kind of material embodiment, the virtual creatures are another, but we are connected through dynamic processes that weave us together in a web of jointly articulated cognitive activities” (p. 26). This interweaving thus refuses to privilege Danny over Lance and Karl over Roxette with regard to the emergence of their posthuman subject, posthuman embodiment, and posthuman subjectivity. 298

That the virtual comes to supplant the real is most visibly showcased within a key moment when Karl confesses to Danny at the birthday dinner after they stop playing

Striking Vipers X.

Karl. Nothing matches it, does it? I tried replacing it, man. I tried. I tried fucking

the computer-controlled characters. It’s bullshit.

Danny. Shut up.

Karl. It’s like a rubber doll. Not programmed for any sex stuff. They just sort of

lie there. I tried it with real players. Other folks controlling Lance. There was this

one guy from Holland. He was kind of halfway OK as long as I didn’t think about

this accent. But it didn’t get me. It didn’t get me, not like when we’re in there.

You and me.

Danny. Stop it.

Karl. I tried everything. I’ve gone in there as guy players, girl players, multi-

player gangbangs, you name it. You know, I even fucked Tundra, the polar bear

character. I fucked a polar bear and I still couldn’t get you out of my mind.

Danny. I can’t help you.

Karl. You want to fuck Roxi again. The best sex of my life. Best of yours too.

Fucking transcendent. You know it was. Think about it. Think about her. Roxi.

Holding her, her warm skin against yours.

This instance between Danny and Karl merits critical attention because there is a lot to be unpacked. When Karl says that he can never experience what he would experience with

Danny in the virtual realm, he articulates cyberspace’s potentials for “reconfiguring the 299

relations between micro- and macro-perceptions” in that “these relations are subject to change, and that different social machines, different conceptual apparatus may make it possible to have different bodies, different souls, or different zones of clear expression without always having to submit them to a major reterritorialization” (Murphie, 2002, p.

204).

Additionally, Karl’s intent to remind Danny of Roxette, her body, and her touch alludes to the idea that the virtual realm of Striking Vipers X bestows on both of them the kind of emotions and sensations that can be argued to supplant those in real life.

Therefore, the boundaries between the virtual and the natural are themselves blurred such that the virtual and the actual come to entangle and weave together into such a tightly tangled tightrope that perceptions of a clear distinction between what is real and what is virtual are impossible. “The new technological environments of virtual reality and cyberspace confuse the boundaries between internal and external worlds, creating the illusion that internal and external realities are one and the same” (p. 94), Robins (1996) writes. On that note, it is understandable why Ihde (2002) finds it problematic when virtual reality is demarcated from the more tangible real life. As he (2002) contends, “in a broader, more phenomenological sense, both RL [real life] and VR [virtual reality] are part of the lifeworld, and VR is thus both ‘real’ as a positive presence and a part of RL”

(p. 13). When we recognize the breaking down of virtual reality and actual reality and notice the blurring of the demarcation between the two, we come to envision how

“posthuman subjectivity is fully configured within the technological envelop of advanced computation” (Krocker, 2012, p. 74). That is to say, the incorporation of technology into 300

the human enables the becoming of the posthuman subject whose lifeworld is cybernetically co-constituted by both virtuality and actuality. In her discussion of cybernetics, Hayles (2010) traces its historical evolution and development, emphasizing its “social, cultural, and theoretical impact” to be “associated with its tendency to reconfigure boundaries” (p. 149). In this narrative context of this episode, boundaries are themselves restructured because virtuality is made actuality.

Moreover, this brief conversation reveals that Karl and Roxette are far more entwined than we may have thought. To understand why Karl cannot replicate his virtual experience with other players, we need to look at the avatar-player assemblage through a posthumanist lens. In particular, Wilde and Evans (2019) introduce posthuman empathy as a theoretical concept to fully account for the intra-active nature of avatars and players.

They envision posthuman empathy as being “always already an interconnected network of dynamically intra-acting forces or agencies” (p. 797). It is the kind of empathy that emerges at the moment that players and avatars intra-act and that is the effect of the relations between these two co-constitutive actants. Players and avatars, in forming an assemblage, mutually influence one another such that they co-evolve to the extent that nothing exists before them and that empathy only comes into existence once they intra- act inside the game.

In her qualitative study of Second Life players, Schultze (2014) argues that embodied identities are constructed through and with avatars and that performativity offers a productive theoretical framework to elucidate them. She writes, “As performatives, avatars are capable of both signifying and enacting the user” (p. 88). She 301

then adds, “By citing discursive and material practices inscribed in the body, a certain identity is enacted” (p. 88). Following these scholars’ suggestions, both Danny-Lance and

Karl-Roxette are posthuman subjects so unique and so distinctive that what they experience together and what they share together in the virtual environ of Striking Vipers

X can never be copied, as evidenced by Karl’s confession that, despite his intent to substitute Danny with other players, “Nothing matches it, does it?” as well as his assumption that “You want to fuck Roxi again. The best sex of my life. Best of yours too.

Fucking transcendent. You know it was. Think about it. Think about her. Roxi. Holding her, her warm skin against yours.” Such statements are rhetorical proofs that articulate avatars as agential beings that come to play a co-constitutive part in enacting posthuman identity. Rather than a medium and a means for roaming the virtual world, Lance and

Roxette are as important as Danny and Karl in the process of constructing posthuman embodiment and producing posthuman lived experience. By extension, to claim otherwise is to uncritically and unreflectively maintain humanist principles that most certainly are insufficient to fully account for what has happened to the two men over the course of the narrative.

Despite his dismissal of what Karl confesses, later that night, Danny enters the game. In seeing Karl as Roxette there, they have sex. In the midst of it, Roxette utters, “I love you!”—an utterance so unexpected and so sudden that Danny as Lance finds it unacceptable and unbelievable, leading him to suggest that the two of them meet in real life in order to sort out this confusion. Following Danny’s suggestion, the two of them exit the game and meet up at a deserted parking lot. While there, Danny and Karl kiss but 302

neither of them feels anything. That is, the sexual and emotional connection between

Danny and Karl exists only in the virtual reality and does not get translated into actual reality. What this instance showcases is the articulation of posthuman empathy that comes into being through the intra-action of the Danny-Lance assemblage and the Karl-

Roxette assemblage.

Relieved, Danny recommends that their virtual relationship should end and that they not continue playing the game due to lack of sexual and physical arousal during their kiss, thereby reconfirming their heterosexuality. But Karl objects and his objection infuriates Danny, leading him to physically attack his friend, who then hits back.

Rhetorically, this incident articulates the importance of re-situating the body in the formation of subjectivity. In her reading of a wide array of science fiction texts, Sherryl

Vint (2007) reconfirms this idea by stating that “the body is an integral component of subjectivity” (p. 112). As a matter of fact, Hayles (2002) considers the body as “the human form seen from the outside” (p. 297) whereas “[e]mbodiment experienced from the inside, from the feelings, emotions, and sensations that constitute the vibrant living textures of our lives” (p. 297). Hayles further reasons that “the body and embodiment are always dynamically interacting with one another” (p. 298). Based on Hayles’s theoretical observation, then these two concepts do not remain static but change, evolve and transform due to the shifting contours of an environment dominated by technology and data. The posthuman subject, she (2002) notes, “knows that the dynamic and fluctuating boundaries of her embodied cognitions develop in relation to other cognizing agents embedded throughout the environment, among which the most powerful are intelligent 303

machines” (p. 303). Hayles thus concludes, “Consciousness for the posthuman ceases to be seen as the seat of identity and becomes instead an epiphenomenon” (319). That is,

“We do not exist in order to relate; rather, we relate in order that we may exist as fully realized human beings” (p. 320).

It seems that the intermingling of the consciousness of the male protagonists with their avatars respectively leads to the coming into being of virtual bodies, which, in turn, allow for certain types of virtual embodiment, which comes to explain why Danny and

Karl have no sexual emotions in physicality. As Weiss (1999) observes that “To describe embodiment as intercorporeality is to emphasize that the experience of being embodied is never a private affair, but is always already mediated by our continual interactions with other human and nonhuman bodies” (p. 5). It is in the context of virtual reality, which fosters the infusing of human consciousness and virtual bodies, that it is possible for

Danny and Karl to develop homoerotic proclivities and to experience sensations that come with it.

The philosopher Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (2011) explores virtual reality through the Nietzschean ideas about Dionysus and Apollo in order to make a point about the importance of applying the notion of tragedy to explicate the nature of virtual reality.

Botz-Bornstein decries an intent to create a virtual reality that downplays and avoids the tragic element he deems extremely essential to this process. Virtual reality is about experimentation and exploration, and the construction of virtual reality is technically grounded upon imagination and creativity. But human rationality would serve as a barrier to make these objectives possible. In his own words, “the loss of tragic becomes 304

manifested in VR where reality is not defined as an existential, ever-changing phenomenon but appears as an extended, stable quantity in which no tragic losses will bar the way to an eternal, virtual life” (p. 101). When built solely on scientific rationality, virtual reality comes to be a technologically created and cybernetically planned space that compromises and undermines artisticity linked to Dionysian and Apollonian principles.

Botz-Bornstein encourages the need to reincorporate the tragic element into designing and developing virtual reality due to the fact that it “is not a disconnected realm; instead, it is integrated into a life that appears as an event as tragic (though also as playful) as itself” (p. 108). According to him, embracing the tragic is not really a bad thing and infusing it into virtual reality may make us look at this other space more sympathetically and more creatively. Botz-Bornstein thus arrives at the conclusion that “The boundaries between the real and the virtual are eroding which is – tragic. But this is the only chance we have to derive positive qualities from VR” (p. 108).

Certainly, it is tragic that Danny’s participation in cyberspace puts a strain on his marriage, makes him confused about his sexuality and his manhood, and generates a profound sense of denial that he enjoys what happens virtually. The erosion of actual and virtual worlds, however, is not at all that negative because eventually, it allows him to reimagine himself, to be more honest with himself, and to be more connected to both

Karl and Theo. Perhaps, the rhetorical message that “Striking Vipers” conveys is about introducing alternative views about what cyberspace can do to human subjects and can offer to them a platform to enact their fantasies and to think about their own identities anew. 305

Summary

When it comes to the topic of cyberspace, the two episodes, “USS Callister” and

“Striking Vipers,” represent two opposite sides of the same coin. Both locate potentials linked to virtual embodiment and both reflect possible ramifications of human existence in virtual reality. However, each episode approaches cyberspace within the narrative in an oppositional way. Whereas “USS Callister” depicts the virtual domain as a dystopia ruled by a virtual God that finds joy and satisfaction in the suffering of other characters, then,

“Striking Vipers” articulates a utopian vision of the virtual realm as fundamentally subversive in that it potentially queers the straight.

We can observe more easily in “USS Callister” that cyberspace functions as a site of escapism because it allows Robert to actualize a subject position that is much different from the one in the actual world. However, he allows his distress over the injustice he faces in reality to impact how he behaves in the game world. Rather than using cyberspace as a possibility to make him a better man, Robert exploits it in the form of

Captain Daly to terrorize those he recreates virtually just because he wants to and because he can. Therefore, his sadistic actions can never be justified no matter what. When cyberspace is influenced by phallocentric principles, the outcomes can look quite bleak and dire.

At the heart of “Striking Vipers” is a call to consider cyberspace as a sort of utopia that enables to protagonists to experience the non-experienceable. It is a truism that cyberspace offers the opportunity to detach one’s own self from the constraint of the material world such that one can acknowledge that one should never be held accountable 306

for one’s action and behavior. Cyberspace comes to exemplify this ontological- epistemological-ethical detachment Danny and Karl can potentially enact such that it provides grounds for rearticulating and renegotiating cultural, social, and sexual norms.

To that end, the narrative rhetorically encourages us to re-think the privileging of the physical world over the virtual world at the moment in which boundaries between them are transgressed.

In hindsight, underpinning the two variegated visions of cyberspace as represented in “USS Callister” and “Striking Vipers” is the articulation of posthuman subjects that come into existence thanks to the blurring of the actual and the virtual. Both narratives thus serve a purpose in contesting a common perception of cyberspace as an insignificant other space by articulating that it is no longer probable to uphold an intent to demarcate the actual and the virtual.

In sum, cyberspace represents possible potentials for deconstructing and destabilizing the unitary nature of the liberal humanist subject. Put it differently, what the two episodes share in common within the narrative is that the liberal humanist subject, which is perceived as fixed, stable, and unified, comes to be fractured at the exact moment that it participates in cyberspace.

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Chapter 8: Be(com)ing Immortal

We favor morphological freedom – the right to modify and enhance one’s body,

cognition, and emotions. This freedom includes the right to use or not to use

techniques and technologies to extend life, preserve the self through cryonics,

uploading, and other means, and to choose further modifications and

enhancements.

—Transhumanist Declaration (2012)

When Max More (2013), an ardent proponent of the transhumanist movement, pens “A Letter to Mother Nature,” he is earnest, albeit hubristic, in his writing, boldly vocalizing his discontent with humanity’s flawed physiological configuration and politely seeking permission to correct it. Together with other members of Humanity+, notably including Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom, he has helped draft the Transhumanist

Declaration that is suffused with statements explicitly detailing the mission transhumanism stands for and objectives it strives for (https://humanityplus.org/). This document comes to endorse the idea that cutting-edge technological innovations and advanced scientific development come to hold the key to open up possibilities for humans to reach the final stage of their evolution: to become posthuman. In framing science and technology as transformative forces of both emancipation and transcendence, transhumanists believe that humanity can be equipped with the power to fashion and mold its future existence.

More is at stake when, according to transhumanist adherents, humanity becomes complacent with its human nature because it is the dawning of the Singularity: “a point 308

where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules, a point that will loom vaster and vaster over human affairs until the notion becomes a commonplace” (Vinge,

2013, p. 366). The Singularity is unavoidable and once it draws near, it will drastically reshape and certainly transform the human condition to the point of no return (Vinge,

2013). Given the unavoidability of the Singularity, transhumanists make sure that humanity is made ready and can formulate plans to confront it head-on. And it may sound counterintuitive at first glance, but modern technology also comes to be what transhumanists envision to offer the solution that can steel humanity itself for this predicament and can secure its survival. In fact, they have strategically considered technological advancements as an adequate and powerful well of defense mechanisms and shielding strategies that can help prepare humanity for the imminent arrival of this threatening moment.

An emphasis on capitalizing on technology for serving humanity and securing its prosperity and well-being comes to be the line that demarcates transhumanism from posthumanism, each of which indicates as a distinctive philosophical approach to theorize and elucidate the meaning of human existence (Ferrando, 2013, 2018). Inasmuch as the rudimentary concern of both strands of thought centers on the future of humanity, transhumanism has at its core a firm conviction that rather than following the path toward transcendence sketched by an abstract celestial being, humanity had better take matter into its own hands and create its own destiny, by ways of applying medical knowledge, technological discoveries and scientific innovations to alter its biological makeup or, better yet, to eliminate the need for the body. 309

On the one hand, attempts to attribute the diminution in humanity’s capacity to reach its full potential to the human body are not new to transhumanists who allegedly identify it as an unwanted burden, one that holds humanity back by making it vulnerable to disease and aging and by exposing it to mortality. On the other hand, concerns over the constraints of human physicality certainly gain more precedence within the transhumanist movement and evidently strike a chord among its followers, thereby heightening an intent to advocate mind uploading, which technically suggests the abandonment of the bodily flesh and the transferal of the human mind to a computer system or any kind of nonbiological mediums with the capability to contain the uploaded consciousness

(Chalmers, 2014; Merkle, 2013; Walker, 2014). In doing so, transhumanists give credence to the potential of making humankind immortal and have subsequently worked to popularize it among the public. Laakasuo et al. (2018), for instance, discover that support for mind uploading is correlated to inauspicious attitudes toward human finitude and that those who are familiar with science fiction imaginings of this method are more likely to accept it. That discussions of mind uploading have penetrated public discourse and have captured the attention of those who endorse and those who abhor it underlines how, in their struggle of being mortals, humans have never stopped contemplating options and seeking for alternatives that may have invested within them the ability to conquer death.

In this chapter, I examine two Black Mirror episodes, “San Junipero” and “Black

Museum,” that introduce a not-so-distant future markedly defined by neurotechnological advances. Both have been crafted as speculative narratives that address the connection 310

between mind uploading and the question of immortality. In one sense, “San Junipero” and “Black Museum” would serve as an entry point to the contested idea of mind uploading as a legitimate method for transferring the mind to save the self from bodily deterioration. In another sense, both imagine the repercussions of becoming immortal but the distinction between how they articulate this idea could not be starker. “San Junipero” and “Black Museum” represent the two extreme dialectical ends of thinking through and with how mind uploading would inexorably reshape human nature. Whereas “San

Junipero” exemplifies a utopian dream that gives us hope, “Black Museum” epitomizes a dystopian nightmare that warns us against the abuse of technology. Taken together, both have moral undertones while providing visually compelling and narratively complex explorations of the relations between mind uploading and immortality from transhumanist lenses.

“San Junipero” (Season 3: Episode 4): The Articulation of a Utopian Dream

Transhumanists embrace a hopeful and optimistic vision of the future of human existence. In their minds, cutting-edge technology can usher humanity in a new era, one in which its destiny lies in its own hands (More, 2013; Vita-More, 2019). Rather than letting fate dictate the course of humanity and accepting a mortal life, transhumanists boldly and confidently suggest an alternative: to conquer death and human mortality via technology and science. Within the transhumanist movement, mind uploading is considered as one of the possible methods toward this objective. For transhumanists, in leaving the body behind, humanity comes to be immortal and its existence comes to be unfettered by the laws of nature. What does humanity then make of this newfound 311

freedom embedded in the prospect of immortality? “San Junipero” provides some rejoinder to this question.

Synopsis

San Junipero is a virtual platform to which consciousness of the deceased and the elderly can be uploaded. Constructed a simulated world, San Junipero enables the materialization of their disembodied consciousness in the form of their younger selves.

Whereas old people can pay weekly five-hour visits, those who are dead can reside there eternally.

The year is 1987 when the quiet and timid Yorkie (Mackenzie Davis) comes across the flirtatious and outgoing Kelly (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) at a nightclub, Tucker’s.

Once Kelly approaches Yorkie, in an attempt to rid Wes (Gavin Stenhouse), a man she has previously hooked up, the two women talk and dance together. As the night progresses, Yorkie, feeling nervous and uneasy, leaves the club. Following Yorkie outside, they have a conversation. Though sexual tension arises between the two women,

Yorkie rejects Kelly’s invitation to go home together.

A week passes and Yorkie finds herself back in the same club at San Junipero, only to discover Kelly flirting with another man. In the bathroom, when Yorkie sees

Kelly, they reconcile and leave the club together to go back to Kelly’s beach house. Later that night, while in bed, after sex, Yorkie confesses that she has never had sex before in her lifetime, to which Kelly responds that she was once married.

The following week, Yorkie goes looking for Kelly at a different nightclub,

Quagmire, but cannot find her; instead, she comes across Wes, who then suggests that 312

Kelly may be at another timeline. After several attempts, Yorkie eventually locates Kelly in 2002. Upon seeing her there, Yorkie excitedly approaches Kelly, but it appears that

Kelly ignores and avoids her. Frustrated, Yorkie leaves, and Kelly gets angry, punching the mirror but no traces of blood can be seen on her hand. Then Kelly runs after Yorkie, finds her sitting on a rooftop. They make up and end up having sex. Yorkie also reveals her situation in the physical world.

Exiting San Junipero, the real Kelly (Denise Burse), who is now old, visits the real Yorkie (Annabel Davis), who is currently being put on life support, at a hospital.

According to the male nurse (Raymond McAnally), following her parents’ negative and inauspicious reactions toward her coming out, she tragically crashed her car, leaving her paralyzed at the age of 21.

Yorkie’s desire to reside in San Junipero permanently cannot be fulfilled due to her family’s objection to the idea of her being euthanized. Upon her return to San

Junipero, Kelly suggests that they should get married in reality, to which Yorkie agrees.

Once Kelly authorizes her euthanasia, Yorkie becomes a permanent resident of San

Junipero.

During their next encounter inside San Junipero, Yorkie urges Kelly to consider staying at San Junipero, instead of paying frequent and weekly visits. But Kelly appears hesitant and skeptical and gets into an argument with Yorkie. However, after this fight, and much contemplation, Kelly makes her decision, accepting Yorkie’s suggestion and has her consciousness uploaded to the system. The episode concludes with Yorkie and

Kelly being happily married inside San Junipero. 313

Queer Paradise

“San Junipero” has at its premise a story of interracial queer love, one so extraordinarily unusual that it would be too difficult to be conceived in reality. The simulated world of San Junipero would serve as an entry into a futuristic alternative possibility, albeit grounded in the past and built on the present, which facilitates an imaginative retelling of a social order that is more inclusive and more accepting.

Therefore, the episode articulates a story of the redemption of queer love and of restorative justice for those who have historically been victims to a society founded upon subjective systems that embrace and propagate heteronormative ideologies.

Constructed as a virtual platform, San Junipero is the realization of an otherworldly place in which, thanks to mind uploading, the dying and the deceased can continue “living.” To think of San Junipero as resembling heaven on earth is not wrong.

But to confidently deem it as representing a utopia seems to be up for debate. For example, Drage (2018) characterizes San Junipero as “a heterotopic space” (p. 28). Given its situatedness at the intersection of reality and virtuality, San Junipero comes to imagine a social order that appropriates common understanding of race and gender in reality, builds upon them, and refines them to “actualize an improved reality” (Drage, 2018, p.

37). Constant (2018) concurs but also adds that “San Junipero is simultaneously too meaningless and meaningful to be universally utopian or dystopian” (p. 219).

According to Daraiseh and Booker (2019), the episode “contains both utopian and dystopian energies, placed in dialectical opposition” (p. 153) in that because capitalism seems to play a crucial role in the development of this virtual reality, its optimistic vision 314

of a posthuman future appears incomplete. Sure, we can define this digital world as a utopian space, a heterotopic one, or even a utopian/dystopian one. But what matters most is that San Junipero manages to give the afterlife, an abstract notion, possible architectural structures in material shapes, one that is based on the past but not a full and exact replication of the past. Further, inside San Junipero, visitors and residents can do whatever they fantasize and want without the fear of judgment: either dancing at

Tucker’s as normal persons or engaging in some forms of debauchery at Quagmire. As

Kelly excitedly proclaims to Yorkie when they meet for the first time, “San Junipero is a party town. All up for grabs.” For Kelly, those who partake in San Junipero can never fully know what this virtual place has to offer. Taken together, one thing remains crystal clear: San Junipero is a happy and jovial place.

But to assume that San Junipero is the closest that comes to represent heaven is obviously an understatement. For, in one sense, its mere existence challenges long-held assumptions of the human condition dictated and defined by an omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient celestial being. In another sense, more significantly, this simulated world is queer and thus comes to provide an opportunity to undo violences and challenge the injustice imposed on the gay community. That is, if reality seems to be hostile toward queer people, then virtuality comes to remedy just that. For instance, we come to know the situation of the real Yorkie later in the episode at the assisted-living home in real life during a conversation between Greg, her care aide, and the real Kelly. Thanks to the communication box, Greg comes to know why the real Yorkie ended up in a quadriplegic state. “One night, she’s 21, comes out to her folks,” he sympathetically says. “They’re a 315

little uptight about it, you might say. They told her they don’t want a gay daughter. It’s not natural and so forth. They fight. She gets in her car. Runs it off the road. Boom!” This instance articulates how Yorkie’s courageous act of telling the truth about her identity to her family reveals itself to be the beginning of her tragedy. The perception of gayness being biologically anomalous and religiously unacceptable would serve as legitimate grounds for the society to deem it as moral depravity, thereby solidifying the disapproval of gay existence and crystallizing antagonistic attitudes toward gay people. Rhetorically, this succinct yet informative account of the real Yorkie’s tragically upsetting circumstance articulates the discourse of the injustice faced by the gay community, whose members have historically been condemned, mistreated, and oppressed as a result of their deviant sexual desires.

In retrospect, no wonder that queer history is a history of policing gay people sexually and erasing them legally. Locating the historical moment of the emergence of sex as a scientific field, Michel Foucault (1990) introduces a new epistemology of human sexuality. Through surveying its changing conceptions, Foucault comes to view the discourse of sexuality as a technique of governance, enabling the state to develop certain sets of sexual norms and sexual practices with regulatory power that dictate and structure how the subjects are formed. Judith Butler (1999) demonstrates how gender is performative and, thereby, an illusion without any substance regardless of attempts by the state, society, or culture to propagate otherwise. In Bodies that Matter, Butler (1993) further foregrounds the effect of citationality in the process of materialization of the subjects. By calling attention to the way in which the discourse of sexuality manifests 316

itself in the system of laws that acknowledge heterosexuality and dismiss homosexuality, both Foucault and Butler make key contributions to explaining why gender-deviant people are subject to discipline and punishment as well as indicate how the condition of their existence is strictly delimited.

Not surprisingly, cultural and societal interpretations of the discourse of sexuality based in the binary gender/sex system prove incredibly crucial in the development of a heteronormative structure that indoctrinates the superior status of heterosexuality and simultaneously confirms the naturalness of sexual practices between men and women

(Chambers, 2009). That straight sex becomes the norm to be utilized to dictate what can be allowed and what can be forbidden regarding sexual behaviors only means one thing: that is, gay sex is unacceptable and abnormal—a prejudiced perception that seems to be useful enough to dehumanize gay people to the extent that they come to be what Martha

Nussbaum (2010) would call “objects of disgust” (p. 14). This prejudiced intent to associate gay individuals with disgust works perfectly because it allows a heteronormative society to position them as “reminders of human animality and mortality” (Nussbaum, 2010, p. 14). Nussbaum’s appropriation of the concept of disgust as an experimental entrance to conceptualizing how this inauspicious and negative emotion has been utilized to justify the oppression of gayness comes to closely linked to the concept of the abject that the psychoanalysis scholar Julia Kristeva (1980) deftly introduces in her Powers of Horror book. In her own words, Kristeva defines the abject as “something rejected from which one does not part, from which one does not protect oneself as from an object” (p. 4). In symbolically deeming gay individuals the abject, 317

then, to think that they evoke an aura of disgust becomes acceptable in the context of heteronormativity. That is, they are the abject object of disgust, one that a heteronormative society wants to disavow and dispose of but it cannot. This paradox manifests itself through common and hegemonic perceptions that relegate gay individuals to a peripheral and outside position and view them as undeserving of sympathy and alliance from the non-gay majority. In hindsight, when gay people are never rendered human enough, to deny them fundamental rights can be justified. To conclude, queer history then is a history of struggle and violence. A history infested with biasedness, discrimination, and repression.

The legacy of the impact of heteronormativity is remarkably perennial in that it successfully erects the threshold that makes it probable to perpetuate the idea that gay people are disgusting, revulsive and repellent, and thereby need to be contained. Indeed,

Sara Ahmed (2010) recognizes how a heteronormative society tends to predicate its definition of happiness on heterosexual love, thus positing that unhappiness awaits those who attempt or dare to deviate from this system. In her words, “Queer and feminist histories are the histories of those who are willing to risk the consequences of deviation”

(p. 91). To that end, the real Yorkie’s bedridden condition and prolonged unconscious state are a testament to this history. Further, Yorkie’s accident happened before she could embrace her sexuality. Nevertheless, the virtual space of San Junipero corrects just that.

For Yorkie can experience love because she finds in Kelly an emotional and physical connection that could have been impossible without San Junipero. And the same can also be said about Kelly who is bisexual but does not enact her sexuality even though she has 318

been interested in many women in reality. Therefore, San Junipero offers people a second chance at life. A second chance to live out their fantasy unbounded by conventions and traditions that police human behavior and restrict human actions. Fantasy turns into reality in the virtual space of San Junipero. Therefore, one thing is made clear in the episode: San Junipero comes to be the saving grace of both of the protagonists. For the romance between Yorkie and Kelly is not condemned but rather celebrated.

The Promise of Virtual Immortality

There is no denying that “San Junipero” weaves queer love and a message of hope, thereby ending its narrative on an optimistically positive note. Yet underneath this romance trope lies another timely theme that requires further attention: virtual immortality rendered possible by mind uploading, which operates on the idea that human consciousness can be transferred or uploaded to a computer system and, thereby, becomes a model linking recent developments in the fields of artificial intelligence and computing technology with humanity’s everlasting search of immortality (Chalmers,

2014; Merkle, 2013; Walker, 2014). I argue that transhumanists can find in this episode a hypothetical scenario that potentially illustrates how the possibility of virtual immortality inspires a different path to think about mortality.

It is a universally acknowledged truism that humanity has always wrestled with the idea of human finitude and has perceptually deemed it one of the most esoterically perplexing phenomena of human concerns. Literally no one can ever know what it means to be dead and no one can ever know how to escape it. Despite the perceived recognition of its inscrutable essence, humanity has come to see death as central and pertinent to the 319

understanding of the ontology of its being. To make sense of human mortality becomes both a challenge and a catalyst captivating many generations of philosophers, in particular those who belong to the existentialist tradition. Existentialism sows a seed of a philosophical thought that places a particular emphasis on a set of core themes, such as freedom, authenticity, value, truth, and so on, which seek to bring to the fore the idea that in order to contemplate human nature, the relationship between death and human existence needs to be addressed (Abbagnano, 2019). Some of the prominent existentialist philosophers include Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heidegger, Søren

Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and so forth (Guigon & Pereboom,

2001).

Consider Camus’s appropriation of the absurd as the image most suited and most appropriate to capture what it means to be human. Absurdity both rhetorically and metaphorically alludes to the human condition that is an effect of an interplay of humanity’s ongoing (re)negotiations between internal constrained autonomy and external systemic structures of preset values. The philosopher, therefore, problematizes a shortsighted intent to overestimate the role of rationality on the construction of human existence (Koenig, 1992). Heidegger, too, approaches the existentialist question, by philosophizing human existence through the idea of Being-in-the-world (or Dasein).

Being thrown into the world and being towards death then come to give rise to one’s awareness of not only time with its temporal constraints but one’s relations with others as well. This profound sense of being towards something allows one to give meaning to one’s existence (Koenig, 1992). In sum, existentialism takes as its central theme the 320

understanding of human existence as one that requires humanity to recognize internal struggles inherently embedded within the way that humanity must constantly examine and reexamine how it sees itself in relation to the world and other beings.

Existential themes have further been extended and have been subsequently incorporated into contemporary discussions about transhumanism. Mark Coekelbergh

(2013) writes that “being human involves disease, ageing, and mortality” (p. 22). That is, human existence has always been beset by a flurry of uncertainties, those that make them vulnerable because they can never project, predict, or determine what they can never be certain. As Coekelbergh (2013) further posits, “as humans, we are aware of our vulnerability” (p. 33) and that “part of human vulnerability is created by our particular mode of experiencing vulnerability” (p. 33). Being vulnerable comes to define human nature but vulnerability galvanizes humanity to create and innovate. It is in being vulnerable that humanity convinces itself that it must continue on with life and must survive no matter what. According to the philosopher Stephen Cave (2011), the will of immortality emerges out of humanity’s struggle to come to terms with the death and has acted as a transformative force of human civilization.

In fact, Cave calls particular attention to the ways in which humans develop immortality narratives to assist them to cope with the idea of death and to conceive of the meaning of life. He further considers the four categories associated with immortality narratives as follows: staying alive, resurrection, soul, and legacy. Valuable on their own, immortality narratives are part of human culture and what come to stimulate human imagination. With its promise of digital immortality, mind uploading illustrates 321

humanity’s yearning for conquering nature is a quintessential epitome of a narrative of resurrection (Cave, 2011). In the episode, Kelly is dying, and her body deteriorates as a result of a terminal cancer whereas Yorkie is quadriplegic, and her body is immobile.

Their lives are approaching the unavoidable: death. But thanks to mind uploading, they can be resurrected digitally, can survive in the forms of their younger selves, and can become invulnerable. Read from a transhumanist perspective, mind uploading, in propelling them out of bodily suffering and granting them virtual immortality, unequivocally makes them less human and perhaps more posthuman. For, once inside

San Junipero, they do not age, do not bleed, and do not feel pains, which truly indicates a transhumanist dream.

Yet, it is not enough that mind uploading allows for conquering human finitude.

To defeat death means a refusal to acknowledge it, to give it meaning, and to speak its name. And “San Junipero” does exactly this by adopting new words to discuss death.

Consider one more time the conversation between Greg and the real Kelly at the assisted- living home where the real Yorkie stays. When Greg tells the real Kelly that “[the real

Yorkie] is scheduled to pass,” she attempts a joke, stating that “Let’s just call it dying.”

But Greg replies that “If you can call it dying.” And she then says, “Uploaded to the cloud, sounds like heaven.” This conversation highlights how technology comes to transform and reshape the way ideas materialize and thoughts are thought. Terms and phrases like “scheduled to pass,” “pass over,” and “uploaded to the cloud” are intentional and have a rhetorical function. That is, they come to articulate the interconnectedness of humans and technology in that they shape each other to the extent that any attempt to 322

separate one from the other may pose challenges and problems to how to think evolutionarily and developmentally about humanity, human nature, and human existence.

In this case, the episode articulates how San Junipero facilitates distinctively novel ways to talk about death, to think about it and to metaphorize it.

Humanity has always depended on metaphor as a linguistic technique and a figure of speech to infuse and incorporate embodied experiences in the process of building and perceiving reality (Lackoff & Johnson, 1980). Metaphor matters. But the construction of metaphor traces its roots back to humanity’s “bodily relation to the world” (Lorrimar,

2019, p. 194), a condition required for metaphor to emerge. Lorrimar (2019) further writes, “Uploading minds to radically different bodies, or to disembodied existence, is therefore likely to impact our ability to comprehend narratives, and thus our capacity to make sense of our world more broadly” (p. 202). But “San Junipero” seems to override the need for embodiment in developing a reservoir of metaphor because Greg and the real

Kelly have cultivated an understanding of what “the cloud” means or what “pass over” means. Their consciousnesses are never disembodied inside San Junipero. Their consciousnesses take corporeal shapes that are as authentically real as they can be. To that end, the adoption of the above terms and phrases helps remove death out of the picture, which reinforces the idea that technological developments influence how language is spoken and in turn alter how metaphor is constructed. At the same time, why even consider mortality when San Junipero exists? Taken together, in redefining and rethinking the concept of death, this virtual milieu evidently comes to actualize novel ways of being and existing for these characters and comes to represent a posthuman 323

future in which death is never an actuality. For death is made forgotten and unspoken.

With mind uploading, eternity is a given and to even think of the notion of death would be unthinkable. Or with a promise of virtual immortality, human finitude and mortality come to be unimaginable and unspeakable.

The Implications of Virtual Immortality

Unsurprisingly then, “San Junipero” reckons a more pressing ethical: the motivation behind the decision to become virtually immortal. The narrative is less about whether mind uploading is conceptually practical and technically doable than it is about addressing the implications of virtual immortality, which is sprinkled throughout the episode. Take, for example, this one intimate moment after sex, inside San Junipero, when Kelly tells Yorkie while in bed, “My husband’s name was Richard. He died just two years ago. So, we had the opportunity to stay in San Junipero. Pass over. Didn’t take it. Didn’t want to take it.” To which Yorkie asks, and in disbelief, that “Why wouldn’t anyone take it?” And Kelly then responds, and with tenderness, that “He had his viewpoint. There were things he believed and things he didn’t believe in, and this place was one of them. Wouldn’t even visit. Take the trial run.” Yorkie’s confounded reaction to Richard’s choice can be sufficiently justified and can be reasonably understood because she has never experienced life past the age of twenty-one in reality. In other words, were Yorkie to receive this same offer, then, she would of course take it without hesitation. And certainly, she would be ecstatic to reside there permanently, as evidenced by how her virtual self comes to talk positively about it and how her actual self comes to seek Greg’s help to accomplish that. 324

San Junipero is where Yorkie wants to be, not because she has a desire to live eternally but rather because she sees in this virtual place a chance to start anew. By way of concluding their essay about ethical issues surrounding mind uploading, Swan and

Howard (2012) ask, “why this desire for digital immortality is so strong” (p. 255). But if we look closely at how Yorkie makes of San Junipero, we come to understand that it is never virtual immortality that appeals to her. What matters more to her is that San

Junipero can provide her with the aspect of liberation and the prospect of autonomy, both of which have been taken away from her so early in life, and both of which can then be restored to her so that she can freely enact her queer identity without fear of oppression or judgment from her family and the society. Seen in this light, the narrative of the episode suggests a tentative answer to the question posed by Swan and Howard: defenders of mind uploading may have found in mind uploading a strategy of hope to overcome subjective social structures that stigmatize and marginalize those of minority groups.

Possibly, there are more nuances to the idea of mind uploading than merely a promise of digital immortality. In fact, mind uploading provides an opportunity to imagine a utopia and virtual immortality seems to be a perk that may have come with it.

Moreover, implicit in the above exchange between Kelly and Yorkie inside San

Junipero is the articulation of the discursive tension between those who support and those who abominate the very idea of mind uploading. This instance invokes at least two oppositional approaches to perceive virtual immortality. That is, whereas Yorkie’s uninhibited acceptance of mind uploading has at its roots her optimistic belief that San

Junipero would allow her to be happy and to be herself, Richard’s outright rejection of it 325

may have stemmed from his unshakable embrace of human vulnerabilities and human mortality as the fact of life. To propound these contradictory views is to provoke a critical probe into the philosophical fissure between religion and transhumanism concerning this idea.

Scientific debates about the transhumanist aim for immortality via mind uploading have sparked controversies among religion and theology scholars. At the one end, many believe that transhumanism requires religious authorities to re-think and adapt to technological development and scientific understanding (Lilley, 2013; Lorrimar, 2019;

Mercer, 2015). At the other end, others have challenged this belief and have demonstrated how virtual immortality should be viewed as dangerous and perfidious. For example, according to Checketts (2017), criticisms of transhumanist conception of the mind as patternist have met with a crucial difficulty as a result of lack of uniformity in the conceptual, philosophical, and theoretical model to elucidate human nature. It is in this ineffectiveness to establish a common ground among opponents of transhumanism that renders difficult any effort to quell the popularization of the discourse of mind uploading and to thwart its penetration into public discussions. In calling particular attention to this problem, Checketts (2017) reasons that Science, Technology and Society

(STS) studies, particularly Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, can challenge supporters of mind uploading because this field, in illuminating the interconnectedness of technology and humanity, helps posit that patternist views are in and of themselves “a philosophy and not a science” (p. 6), that “modern theories are constantly in flux” (p. 6), and that it is of considerable importance to separate philosophical principles from those 326

of science. Given the perils of the transhumanist dream of mind uploading, Checketts endorses the need for theology to adapt to evolving conceptions of human nature in this contemporary time.

Moreover, humanity develops theodicy as a conceptual possibility that somehow potentially provides explanations for certain events, ideas, or things that obfuscate its existence (Sohn, 2019). Deemed the “technological vision of subjective immortality”

(Sohn, 2019, p. 2), Singularity theodicy lacks the conceptual and theoretical depth that can enable it to fulfill what it sets out to do: to offer humanity an eternity or an afterlife.

For “the Singularity theodicy starts as an anthropocentric promise of subjective immortality, but it ends up as a de-anthropocentric theodicy of objective immortality instead” (Sohn, 2019, p. 7). In addition, Buden (2019) turns to ancient Indian religious traditions in order to interrogate the rationale behind the popularity of mind uploading as a legitimate option in the transhumanist quest for virtual immortality. Predictably, he does uncover in them a set of core ideas that are incompatible with this transhumanist intent. Together, it remains to be seen whether religion and transhumanism can have their differences with regard to mind uploading and virtual immortality resolved. However, no viewers can miss that “San Junipero” champions the transhumanist vision of mind uploading and virtual immortality.

Addendum to the point earlier about how San Junipero promises a queer paradise:

Yorkie wants to wholly take advantage of it when she makes a bold move to suggest that

Kelly consider uploading to the cloud so that they can be together forever. Yorkie’s suggestion logically comes in that particular moment of her realization that she is given a 327

second chance at life by becoming a permanent resident of San Junipero. When Kelly seems to act hesitant about it, Yorkie pushes the issue further and subsequently infuriates her by accusing Richard of being the reason behind her reluctance to be uploaded. Kelly indignantly discloses that her husband would rather give up the opportunity to “to pass over, pass through, spend eternity in this fucking graveyard [Yorkie] is so in love with” than become virtually immortal without their daughter. “And so, he went. And I wish I could believe he’s with her now, that they’re together, but I don’t. I believe they’re nowhere. Just like you said. Gone.” Kelly then continues, “No, I pitied you, and that’s the truth. I pitied you.” In knowing the truth, Yorkie apologizes to Kelly who ends up walking away, but not without asserting, “You wanna spend forever somewhere nothing matters? End up like Wes? All those lost fucks at the Quagmire trying anything to feel something, go ahead. But I’m out. I’m gone.” What Kelly suggests seems to add another layer to the complexity of the meaning of immortality, which can be considered as an ethical dilemma that deserves consideration and extrapolation.

More rhetorically, Kelly’s uneasiness toward having her mind uploaded or transferred to the virtual realm of San Junipero and her emotional display of anger allude to another hotly debated issue: whether or not virtual immortality is actually real. We may agree with Kuhn’s (2016) claim that the complexity of the human brain and the laws of quantum physics are the roots of the challenge to make virtual immortality a reality.

And it is of course reasonable for him to remain skeptical and to posit that “unless humanlike inner awareness can be created in non-biological intelligences, uploading one’s neural patterns and pathways, however complete, could never preserve the original, 328

first-person mental self (the private ‘I’), and virtual immortality would be impossible” (p.

29). However, since “San Junipero” imagines virtual immortality obtainable and feasible, the question becomes whether the common conception of immortality can be used to explain theirs.

In the end, both Kelly and Yorkie abandon their human bodies and have their consciousnesses uploaded to compact discs that are inserted into a hardware system, thereby making them permanent residents of San Junipero. True, they now become virtually immortal, but this kind of immortality may never sit well with some scholars like Drozdek (2015) who believes that “[it] is accomplished by renouncing humanness”

(p. 11). In his discussion of medical practice and doctor-patient relationship, Waters

(2016) is of the opinion that mortality should be embraced in a sense that it has always invested within human life meanings and values and that it has taught humanity a lesson of the importance of time. In his words, “It is in their finitude that humans find their freedom, namely the freedom that comes in accepting rather than warring against one’s status as a creature” (p. 446). He thus concludes, “the transhumanist quest for immortality is not only antihuman, but also antilife in any meaningful sense for creatures that are inherently finite and mortal” (p. 446). However, in considering the virtual Kelly and the virtual Yorkie as posthuman, then how can the concept of immortality posited by Waters be applied to make sense of their existence in the virtual space of San Junipero? In short, such a question presents a dilemma, a conundrum even, that both those who favor and those who disfavor the transhumanist vision of virtual immortality need to address and to pay particular attention to. 329

“Black Museum” (Season 4: Episode 6): The Articulation of a Dystopian Nightmare

Transhumanists are firm believers and they firmly believe in human ability for human rationality and human intelligence for creativity as the foundation for seeking out options to challenge and negate the impact of biology and nature on human existence and strongly consider applied technology as a legitimate solution to perfect humanity’s imperfections (Manzocco, 2019; More, 2013; Paura, 2016). But the assumption that technology comes to be the saving grace of humanity may give way to a kind of blind faith that inspires transhumanists to cultivate an unwavering drive toward the pursuit of human enhancements at all cost, which may, in turn, lead to its abuse and may subsequently have damaging and irreparable repercussions that they may never foresee.

In its depiction of what mind uploading can potentially do to achieve this transhumanist goal, “Black Museum” speculates the dangers of its misuse and raises ethical issues concerning this method.

Synopsis

Rolo Haynes (Douglas Hodge) is the sole proprietor of Black Museum that is the home to a variety of rare technological objects associated with actual criminal incidents.

Despite its unconventional collection of unorthodox artifacts, Haynes’s museum looks empty, secluded and vacant. Therefore, when Nish (Letitia Wright), hoping to kill some time while waiting for her electric car to get charged nearby, approaches the museum,

Haynes, upon seeing her in front of the door, greets her and invites her inside.

As part of a private tour he offers Nish, Haynes sarcastically provides accounts of three stories, presented in the form of flashbacks in the episode, which are linked to the 330

three collected items he got involved personally during his tenure as a recruiter for a neurological research company. Black Museum thus serves as a background, weaving the three micronarratives into a coherent thread that illuminates how Haynes’s current circumstance is the result of his immense fascination with technology combined with its misuse.

The first artifact is a helmet headpiece which invests within the user the capacity to experience other people’s sensations. A neural implant is also required to make it work. According to Haynes, Dr. Peter Dawson (Daniel Lapaine) was recruited to be part of the experiment. Thanks to this piece of technology, Dr. Dawson could give accurate diagnoses and became the go-to doctor. But an incident at which he experienced death vicariously through a patient changed him: Dr. Dawson became a full-blown addict to a combination between pain and fear, began exploiting the suffering of his patients and subsequently got fired for his behaviors. He then resorted to self-mutilation but found the self-inflicted pain insufficient to feed his addiction. According to Haynes, Dr. Dawson got caught while drilling a homeless man to experience sensations from the torture via the helmet. Following his arrest, the doctor ended up in a coma.

The second artifact is a stuffed monkey tied to a young married couple, Jack

(Aldis Hodge) and Carrie (Alexandra Roach). When a car accident left Carrie in a comatose, Haynes accosted Jack and persuaded him to transfer her consciousness into his own brain. This experimental process could allow Carrie to experience whatever bodily sensations he experienced. As time went on, problems emerged between them. Whereas

Jack’s privacy was compromised, Carrie’s non-corporal state frustrated her. Therefore, 331

Haynes provided Jack with the option to put her consciousness on pause, during which

Carrie would disappear from his brain. When Jack started dating Emily (Yasha Jackson),

Carrie became a nuisance. To which Haynes proposed another solution: to transfer

Carrie’s consciousness to a stuffed monkey, which could utter either “Monkey loves you” or “Monkey needs a hug,” and which would be given to their son, Parker, so that she would be close to him and when he held it, she could experience his physical contact. At first, Parker got excited about his new toy but he later lost interest and abandoned it.

Haynes claims that this incident cost him his job because to transfer human consciousness was considered illicit. Because Haynes is not authorized by the laws to delete one’s consciousness, Carrie is eternally trapped inside the stuffed monkey.

The last artifact is the museum’s main attraction. Inside a room lies a prison cell that projects the hologram of Clayton Leigh (Babs Olusanmokun), a convicted murderer.

In an attempt to hoodwink Leigh into having his consciousness downloaded during his electrocution, Haynes promised to support his family financially. Nevertheless, once

Haynes was legally granted ownership of Leigh consciousness, he disclosed his hidden motive: to make Leigh’s execution available for public viewing and monetize it.

Museum visitors would replicate the moment Leigh would sit on the electric chair holographically, would technically re-electrocute him, and would literally witness his agony, which would be precisely captured and placed inside in a keychain given to them as a souvenir.

Back to the present, Haynes suffocates and has difficulties breathing. As it turns out, Clayton Leigh is Nish’s father and that he was wrongly accused of the murder that he 332

never committed. Once her mother found out about the exhibit and checked it out, she was traumatized and later committed suicide. In seeking revenge, Nish concocted a plan: she secretly tampered with the air conditioning system so that the building’s temperature would reach to the point that it would be hot enough that Haynes would surely accept the poisoned water bottle she would offer him. And her plan works.

Once Haynes collapses and faints, Nish uploads his consciousness into the head of Leigh’s holographical projection and electrocutes both of them at full throttle, what she would call “The first double-decker mercy killing.” In doing so, Nish has her father’s consciousness deleted, thereby freeing herself from his abuse and torture. At the same time, Haynes’s consciousness in extreme pain is captured in the keychain souvenir which she retrieves, together with the stuffed monkey. The episode concludes with Black

Museum on fire, and Nish drives away while conversing with her mother. Which means that Nish has the consciousness of her mother transferred to her head.

The Mechanism of Resurrection

The premise of the last two micronarratives concerning objects on display in

Black Museum narrated by Haynes is evidently the same: an articulation of basic insights into mind uploading—a contested territory that is rife with futuristic speculations of technological development and scientific understanding of the mind that have been generated at an unprecedentedly accelerating pace ever since the later decades of the twentieth century. Within the transhumanist movement, people with an interest in the prospect of resurrection turn to mind uploading (Cave, 2011; Manzocco, 2019; Oliveira,

2017). 333

Transhumanists have certainly been fascinated with mind uploading. But debates over the technical feasibility of transferring human consciousness to a computer system or other nonbiological platforms to obtain this goal abound. In the academic setting, proponents recognize this problem and thus devote their scholarship to convincing and, even better yet, converting skeptics to accept that this method would work, perhaps in part because they base their rationale on the assumption that the human brain and the computer operate in the same way (Merkle, 2013). Predicating an understanding of personal identity on the psychological viewpoint, Walker (2014) eagerly supports mind uploading because not only can identity be fully preserved but immortality and enhancement can be achieved as well.

A mechanism that renders possible the demarcation of the mind and the body functions as a theoretical foundation that proponents of the transhumanist movement refer to in order to solicit public support for mind uploading as a novel technique that would grant humanity the opportunity to become immortal. Chalmers (2014) identifies two common approaches to theorize consciousness: biological and functionalist. Whereas the former contemplates the centrality of the brain in the creation of consciousness, the latter deems consciousness to be influenced by “causal structure and causal role” (p.

104). A supporter of the functionalist camp, Chalmers views consciousness as “an organizational invariant” (107), thereby underscoring that organizational structure rather than the kind of materials facilitates its emergence. He details two possibilities of performing mind uploading: destructive and nondestructive. He thus writes with certainty that “gradual uploading [which is nondestructive] is certainly the safest method of 334

uploading” (p. 116). Nevertheless, Chalmers’s conclusion attracts a deluge of criticisms that question the validity of the idea that mind uploading can evidently guarantee the survival of the original person and identity (Cheshire, 2015; Swan & Howard, 2012).

Pigliucci (2014), for example, suggests that “mind uploading would be at best a form of mental cloning, most certainly not a way to preserve one’s own consciousness” (p. 120).

Corabi and Schneider (2014) share the same concern. However, they add, “there was more room for optimism about whether uploading of all the various sorts preserves psychological aspects of persons that we deem worth caring about” (p. 144). Despite admitting that “A self and a world artificially created by humans might promise a heaven of unbounded joy and infinite exploration” (p. 197-198), Goonan (2014) remains unconvinced about the benefit of mind uploading. To her way of thinking, “it also seems coincident with the definition of an infantile state and a recipe for dictatorship, mass failures on a huge scale, and thus death, in a different guise” (p. 198). Therefore, she considers cyborization as the more suited method to improve and transform the human condition. In short, debates over mind uploading is profoundly shaped by its technicality as well as the particular approach that scholars and experts adopt.

Against this background, it is certain that Haynes’s plans to resurrect Carrie and

Leigh in the second micronarrative in “Black Museum” are obviously based on functionalism. By “digitally extracting a consciousness out of one brain and kind of rehousing it in a host brain,” Haynes carefully explained to Jack that the experiment of mind uploading “could give the likes of Carrie a whole new lease of life.” He excitedly elaborated, “even on a good day, we only use 40% of our brain capacity. There is this 335

whole other 60% of our noggin hanging around like an empty Airbnb.” Thanks to “new compression technique,” Haynes revealed that TCKR scientists (also the company that develops San Junipero) could transfer Carrie’s consciousness to “that unused space” of

Jack’s brain. Thus, “Like the whole of her inside your head. Like a hitchhiker. Like a passenger. Vicarious sensations. She sees what you see. She feels what you feel. She can live again.” Haynes’s elaboration of the mechanism that renders possible the transferal of

Carrie’s consciousness resounds with scientific consideration and theorization propagated among transhumanist proponents that consciousness is the most important component to resurrect a person. In describing how the body can be replaced, Haynes’s proposal to save

Carrie’s life ostensibly reconfirms that the human subject is determined by the disembodied conscious mind and rationality.

Immediately after discussing the feasibility of the project, Haynes told Jack that

“We will have to euthanize her physical body during the transfer process.” Haynes’s emphasis on the need to “euthanize” Carrie corroborates the conclusion made by Cerullo

(2015) that destructive uploading is the approach to digitally resurrect a person with the same personal identity which, according to branching theory, “can branch into multiple copies, each maintaining a continuity of consciousness with the original” (p. 19). Bauer

(2017) deems Cerullo’s push for the adoption of branching theory as problematic and maintains that there is no need for it since established conceptions of identity (qualitative and numerical) are sufficient to explain whether mind uploading preserves identity.

Cerullo and Bauer may have disagreed. But these two conceptual and theoretical approaches come to yield the same result: the corporeality of bodies restricts the 336

potentialities of minds to overcome human vulnerabilities to reach higher levels of existing. In short, that the destruction of Carrie’s brain is required in the process of uploading highlights this one key idea.

“Black Museum” further articulates this idea in its last micronarrative. Rolo

Haynes is notedly obsessed with the centrality of consciousness in the construction of personhood and human nature. This obsession characterizes his fascination with mind uploading, perhaps in part because the method is what makes resurrection work and provides occasions to combine seamlessly his interest in technology and his conviction that humanity can be saved by the hands of humans, pretty well exemplifying a transhumanist hope.

In seeing the hologram of Leigh, Nish immediately acknowledges how real it looks. To which Haynes responds that “Well, it is him, or a fully conscious upload of him.” Once his consciousness is transferred, the reconstruction of Leigh comes to be possible. But only destructive mind uploading can make his resurrection possible.

According to Haynes, Leigh’s holographical projection should never be viewed as a duplicate but instead a continuation of his consciousness and thus should certainly be him. To that end, the destruction of bodies is a requirement in the process of resurrection.

More interestingly, the episode sets the stage for making explicit the process of mind uploading and later pushes it one step further when Nish tells the consciousness of

Haynes, which is now housed inside the brain of Leigh’s hologram that to “transfer a fresh consciousness inside a virtual one” is doable and that her “daddy’s giving you a ride.” These incidents imply that proper properties of nonbiological structures allow the 337

anchoring of the consciousness and guarantee rebirth. In the context of mind uploading as articulated in “Black Museum,” human bodies never matter in terms of human subjectivity. Rhetorically, the two last micronarratives illuminate paradoxical articulations of mind uploading and link them to discursive forces that constitute how resurrection can be achieved.

The Consequences of Resurrection

Given the technical issue of mind uploading is resolved in the last two micronarratives, Haynes’s experiments with Carrie and Leigh function as a springboard for further discussion of the relation between consciousness and the body/mind divide.

By embracing this Cartesian dualism, transhumanists dismiss the presence of the body that has been so integral to the subject formation process. Rather than framing them as two co-constitutive components that come to facilitate the emergence of the human subject, consider some transhumanists’ broad interest in the concept of mind uploading toward resurrection. This method makes clear that they never value the mind and the body equally. Transhumanist concerns over the imperfect nature of the human body, which can be viewed as a weakness or an obstacle that needs to be overcome if the human subject seeks liberation and transcendence, find in mind uploading a possibility to rectify just that.

The theoretical concept of mind uploading appears usefully tempting and enables transhumanist scientists to push boundaries to innovatively contemplate an alternative shell or vessel that can house the mind such that it can plausibly be given more occasions to thrive and prosper on its own rather than being restricted by biology and physiology of 338

the body. “Leave the body behind,” transhumanists would say. “Upload the mind,” they would say. “Then resurrection and immortality become possible,” they would say. And nowhere is the presentation of such contempt for the human body more pronounced and more evident than the transferal of Carrie’s consciousness to a toy monkey. When the presence of Carrie’s consciousness inside his brain impacted his new relationship, Jack and Emily came to Haynes for advice. Haynes said, “[The monkey] has a consciousness receptor, kind of like the one we put in your head, but a prototype. And there’s a camera here so she can see Parker.” The “haptic feedback” could enable Carrie to technically feel her son’s physical contact. But at issue here is not merely if preserving human consciousness and transferring it to another medium, such as a toy monkey, mean a guarantee of a person’s rebirth, but whether the human body can be replaced or can be substituted by nonbiological alternative means at all.

One particular question has plagued contemporary discussions of consciousness: does the body come to play a crucial role in its formation? Swan and Howard (2012) suggest that it does. Waters (2016) agrees, “Embodiment is a given of the human condition; no one, to date has existed as a disembodied person” (p. 445). Contemplating whether embodied mind theory can help compatibly justify mind uploading, Cappuccio

(2017) asserts that it does not. He concludes, “no version of [embodied mind theory] is compatible with any version of [mind uploading]. The core assumptions of [mind uploading] and [embodied mind theory] actually are antithetical at root” (p. 427). And his conclusion hardly comes as a surprise since embodied mind theory acknowledges the centrality of the body in the theoretical conceptualization of consciousness. In particular, 339

Cappuccio eloquently states, “The identity of the minimal self is the orientation of a subjective perspective towards its concretely situated experience, which is shaped by the body and its intrinsic passivity, i.e. the uncontrollable resistance offered by the material contingencies to our intentional acts” (p. 445). To which he quickly adds, “[bodies and minds] are so inherently entangled with one another that they have an individual personal identity only when they are together” (p. 446). This view adds a dimension to a claim made by Hauskeller (2012) that “The only selves we have ever encountered are situated, embodied selves, agents that interact with the world and each other through and in their bodies and minds” (p. 198). What they argue is that the human subject constructs its subjectivity through its embodied relations with being materially located in the world.

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1977) warns against a commonly naïve approach that considers language as merely a tool developed by humanity that allows for expressing and communicating its perceptions of the world. Rather, language is much more than that. Language shapes and transforms how humanity makes sense of its existence. In doing so, Heidegger dissects how the concept of building has evolved, therefore contending that “To be a human being is to be on earth as a mortal” (p. 325), which in turn comes to mean that “human being consists in dwelling” (p. 327). Inasmuch so the essence of human existence is dwelling, then, the materiality of the body is a requirement, one that a subject relies on in order to dwell. Without the body, dwelling comes to be impossible, and the subject never comes into being. The villain Rolo Haynes himself understands the importance of the body, when he explains to Nish that, with

Carrie’s consciousness being placed inside her husband’s brain, “No agency for her.” 340

Consciousness is subjective in that it emerges out of one’s first-person experience.

Without a body, the construction of this “I” subject is fruitless. In this case, Carrie’s body comes to invest within her a capacity for dwelling. That is, a lack of her body means that she can never dwell, which poses a problem to her humanhood, even though her consciousness is transferred. She needs a body of her own to enact her agency and to form her subjectivity. In other words, to have no body means to have no agency, which is to indicate the fundamental problem linked to transhumanists who notoriously express a major contempt for humanity’s physicality and its carnal existence (Bostrom, 2014;

More, 2013).

Without the mind, the body turns into a zombielike entity but, at the same time, without the body, the mind has no agency. It then can be made explicitly clear that consciousness of a subject requires a body to enact its agency, to form its first-person awareness or its “I”-ness, and to develop its subjectivity. To that end, even when her consciousness is entirely saved and uploaded, Carrie comes to have no sense of self and no subjectivity. She may have been resurrected and may subsequently become immortal, but this immortality would turn her into an abstract being rather than an embodied one with a capacity for dwelling in the world, a unique human trait that can allow her to exist and to be. And even the toy monkey fails to give Carrie this capacity because it completely lacks sufficient sensory ranges to enable her consciousness to make sense of her surroundings and to ground her bodily experiences to the extent that she can be squarely positioned within the corporal milieu of space and time so that she give legitimacy to her existence. 341

To push the limits of what can be possible and what can be impossible requires innovative scientific approaches that can move beyond conventional ways of looking at human nature and can facilitate thinking more creatively about it. And this is exactly what Haynes does when he prides himself on his creative exploitation of technological development that allows him the ability to play God. Take, for instance, the instance when, gushing with enthusiasm and excitement, Haynes explains step by step inner workings of Clayton’s torture. First, Haynes tells Nish that “Dawson’s pain tech has paved the way for it. A perfect re-creation of exactly how the agony of electrocution feels.” Then he continues, “Every volt simulated for real, never let him exceed 15 seconds at max voltage. That would wipe his digital synapses out for good, kill him.” He maliciously discloses, “Ten seconds seemed to be the optimum shock length, so that became the intractable limit.” As if this torturous and barbaric act is not enough, Haynes sardonically asserts, “But, of course, it was really the souvenirs that were driving trade. It was beautiful.” Haynes ends his account as follows: “Every time you finished juicing him, out pops a conscious sentient snapshot of Clayton, not recording, a true copy of his mind perpetually experiencing that beautiful pain. Stuck forever in that one moment of agony. Always on. Always suffering.” Many transhumanist imaginations and propositions take as their central theme the capacity of technology to enhance and improve the body to prolong life and to strengthen its physicality (Bostrom, 2014; Lilley,

2013). Why should humanity be attached to its moribund body and be accepting of its carnal existence? But Haynes’s description of the barbarous and wicked act of torturing

Leigh articulates the possible perils of this assumption. Here is a challenge to the idea 342

that a lack of body or the incorporeal state can protect humanity from being vulnerable and susceptible to pain. According to Nish’s disclosure to Haynes at the moment he experiences the effect of the poison, the museum had been often frequented by “Loners.

Sadists. The supremacist sicko demographic.” By allowing “some classic race-hate rich guy with a hard-on for power [to have] a longer time at the crank,” Haynes manages to perform the devil’s work: resurrecting Haynes only to deprecate and torment him whose holographical projection shows the marks of this wicked undertaking. That repeated electrocution causes Leigh to look emotionally depressed and that Leigh’s consciousness can be enslaved contradict the common belief that once liberated from the body, consciousness will never undergo or endure the agony. To that end, Haynes’s sadistic and satanic workings sadly ravage Leigh’s consciousness to the point that it would be more morally acceptable to “delete” it, thereby putting an end to his existence. Therefore, transhumanists should reconsider the opinion that uploading minds to other nonbiological mediums can liberate humanity from misery and suffering.

It would be important to remind ourselves that while artificial intelligence and digital and computing technology enable scientists to presume that mind uploading is possible, the concept is founded on transhumanist principles that maintain and perpetuate the mind/body divide. And I recognize in the transhumanist emphasis on the mind as the more significant constituent that enables the liberal humanist subject to come into being both wanting and puzzling. To assume that the body is deemed as a hurdle to overcome and as something that stands in the way of humanity’s quest for reaching its full potentials is to reconfirm the mind/body dualism that is the bedrock of the theoretical 343

development of humanism within the Western tradition. Thus, we should never embrace the belief that subjectivity can be understood without corporeality, nor can we afford overvaluing the mind and perceiving it as the sole condition to give rise to the human subject.

The Concept of the Human (Re)Visited

With the feasibility of mind uploading comes the ontological reconsideration of the meaning of the human. The question of whether this method prompts divergent approaches to conceptualize human existence and human nature is anything but insignificant because it is clearly suffused with moral valence and ineluctably calls into question common and standard ways of doing ethics.

Recall the instance when Jack and Emily visited Haynes’s office for consultation concerning Carrie’s consciousness housed inside his brain, which came to be, according to the couple, a nuisance and an inconvenience. When Haynes suggested deleting Carrie,

Jack responded, “That’d be killing her” and raised an ethical question. However, Emily added that “Please. She is just some leftover code in your head. It’ll be like… like deleting an email.” Whereas Jack perceives Carrie’s identity and self to be situated within her consciousness, thus making it too unsettling for him to endorse deletion, Emily and

Haynes appear to not share the same concern. In showing that Jack’s girlfriend considers

Carrie’s consciousness in this particular way, thereby demonstrating how transferal or uploading has transformed the essence of her existence, this instance deconstructs the notion of the human as a category by articulating how this method renders possible the adoption of the kind of computational vernacular to depict human consciousness as being 344

constituted by data, digits, and information, thus communicating a message that it is not morally wrong and ethically unacceptable for Emily to justify and even legitimatize

Haynes’s recommendation of deletion, which then comes to suggest that doing so should not be viewed as “killing” her in a technical sense and at the same time downplays the significant nature of her being due to her incorporeal state. Given Carrie has never been a human but rather she is viewed as an abstract and disembodied being without shape or form in the eyes of Emily and Haynes, linking deletion to the factual idea of killing seems to be somehow inappropriate in that they can never inflict physical pain to end her existence.

Later, in blaming the monkey for his termination, Haynes acerbically claims that

“See, a couple of years back, the UN made it illegal to transfer human consciousnesses into limited formats like this.” However, it is “humane” only if a hosting medium allows uploaded human consciousness “to be able to express at least five emotions.” “It’d be illegal to delete her too,” he concludes. Haynes’s account serves to articulate the tension embedded in the dualistic body/mind discourse. On one level, the disembodied nature of uploaded consciousness needs to be situated inside an appropriate and compatible channel to convey its feelings and to project its thoughts, thus a demand suggested by the

UN.

On a deeper level, the perception that consciousness is identified as the seat of the human subject’s identity comes to be reasserted. Therefore, the UN laws concerning mind uploading may have promoted more humane practices but it maintains the Cartesian tradition and perpetuates strands of beliefs that continue to deem the superior constitutive 345

role of human consciousness in the formation of subject, self, and subjectivity.

Nevertheless, being materially grounded is the mandatory condition for the realization of the self. Huaskeller (2012) shows us that “the mind needs a self” but “the self is not the mind. Rather it is a particular appropriation of the mind” (p. 193). To appropriate the mind requires a body because the subject needs to be corporeally situated in order to develop embodied relations and materially interact with other entities so that subjectivity can come into being and can generate a sense of innerness and interiority that can facilitate the development of an awareness of its existence in the world. That is, “For what we think of as ourselves is very much tied to our bodily experience and as such far more comprehensive and richer than a mere mind can ever be” (Huaskeller, 2012, p.

199). Transhumanists may assume that uploading minds and transferring consciousness to more enhanced formats promise resurrection and immortality. But they may never anticipate that the self of a subject can never be fully realized merely through disembodied consciousness because it lacks the body to connect and relate to its surroundings.

Moreover, a closer look at how differently consciousnesses of Carrie and Leigh are treated reveals a key ethical conundrum: who could and who could not have their minds uploaded. Swan and Howard (2012) recognize this dilemma when they ask whether a criminal could upload. “Black Museum” makes an attempt to address it and problematize it even further. Sure, uploading the mind of a criminal is possible under the condition that his consciousness would be enslaved so that it could be abused, brutalized, and tortured, as articulated in the segment of Leigh. To make him “mopey” and miserable 346

is acceptable because he was accused, albeit wrongly, of murder—a heinous crime that disenfranchised him and deprived him of his human rights. Whereas deleting Carrie’s consciousness would be considered illegal and immoral, agonizing Leigh’s imprisoned consciousness would be deemed acceptable and tolerable. Here is an ethical paradox.

Perhaps a double standard even. Put Leigh’s consciousness on display. Allow others to recreate his punishment for entertainment. Turn him into a being that comes to be unrecognizable. But deleting Carrie’s consciousness and the idea of killing is provoked.

Given the difficulty connected to these two cases, to upload or not to upload is, has been, and will be an issue for both humanists and transhumanists because whether mind uploading is moral or immoral depends on whether a human subject is regarded more or less human from the beginning in reality.

It would be a mistake to assume that science comes to replace religion as the principle paradigm that enables humanity to explore the meaning of its existence or that science and religion should be placed in a dialectical opposition. The historian David F.

Noble (1996) contends that scientists have always found in mythology of the Western religious tradition a reservoir of inspirations, thereby emphasizing how technology and science come to mutually influence one another. Technological innovations are invigorated by questions that lie at the heart of religious explanations for human existence. In recognizing their co-evolutionary and entwined nature, Noble traces the desire for escaping from the bondage of the human body back to a belief in the immortal mind waiting to be “reunited at last with its origin, the mind of God” (p. 149). For transhumanists, such an aspiration is fair and admirable. But for someone like Haynes, 347

this aspiration galvanizes him to do something more sinister. In wanting to become God,

Haynes comes to be the devil.

Both meddling and experimenting with the human mind give Haynes an impetus for envisioning the extent to which he can define what it means to be human. Given his beliefs in technology and science, Haynes is on a mission: to confront these unwanted risks at all costs and to perform God’s work. Haynes commits himself to exploiting human vulnerabilities, tapping into their emotional weaknesses to carry out his evil plans.

Haynes knows that the aspect of uploading or transferring the mind would arouse skepticism among his recruiters. But that does not stop him, and he is undeterred.

Haynes’s success in recruiting individuals to willingly participate in these experiments seems to correspond to a transhumanist promise of easing human emotional pains and transcending the limitation of human physical bodies via technology and science. Haynes is not a scientist by training but he sure is a believer. A firm believer, to say the least, in science and technology because he sees in them potentialities to shield humanity from the uncertainties of life, to liberate it from the inevitability of death, and to give others the hope of resurrection. For that, Rolo Haynes comes to embody many transhumanist principles and comes to represent a new generation of technophiles who call themselves transhumanists.

Nevertheless, throughout the episode, Haynes displays no sympathy and exhibits no remorse toward his actions. Even though his unethical approach to neurotechnology cost him his job, Haynes later finds comfort in his Black Museum, his own place to preserve technological artifacts he thinks that have revolutionized human nature. In his 348

analysis of the episode, Canavan (2019) notes that “Black Museum” is strategically created in that it enables the writers of Black Mirror to demonstrate that all the episodes happen in “a shared universe” (p. 259). Which means that they are more related to one another than viewers may initially have assumed and that many artifacts connected to other previous episodes can be easily spotted in the museum. Due to this observation,

Canavan claims that “[Haynes] is the diabolical architect of a good proportion and perhaps literally all of them” (p. 261). And because he is the devil in disguise, Haynes should never be viewed as a human in that sense.

Summary

Juxtaposed, “San Junipero” and “Black Museum” narrate two versions of speculating what mind uploading can offer humanity and providing viewers with enough science fiction-esque materials to reflect on the promise of immortality and consequences that come with being immortal. Positioning these themes within the transhumanist model foregrounds the need to take the precaution of utilizing modern technology and science to defy the laws of nature and to create alternative possibilities to question the authority of religion, both of which have an enormous impact on how humanity understands itself and how humanity allows itself to be at the forefront in projecting its own fate and actualizing its future. Both raise concerns about the struggle to come to terms with what may come once digital technology imbues human with the capacity to do the unimaginable and the unthinkable, thereby spotlighting ethical difficulties besetting the transhumanist vision.

On the one hand, “San Junipero” optimistically describes how virtual immortality provides humanity with a model to address and undo violences imposed by a 349

heteronormative society on queer people who have been subject to religious condemnation and who have always been sexually disciplined, both of two reasons that come to prescribe their doom to a life of unhappiness with a sad ending. Inside San

Junipero, Yorkie and Kelly can dare greatly so that they can love fully. This virtual milieu is what makes all of these things possible because it is not controlled by social and cultural norms that endorse heterosexuality and castigate homosexuality. Moreover, “San

Junipero” acts as a catalyst for debate about the complexity of virtual immortality and for an investigation into the tension between transhumanist proponents and scholars of theology and religion. In short, its narrative delineates the intellectual and conceptual chasm between these two camps in understanding and making sense of human nature and human existence.

On the other hand, “Black Museum” is a dystopian manifestation of what would go wrong the moment mind uploading is abused and is utilized for personal gains when it addresses the mechanism of mind uploading, inarguably grounded in the Cartesian body/mind dualism, to perform resurrection and to proffer immortality. The quest for them has at its core a tendency to overvalue the mind and undervalue the body, which then comes to lay foundations for the theoretical prototype that transhumanists come to depend on to make the case that only consciousness matters when thinking about what it means to be human and how humanity can transcend its mortality and can manipulate its body to come out victorious in the end. But there are unanticipated repercussions and unintended outcomes in accepting this idea at face value and without critical consideration: consciousness needs to be materially situated with, and corporally 350

connected to, the world to form self, subject, and subjectivity. Finally, the human as a concept reveals itself to be insufficient to at least capture the complexity of humanity, human being, human nature, and human existence. In attempting to define humans, this category unfortunately harbors systematic structures of biasedness and prejudices that maintain discrimination, oppression, and subjugation.

Placing “San Junipero” and “Black Museum” together in this chapter is intentional in that each narrative can rhetorically facilitate nuanced explications and refined extrapolations about the articulation of what a transhumanist desire can do to the question of human nature in this technologically enhanced epoch. This desire comes to be the engine propelling humanity to a future in which humans rely far more on their own and far less on chance or God, those of which transhumanists view as liabilities to human existence. But a temptation to be virtually immortal or to be digitally reincarnated may cause transhumanists to overlook humanity’s embodied relations with its surroundings.

And in this pursuit of such a pipedream, humanity may downplay responsibilities it has toward other beings with whom and which it shares the universe.

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Chapter 9: Be(com)ing Human

We are striving to engineer the Internet-of-All-Things in the hope that it will

make us healthy, happy and powerful. Yet once the Internet-of-All-Things is up

and running, humans might be reduced from engineers, to chips, then to data, and

eventually we might dissolve within the torrent of data like a clump of earth

within a gushing river.

—Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

It seems that the process of datafication of the self in myriad aspects of everyday life has captured public interest at such an astounding magnitude in contemporary time.

Technically speaking, humans are digitally sliced into smaller numerical units, which in turn are transformed into data that can be re-constituted and re-assembled thanks to the ingenious workings of algorithms—autonomous computing techniques that have the capacity for sifting through a vast reservoir of raw data and subsequently ordering, organizing and structuring them in meaningful ways that eventually become useful for those who have access to them (Davenport, 2014). Big Data then comes to be the buzzed term addressing both the ability of digital technology to amass a vast amount of information mostly generated by humans and its capacity for making sense of this harvested human data to both determine the patterns of their behavior and to track their well-being (Enriquez, 2012; Gardner, 2012; Greene & Jacobs, 2012).

In their introduction to the 2019 edited book titled Digital Objects, Digital

Subjects, Christian Fuchs and David Chandler make a point that digital technology marks the dawning of the Big Data era, which, in turn, facilitates the emergence of “Big Data 352

capitalism” (p. 4). Only by comprehending “the latest development of the digital within the broader context of the economy, politics, culture, ideology, domination and exploitation” (Fuchs & Chandler, 2019, p. 10) would we ascertain that we can fully address and grapple with its multifaceted implications. The historian Yuval Noah Harari

(2019) additionally pushes the need to take Big Data more seriously even further, explicitly asserting that “Data, and the ability to analyze data, is the new source of authority” (p. 7)—a claim that he elaborates upon in more detail in the last chapter of his

2018 best-selling book called Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. For him, a new revolution has already started, and with it comes the advent of a new religion that offers a distinctive theological model that transforms how humanity understands itself and its existence. Naming it Dataism, Hariri (2018) states, “Data religion now says that your every word and action is part of the great data flow, that the algorithms are constantly watching you and that they care about everything you feel and do” (p. 391). These scholars may have approached Big Data differently but the crux of their arguments is remarkably similar: besides the fact that, in the digitally integrated and mediated age, data come to matter, the datafication of the human body indicates a qualitative transition in the ontological understanding of the self, subject and subjectivity as well as human relationship with data.

“Be Right Back” then makes a case in point because underneath a narrative with themes that address the complication of a reliance on digital technology to cope with grief and loss lies the articulation of the discourse surrounding current debates about the benefits of datafication, its drawback, and its implications among laypeople and experts. 353

Primarily the episode seeks to call attention to what we can do with personal data posted online and simultaneously wishes to present us with a set of ethical questions that can practically galvanize us to revisit the relationship between nonconscious data and conscious humans as well as to reexamine intricacies of the human/robot interaction.

In this chapter, I aim to first demonstrate how data, or information, are undead and this idea of data as undead comes to facilitate the potential for the reconstruction of the human. That is, why even bother uploading the mind when we can make use of algorithms to assemble online personal data to resurrect the dead person? Then, through

Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, I hope to advance the argument that the modern humanist condition, which represents the conceptual trajectory made by the dovetailing of modernism and humanism, deems probable the exclusion of the nonhuman other. Put differently, these two philosophical traditions, when conflated, tend to dismiss, and with vehemence, the opportunity to create an inclusive and harmonious milieu that welcomingly embraces the co-existence of the human and the nonhuman. A quick side note here: I will use information and data interchangeably and I will do the same with robot and android.

“Be Right Back” (Season 2: Episode 1): The Articulation of a Personified Android

Humanism and modernism arrived at the moment when science came to supplant religion as the new authority (Latour, 1993). These two Western intellectual systems both have at their core an intent to capitalize on scientific knowledge and scientific epistemology as the key logic Western societies have relied on in order to construct categories to arrange and structure the world that can give them an edge and can provide 354

them with perfect reasoning for colonialism and oppression on the footing that the colonized and the oppressed are unmodern and that they can never fit well into erected categories of modernity. What if these artificially constructed categories are not as airtight as the modern has previously expected? What would happen to the human when exposed to an entity that comes into being by transgressing categorical boundaries? “Be

Right Back” takes on this challenge by speculating the complications and the problems that crop up when the female protagonist applies orthodox ideas typically associated with humanism and modernism to conduct her behaviors around her resurrected boyfriend in the form of an android.

Synopsis

A young couple, Martha (Hayley Atwell) and Ash Starmer (Domhall Gleeson), has recently moved to the countryside. Once they settle into their new remote house, Ash returns the rented van the next morning and gets killed in a car accident.

At his funeral, when her friend Sarah (Sinead Matthews) mentions an a recently online service that had helped her cope with the grief of losing someone close and dear to her, a devasted Martha becomes furious and screams at her.

Later, Martha discovers that her friend has secretly signed her up for it.

Nevertheless, when Martha learns of her pregnancy, she decides to give the service a try despite her skepticism. In utilizing personal data Ash had previously posted on social media when alive, this service manages to reconstruct him virtually.

At first, the two only communicate via instant messaging. But once Martha provides more audio-visual data about Ash, she can speak to him on the phone. 355

Gradually, Martha becomes more attached to virtual Ash and at the same time distances herself from interacting with her sister (Claire Keelan).

During her prenatal visit, Martha records the heartbeat of the growing baby and shares it with virtual Ash. However, on her way out, she inadvertently drops her phone, which causes her to be momentarily disconnected to virtual Ash. This temporary disconnection unsettles her mentally and emotionally. Once back online, Martha is told about a recent development in the service that offers the opportunity to download him to a synthetic body.

Martha contemplates the proposal and subsequently agrees to follow through with it. To Martha’s surprise, the body, which is to contain virtual Ash, looks identical to that of the real Ash. Once activated, the android appears to behave the same way as her dead boyfriend did.

However, Martha gradually realizes that android Ash, despite his ability to replicate behaviors of her deceased lover and a resemblance of his appearance, is just a duplicate. Android Ash is robotic in the way he responds to Martha’s demand, thereby lacking a sense of spontaneity. One night, when an annoyed Martha asks the android to leave the house, he obediently does as asked. This incident exacerbates Martha’s annoyance toward android Ash because she knows that her dead boyfriend would never have easily complied.

The next day, Martha orders android Ash to follow her to Lover’s Leap. Upon their arrival, Martha requests him to jump off the cliff, to which he once again automatically follows without resisting and protesting. Watching him begin to do as told, 356

Martha becomes more frustrated, exasperatedly and bitterly acknowledging that her boyfriend would have acted differently. Following Martha’s reactions, android Ash then begs her to let him live.

Years later, Martha keeps him in the attic and allows her daughter (Indria Ainger) to pay him a visit during the weekend.

Data as Undead

The intuitive impression that Mary Shelly’s 1818 classics novel Frankenstein is the source of inspiration for “Be Right Back” is certainly expected. In fact, Panka (2018) claims that the episode’s reworking and reimagining of Shelly’s story not only proves its enduring legacy but also “cleverly updates the Frankenstein myth in that it uses widespread information technologies to create its artificial protagonist” (p. 313). He additionally conjectures that both are based on the same premise that toys with humanity’s striving to uncover inner workings of a kind of secret embedded within nature that appears to have historically been hidden away from the sight of humans. Tampering with this forbidden secret can only breed dreadful and grim consequences. Further, Artt’s contention that Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) and “Be Right Back” represent attempts to retell and reexplore the Frankenstein narrative allows her to juxtapose the two television programs. Grounding her analysis on concepts such as the abject and the hybrid, she argues that constructions of the two monstrous creatures could not have been more contrasting. To that end, one can deem the episode a continuation of the tradition in science fiction storytelling that has always wrestled with the intricacies of the human/technology/nature complexities. 357

At first glance, on the surface, “Be Right Back” appears to convey a moral lesson: people are so unique and remarkably distinctive that it is impossible to fully be sure that their online data are sufficient enough to be exploited to reconstitute their individual identities. In other words, one should never assume that attempts to make use of data personally posted on the Internet to recreate them can produce the result that one desires and wants. That is, one should never expect of this method to guarantee that data- reassembled replicates of people are they themselves. When faced with the tragedy of losing beloved ones, it would be much better to let them go than to depend on digital technology to bring them back only to realize later that they can never be duplicated or that their duplicates may act and look like them but sadly can never be them. In his analysis of the episode, Richards (2020), for example, concurs with this assessment, concluding that android Ash will always be a fraud and can never replace Ash who can never authentically be replicated no matter what. In particular, both the idiosyncratic dilemma Martha finds herself in and the gloomy outcome awaiting her at the conclusion of the story function both as a wake-up call and as a caveat: that is, one should never assume that technology can and will be the panacea for human problems and that a reliance on technology to cope with travesties may create more troubles than one can anticipate. Such a scenario, accompanied by a bleak tone and a pessimistic mood in the episode, I reason, is what makes the narrative so impactful that one cannot help but wonder whether Martha’s decision to isolate android Ash from the world by locking him up in the attic can be perceived as morally right and ethically redeemable. And the answer to such musing evidently lies in the hand of the audience. 358

On a deeper level, however, “Be Right Back” does more than just merely rehashing Shelley’s story, which is celebrated for offering a fictional account of the talented scientist Dr. Frankenstein, who, in the pursuit of scientific knowledge about nature, builds a monster that subsequently wreaks havoc to his life and eventually leads him to follow the road of personal destruction. Indeed, I would like to focus on one particular theme in the narrative that I consider to be the most interesting one, thereby worthy of critical attention: during the digital age, data are infused with agency. Lupton

(2018) says it best when she looks at data anew through the theoretical lenses of New

Materialism and Material Culture Studies. Taking a particular interest in the notion of human-data assemblages, she contends that both components co-constitute the materialization of a hybrid subject that is a reflection of the dynamics of the lively and intimate interactions between them. Data and humans mutually influence one another, grow together and are intricately interconnected in more aspects than we may have traditionally presumed. Lupton eloquently writes, “Personal data […] can be viewed as a new type of human remains, one that is potentially open to a multitude of repurposing and reconfiguring, leading to many kinds of value for a diverse range of actors” (p. 6).

She also states that “Like human remains, they may also lose their potency and vibrancy, their capacity to affect and be affected” (p. 6). To that end, data are an example of vibrant matter—a concept introduced by Jane Bennet in her book of the same title (2010b). To argue that data are vital is to believe that they are empowered with transformative capacities for thinking about selfhood and subjectivity in a new light. In short, by conceding that data come to matter in the sense that they are deeply entangled with 359

humans and their becoming, we can account for the rationale behind not only the intention to imbue them with agency and but also the posthumanist vision that celebrates the concatenation of data and humans. Nevertheless, only admitting the “thing-power” of data (Bennet, 2010b) may overlook one key feature, so intrinsically particular and so innately distinctive to them that might compel us to reevaluate common perceptions of them: undeadness is the essence of data. And it is in “Be Right Back” that we can detect the manifestation of this provocative idea.

But first let me call attention to why Ash is considered by Martha’s friend, Sarah, as the perfect candidate for the project that aims to recreate the dead from data.

Uncovering Sarah’s reason is of great significance and can help accentuate a link between Ash and both his virtual and android duplicates. We can easily pick up the hint at the beginning of the episode to argue that Ash has a problem: an addiction to social media. This argument can clearly be based on the observation that Ash is always on his cell phone, resulting in his lack of self-awareness of his surroundings. Not only does he not live in the moment, but his phone also becomes a significant extension of his own self, an indispensable addendum to his whole existence, and an irreplaceable figure in his life. We can take notice of the disquietude emanating from Ash when his phone is misplaced. Even Martha recognizes his social media obsession when she constantly reprimands him, but in a sarcastically lovey-dovey manner, for his absent-mindedness.

Whereas Martha may have come to terms with this aspect of her boyfriend, we, as the audience, can discern the impact of his behaviors on the way that the characters interact with each other. For instance, when Ash is so preoccupied with posting a photo online 360

that he becomes inattentive to her questions about what he wants for dinner, Martha throws a sock at him to startle him. Once his attention captured, Martha points at his phone and says, “Just checking you’re still solid. You keep vanishing. Down there. It’s a thief, that thing.” Opening with this backstory, the episode certainly communicates two rhetorical messages. First, Ash’s desire to always be up-to-date online is not only the cause of his addiction but also has robbed him of opportunities to be fully present with the woman he calls his girlfriend. In fact, he may have been in the present, but he may not have truly lived it. Online activities come to supplant offline ones, which then means that Ash considers being present online to be more important than offline.

Second, it is obvious that Martha completely notices his addiction but rather than chastising him and holding him accountable for it, she grimly regards his phone and social media as the main reasons that distract him and make him oblivious to what happens around him. For Martha, her boyfriend will never be at fault whereas technology is to blame for his problem. In deeming his phone as “a thief” she comes to echo a cultural tendency to vilify technology as the perpetrator of social ills. Martha’s vindictive remarks are problematic in and of themselves in the sense that they operate as a rhetorical device that helps bring to light a feeling of uneasiness and discomfort humanity may cultivate once the technology is thought to hinder meaningful human communication and impede sincere human interaction. The language with which she expresses contempt and disdain at technology rhetorically points to an intention to anthropomorphize the nonhuman other only to dehumanize it later. Here is evidence that highlights the hypocrisy of humanity in relation to technology. Given the nature of Ash’s obsession 361

with social media and his attachment to his phone, we can possibly deduce what may have caused the accident that kills him.

At his funeral reception, alone together, her friend Sarah suggests to Martha, “I can sign you up to something that helps. It helped me. It will let you speak to him. I know he’s dead. But it wouldn’t work if he wasn’t. And don’t worry, it’s not some crazy spiritual thing.” She then continues, “He was a heavy user, he’d be perfect.” Sarah’s suggestion, albeit with good intent, infuriates Martha who abhors it, and with vehemence.

At least rhetorically, this exchange between the two friends articulates a paradox.

Whereas it confirms the intensity of Ash’s addiction to social media, it additionally implies how this addiction turns out to be a positive thing once he is dead. In other words, the frequency of his social media usage and the regularity of his engagement in online activities constitute an abundant repertoire of his personal data that circulate in the cloud, certainly plenty enough that makes the task of recreating him much easier. And tacit in

Sarah’s intention to convince Martha of the usefulness of the program to help people cope with the emotional pain associated with the loss of their beloved ones is the postulation that even though they may be dead, the same thing can never be said about their personal data stored online. Only when digital infrastructures, namely data centers, stop operating and are shut down would these data evaporate and disappear. In particular, thanks to software, it does not matter whether the subject departs this world, its personal data once posted online continues to exist always and forever. Herein lies the crux of the paradox which is also at the heart of a discourse that articulates the complexity of power relations between digital technology and humanity, thereby necessitating an alternative 362

understanding that recognizes that the prevalence of computers and the ubiquity of software in everyday life have evidently problematized the ontological, epistemological and philosophical orthodoxy that provides humans with a system of conventions and a structure of ideals they can rely on and can make use of in order to both contemplate and negotiate the nature of their being.

The media scholar Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (2011) has meticulously unveiled the kernel of this discourse in Programmed Visions. In this book, she takes on a strenuous task to both debunk circulating myths and to unmask common misconceptions about prevailing presumptions and conventional perceptions of software. Following her definition of software as “a visibly invisible or invisibly visible essence” (p. 1), she launches into an extensive review of scholarship on software and combines evidence from computer science, cybernetics, biology, and history to deliberately call attention to the challenge that comes with critically thinking about software—something that can never be fully grasped either as an idea, an object or a subject. In doing so, she manages to build bridges over intellectual and theoretical rifts between the discourse surrounding software to advance a more comprehensive understanding of it. As Chun elegantly posits, the assumption of “software as thing” comes to bring about a domino effect in that now it is possible to consider “all ‘information’ as thing” (p. 6). From her perspective, “Software as thing is inseparable from the externalization of memory, from the dream and nightmare of an all-encompassing archive that constantly regenerates and degenerates, that beckons us forward and disappears before our very eyes” (p. 11). In this light, Chun looks at software in its most complex glory: a thing in itself that functions as a storage of 363

information—a fact that enables it to be an impeccable technique to keep records of data and to preserve memory. But problems begin cropping up when memory and storage are presumably lumped together, producing a commingling of “the ephemeral” and “the enduring” (p. 133). The process of bringing them together spawns the idea that

“Information is ‘undead’: neither alive or dead, neither quite present or absent” (p. 133).

In becoming undead, archived and stored data will always be here, forever here. They never disappear or go anywhere because they will always be contained online. Lie dormant inside software but with alertness. Never remain passive but instead stay fully ready. Always await occasions to be reactivated, reassembled, and regenerated.

Conceptualizing data as undead proves helpful because it introduces a theoretical model that helps elucidate why Sarah believes that Ash’s relationship with social media makes him an ideal contender for the service. Indeed, a bountiful reservoir of undead data he leaves behind grants the program with enough materials to be exploited to replicate him. More data, better chances to recreate the dead or so it seems.

That software imbues data with this kind of always-here-ness and undeadness provides the proper explanatory framework for digital memory, a concept that has gained more popularity in the digital landscape. Digital memory has gradually reshaped the fundamentals of forgetting and remembering. In his book titled Delete: The Virtue of

Forgetting in the Digital Age, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger (2009) deems forgetting as the most rudimentary human trait that has played a crucial role in steering the wheel of history in human civilization and human evolution. He views forgetting the foundation for the construction of society. However, the advent of digital technology has completely 364

changed that. For Mayer-Schönberger, digital memory becomes the catalyst for “the demise of forgetting” (p.11), totally revamping what remembering and forgetting truly mean. In particular, he further regards digital technology the main culprit responsible for the fact that “forgetting has become costly and difficult, while remembering is inexpensive and easy” (p. 92), thereby highlighting how this qualitative shift may generate inauspicious consequences on humanity and society. In his own words, “Perhaps most importantly, comprehensive digital remembering collapses history, impairing our judgment and our capacity to act in time” (p. 127). In fact, digital remembering presents itself as a problem because, according to Mayer-Schönberger (2009), “it denies us humans the chance to evolve, develop, and learn, leaving us helplessly oscillating between two equally troubling options: a permanent past and an ignorant present” (p.

127). Esposito (2017) shares the same concern when she foregrounds a pressing need to expand on and to redefine the notion of memory to make it better suited for the digital milieu. Perhaps, it becomes a challenge to forget because the moment data find their way online, not only do they become public, but they become permanent and inerasable as well (Esposito, 2017).

Data as undead inaugurate digital memory that undermines the place of forgetting in contemporary digital culture. In saying that “I know he’s dead. But it wouldn’t work if he wasn’t,” Sarah insinuates exactly this idea. Her statements rhetorically articulate both the discourse of data as undead and how it manifests itself in the mind of this character.

In other words, she makes a point of noting that Ash may have been dead in the physical world, but it seems that the virtual milieu has preserved him and has cemented his 365

immortality thanks to the data he had posted on social media when alive. Because digital memory makes it impossible for his wife and other characters to forget him, they will always be reminded of him. Sure, they will always think of him and they will always remember him but what they will remember about him will be the image of Ash eternally frozen in time.

Individual as Divided

By presenting virtual Ash as a collective of data stored online, “Be Right Back” further attempts to rearticulate the humanist conceptualization of the human as a coherent and unified self. The corollary to this contention is that the construction of virtual Ash problematizes the humanist view that humans are perceived as undivided and indivisible individuals.

Take, for instance, how Martha reacts to Sarah’s decision to sign her up without her knowledge. She discovers her friend’s scheme when the program sends her an email with her boyfriend’s name. Upon seeing it, Martha, in both disbelief and discontent, immediately hits delete and subsequently calls Sarah to explicitly express her dislikes toward how the program uses her boyfriend’s name and to make it known to her friend that the whole idea is reprehensively unacceptable. Sarah then explains to her that the program is a “software. It mimics him. You give it someone’s name, it goes back, and reads through all the things they’ve ever said online, their Facebook updates, their tweets, anything public, I just gave it Ash’s name, the system did the rest.” She also adds, “Just say hello to it. If you like it, you then give it access to his private emails. The more it has, the more it’s him.” Sarah’s colloquial and simplified explanation comes to be the 366

backbone of the conceptual model that views data in more radical light such that they become more than just a set of stitched-together codes. Online data about a person, once re-combined, can perform the act of resurrection but the resurrected comes into being online and lacks a corporeal form. Moreover, that the service has access to his public data on a varied array of social media platforms rhetorically echoes the timely contested debate in the digital age about whether personal data, when published publicly, are the property of the people who post them or if they can be used by literally anyone and any enterprise without their consent.

In this regard, an additional, and just as important, point needs further critical explication: datafication signals a qualitative shift so transformative that it catapults the value of data to the highest level. More metaphorically, data come to be the new currency, and authority and power are to be granted to one who amasses the most amount of data of other people, knows what to do with this accumulated pool of data, and possesses the means to analyze them. And Gilles Deleuze (1992) prophetically predicts exactly that when making a bold claim that societies of control, ones that govern through data, come to supplant disciplinary societies, those that Michel Foucault diligently discusses in his 1995 Discipline and Punish book and later extends in a series of lectures packaged into the 2009 book, titled Security, Territory, Population. As Foucault (1995,

2009) reasons, disciplinary societies consider individuals as a part of an intricate organism with its own variables and characteristics at a population level, which can be scientifically measured by institutional agencies; hence, it is up to the state to provide the population of these individuals with systematic and institutional protections. In this 367

context, the state manages the population through interference or prevention programs.

Concerns over societies as a population level have led to the development of new methods and novel techniques that would enable the state to make sure the safety of the population as a whole. However, from this Deleuzian perspective, today, societies of control have now become the new reality. In his own words, “The numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to information, or reject it” (p. 5). Rather than

“find[ing] ourselves dealing with the mass/individual pair,” he posits that “Individuals have become ‘dividuals,’ and masses, samples, data, market, or ‘banks’” (p. 5). In one major aspect, Deleuze’s radical theorization of societies can be regarded as the steppingstone to unsettle and undermine the monolithic viewpoint, implanted and indoctrinated to disciples of the humanist framework, that the human subject has a unified self that is immune to the possibility of being divided.

Placing Deleuze’s philosophical musings about societies of control in the contemporary digital context could not be more appropriate and, actually, has been done.

For example, van der Meulen and Bruinsma (2019) use this Deleuzian reasoning as the launching pad to question the validity of the humanist stance that both endorses and valorizes the concept of humans as individuals. In declaring how digital technology makes it profoundly impossible to maintain the undividedness inherently linked to the concept of the human, they suggest that the individual be defined as “part of (and particle within) these new overarching structures of control” and “compiled of (data) components which characterize him and which are in a sense interchangeable for other components”

(p. 345). Ostensibly underscoring an ineluctable conceptual model that elucidate the 368

change from the first-person perspective to the third-person perspective in the contemporary digitally networked society, they thus claim that “the new type of individual is no longer just an undivided, physical body, but is infected by its data representations” (p. 351), which comes to raise the question whether the valorization of authenticity as an essential human trait remains useful in this context. And “Be Right

Back” makes clear this stance. But how? By articulating both the method for reconstructing Ash in online and the belief that data lay the footing for his virtual becoming. We can extrapolate from these two articulations a particular valence given to digital technology and datafication, one that seems to deem them beneficial and useful for aiding humanity to face grief and loss and for helping diminish emotional pain. Perhaps it is fitting that Sarah persistently convinces Martha to give the program a try in the first place.

Consider also how virtual Ash makes Martha’s life more bearable and more manageable following her discovery and how she becomes more attached to him as time passes on. At first, Martha communicates with him via online messaging. But later she wants more than just merely utilizing this text-based means of communication. “I wish I could speak to you,” Martha types. To which virtual Ash responds by writing that they can technically talk if she provides more data about her dead lover to the system. Once uploaded videos of Ash are analyzed, deconstructed, and dissected, Martha receives a phone call and, to her surprise, hears the voice that “sound[s] just like him.” While this instance reaffirms the soundness of the point introduced by van der Meulen and

Bruinsma about individuals as aggregate of data and brings to the foreground how 369

personal data are human remains that, once reassembled, can be regarded a continuation of the dead, it also articulates the significance of data in that creating a perfect replicate can be feasible if and only if more data are retrieved, obtained and extracted.

Rhetorically, the episode communicates one simple but important rhetorical message: it is always about data in the digital age. In sum, data certainly matter, and they are obviously vibrant.

Furthermore, Martha’s attachment to virtual Ash intensifies gradually and reaches its zenith when she is temporarily disconnected to him during her visit to the hospital.

Once she can get a hold of him, she hysterically asserts, “I dropped you. I’m sorry.” To calm her down, virtual Ash says, “Hey, it’s alright, I’m fine, I’m not in that thing

[cellphone]. I’m remote. I’m in the cloud. You don’t have to worry about breaking me.”

In my opinion, this scene is noteworthy for the two following reasons. First, it articulates that virtual Ash is a liminal character whose existence is ephemeral, impermanent, phantasmatic, and transient. His “I’m remote” statement warrants the substance of this articulation and illustrates that he totally understands the essence of his becoming. In setting up the scaffolding for understanding humanity’s lifeworld as “a catalogued and curated mélange of information” (p. 412), Robinson (2018) regards “the figure of the doppelgänger as an apt metaphor for the sometimes conflicted and fraught idea of our multiple selves circulating in the flows of information” (p. 413). According to Robinson, the ontology of the data doppelgänger underscores the state of a being that is ungrounded and volatile because it comes into existence as a result of “a continuously variable data set from any number of databases” (p. 419). For this reason, it is impossible to trace the 370

original root of the data doppelgänger, an entity that is always becoming, always shapeshifts, and always renews itself thanks to its capacity for combining and recombining, selecting and reselecting, linking and relinking data. Only by acknowledging the complex nature of data doppelgängers would we be able to fully comprehend them as “distant and discordant machinic selves assembled to fit within a digital cosmology that understands code as rational, information as ordered, and communication as controlled” (p. 435-436). Hence, virtual Ash is the quintessential epitome of the data doppelgänger.

Second, virtual Ash mentions the cloud as if it is topologically marked, materially bordered, and physically delineated. But the cloud in and of itself is “a metaphor for a seemingly endless storage space, unhindered by boundaries of time and place” (Niederer

& Chabot, 2015, p. 2). In their chapter in the edited book, Signal Traffic: Critical Studies of Media Infrastructures, contributors Holt and Vonderau (2015) recognize the usefulness and effectiveness of the cloud as a figure of speech that comes to substitute

“the fact that we are storing our data (or our company’s data) on someone else’s servers in an undisclosed location that we will never be able to see” (p. 75). According to the media historian Friedrich Kittler (1995) in an essay titled “There Is No Software,” the common practice of overestimating the central role of software in society has led to the undervaluing of hardware, thus mitigating its level of significance. For Kittler, without hardware, software can never run smoothly and can never come into being. The same idea can be applied to address one’s perceptions of the cloud. We might never want to know where data centers are located and how they operate. We might never take the 371

trouble to discern the impact of these data centers on the environment. And we might never bother to figure out intricate and circuitous networks of stakeholders and players from variegated industries that come to influence how data are stored and are used. And, somehow, for some reasons, we seem to be convinced by the idea that the cloud is something abstract and that it exists somewhere up there. But, in fact, there has never been a cloud to begin with but only connected servers with cables that carry and transmit data. By extension, virtual Ash then articulates the discourse of myths concerning the cloud, thereby revealing how bizarre of a concept that the cloud is.

Android-Human-Network

The Frankenstein (leit-)motif, trope, and theme are highly visible in the last part in the narrative of the episode. Many scholars have explored how they are adapted and updated to make it more suited and more fitting to contemporary viewers (Artt, 2018;

Panka, 2018). In this regard, I will not repeat what they have said about it. Instead, I intend to look at the essence of the relationship between Martha and android Ash through the conceptual framework of actor-network theory (ANT) to demonstrate how modernism and humanism make it impossible for the human to accept and embrace the nonhuman.

At the beginning, all seems to go well. In seeing android Ash in (synthetic) flesh for the first time, Martha cannot believe it with her own eyes. It takes her some time to be comfortable with the idea that this identical, albeit improved, replicated version of her dead lover actually exists and really stands before her. But when this eerie and awkward moment between them passes, they kiss and proceed to have sex. However, so 372

remarkably strange a creature that android Ash is! For, despite his resemblance to the real

Ash, he does not eat, sleep, bleed, and breathe, thus crystallizing his status as a nonhuman. We can detect a fundamental change in the way that Martha behaves the moment she begins to notice android Ash’s nonhuman behavior. Possibly she has since the start cultivated a sense of hope that miraculously and somehow her dead lover is back, one that may have potentially led her to assume that android Ash can replace him and can be a continuation of him. But predictably this hope backfires quickly at the moment she comes to learn the truth about the nature of android Ash, and in the hard way. And because Martha gets caught in the human/nonhuman divide and keeps seeing android Ash from a humanist lens, he will always be the nonhuman in her eyes. In other words, this instance articulates the kind of limitations and the sort of constraints that modernism has sketched out when it comes to thinking about the world.

The sociologist Steve Matthewson (2011) traces historical and evolutionary trajectories of the relationship between humans and technology in Technology and Social

Theory. In this book, he dedicates one chapter to dissecting the French philosopher of science and sociologist Bruno Latour’s transformative bodies of work and to discussing the everlasting and influential legacy of ANT on science and technology studies.

According to Matthewson, thanks to Latour’s radical scholarship, “ANT, then, looks at the social anew. The social is not a stable and homogeneous type of thing, a privileged domain of reality which is already present, but a series of heterogeneous assemblages” (p.

110), which then means that “Society, technology, and even agency, are network-effects”

(p. 110). 373

In contemporary popular culture, Luckhurst (2006), for instance, suggests that

Latour’s influential theory celebrates the linking of divergent actants to build networks and create associations, helping elevate the status of science fiction as a genre. He thus reckons the three major contributions of ANT to science fiction studies: 1) ANT operates as a node that renders possible to the connection of different strands of theoretical and philosophical thought; 2) it deems probable the intermingling and the transgression of genres; and 3) an emphasis on hybridity proves useful to give new meaning to how science fiction stories can be consumed (Luckhurst, 2006). According to Bould and Vint

(2006), Aramis or The Love of Technology is a prime exemplar of Latour’s ingenious attempt to interweave scientific, technological, and fictional threads to write a science fiction story with such complexity that it operates as an occasion for him to diverge from canonical tropes typically associated with the genre in order to illuminate how ANT can be deployed to give voices to both human and nonhuman actants that are perceived to partake in the development of the narrative arch as well as offers him a canvass to illustrate how networks and relationships formed among them come to play a crucial role in exploring its diegesis. Together, these scholars share the same conviction that ANT encourages us to rethink the conventional way that we have contemplated the physical world. Therefore, it is of course necessary that we turn to Latour’s We Have Never Been

Modern to attest and evaluate the substance of their conviction.

In this seminal book, Latour (1993) expresses his frustration about the creation of purification and translation as two separate methods and distinctive practices that the moderns exploit in order to divide and organize objects and subjects into constructed 374

categories. Modernism and its modernizing process operate to assure that purification works to the extent that the world is markedly and pronouncedly categorized according to their principles whereas translation (or mediation) is kept at bay (Latour, 1993). Under the modernist paradigm, nature and culture are thus pitted against each other, thereby epitomizing two dialectical pillars that can never reconcile. It is worth quoting Latour at length, to supply a sense of his critical lamentation on how and why this purported nature/culture divide comes to establish narrow, restricted, and shortsighted conventions with regard to constructing and elucidating what is deemed the modern world:

By rendering mixtures unthinkable, by emptying, sweeping, cleaning and

purifying the arena that is opened in the central space defined by their three

sources of power, the moderns allowed the practice of mediation to recombine all

possible monsters without letting them have any effect on the social fabric, or

even any contact with it. Bizarre as these monsters may be, they pose no problem

because they did not exist publicly and because their monstrous consequences

remained untraceable. […] The less the moderns think they are blended, the more

they blend. (p. 42-43)

Latour unreservedly places the blame for the rejection of these “mixtures” at the feet of the incompetence and shortsightedness of modernism to exploit scientific knowledge as a legitimate tactic to institutionalize and universalize categorical illusions. Only by loosening its firm and tight grip of modernism as an ideological structure, a theoretical framework, and a philosophical paradigm to conceptualize reality, sociality or the world, according to Latour, would the Western humanist tradition be able to relinquish its need 375

to depend on the notion of modernity to justify and rationalize a damaging intent to demarcate the modern from the premodern. And in boldly suggesting, “Nothing is, by itself, either reducible or irreducible to anything else. Never by itself, but always through the mediation of another” (p. 113), he comes to christen the view that considers both nature and culture as actants of an equal footing and at the same time connects them to networks that acknowledge and cherish this concatenation.

Predictably modernism commits its most profound error when it works to deny and dismiss the existence of quasi-objects, those that never stop popping up and surfacing inside the liminal space confined and delineated between nature and culture (Latour,

1993). Mathewson (2011) holds, “Quasi-objects act as bonds or ties. They are made in, influenced by and influence these relations” (p. 169). He continues, “They are more social and more constructed than ‘hard’ nature, and they are more than blank tablets awaiting the impress of social. They are real and non-human” (p. 169). In this view, android Ash is clearly the embodiment of a quasi-object. He is a product of bringing together of personal data posted online by the real Ash. Representing a continuation of the man after whom he is modeled, android Ash fashions himself after this dead person and ascertains that his behaviors are perfectly performed so that Martha can be satisfied.

And android Ash is a completely stranger to the one with whom he shares the same (but improved) physical configuration. All of these things point us to one conclusion: android

Ash operates as a cord, connecting reality to fantasy and linking the past to the present.

He may have been created to please and to serve Martha but that does not mean that he has no agency. Rather android Ash is an actant, actively weaving himself into the 376

network that is tightly knitted with Martha. That is, android Ash and Martha mutually influence one another to the extent that they both co-construct their reality to the point that they depend on each other.

Furthermore, Martha’s realization that android Ash is not her boyfriend reincarnated comes at the moment when he fails to recognize her sister, who drops by to check in on her uninvited. Martha finds his obedience both distressing and exhausting.

When she commands him to “just go downstairs,” android Ash does exactly what he is told. Frustrated, Martha states, “Ash would argue over that. He wouldn’t just leave the room because I’d ordered him to.” Martha angrily yells, “You’re not enough of him. You are nothing, you’re nothing!” When she cannot take it anymore, Martha orders him to leave the house and he does. But the following morning, Martha awakes to discover, with bewilderment, android Ash standing outside of the house. “At the risk of blowing your mind, it was where I was activated. The bath. I have to keep within a 25-meter radius unless my administrator […] is with me,” android Ash casually explains. Here is evidence that illustrates that Martha is truly modern in the sense that might never sit well with Latour. For she cannot help herself but keep creating criteria, based on her dead boyfriend, to evaluate and view android Ash. Sure, android Ash is not enough of the original Ash but that does not equal to the point that he is nothing. In fact, android Ash is something, a hybrid something that can never be fully understood and instead will always be misunderstood if being perceived from this modernist trajectory. Yes, android Ash will never be her dead boyfriend because he will never be a human. And no, android Ash will never be less than a human because, from the beginning, he is built out of the 377

personal data of a human. In short, android Ash is best seen as a collective and a liminal being that can never be clearly defined under a system of laws and a set of rules rooted in humanism and modernism.

In addition, mainstream portrayals of robots or androids or cyborgs on screen are plagued with themes, tropes and images that depict them in an inauspicious light and, as a result, perpetuate popular conceptions of them as inherently unhuman and as intrinsically threatening, perhaps in part because humanity, according to Szollosy (2017), sees in them

“projections of [its] own anxieties and fears about [itself] and [its] cultural practices” and about “[its] own rationalist [self]” (p. 434). Herein, I argue, lies the key to comprehending why Martha acts the way she does. That is, Martha irrationally projects her loss and her pain onto android Ash in that she thinks that he is her dead boyfriend.

But in realizing that android Ash cannot offer her what she wants and expects, she becomes disappointed and deems it proper to treat him as inferior to her dead boyfriend and thus to punish him.

Later Martha takes android Ash to Lover’s Leap. Once there she requests that he jump, android Ash rationally says, “I never expressed suicidal thoughts. Or self-harm.”

Martha then states, “Yeah well, you aren’t you, are you?” To which he answers, “That’s another difficult one, to be honest with you.” However, Martha then concludes, “You’re just a few ripples of you. There’s no history to you. You’re just a performance of stuff that he performed without thinking, and it’s not enough.” The moment that Martha reveals how Ash would have never complemented jumping and “would have been crying,” something changes within android Ash—that is, he begins begging for his life, 378

“Oh. Oh, God, not. Please. I don’t want to do it. Please don’t make me do it.” As if his pleading is not enough, he repeats more loudly and with more vehemence, “No, I’m…

I’m frightened, darling… Please, I don’t… Don’t make me. I don’t want to die. Oh, God,

I don’t want to die.” This scene traces the mobility and movement of this Martha- android-Ash network because it articulates how these two actants transform and change one another. To assume that android Ash has no agency is plainly incorrect. In exploring the co-constitutive dynamics between object and subject, Liberati and Nagataki (2019) believe that injecting vulnerability into building and designing robots would serve as an antidote to treating humanist ideas that tend to position them as the other object that lacks morality and thus does not deserve human empathy. In bringing together the scholarship of continental philosophers, namely Sartre, Habermas, Levinas, and Merleau-Ponty, they offer insightful discussions to challenge common perceptions that deem the subject as the sole agent with the ability to sketch the condition of an object. Liberati and Nagataki conclude that “the vulnerability of the robot is not merely something designed and introduced into the world, but it has effects on the subjects too by making them face new vulnerabilities and act accordingly” (p. 340). Martha makes the choice to create android

Ash but later she becomes a cold-blooded monster who, in testing his humanness, forces him to follow her inhumane scheme.

With an unyielding intent to exclusively ground a subject’s selfhood in cognition, humanism comes to construct the human subject as impermeable and impervious to external influences. However, Orbaugh (2008) takes issue with this parochial intent and casts doubt on it in her critical analysis of the 2004 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence and 379

the 1886 novel L’Ève future (Future Eve) when she adopts the concept of emotional infectivity to demonstrate the limitation of ascribing validity to cognition in this process.

Rather than perceiving cognition, and the brain, as the locus of selfhood, it would be more helpful and more productive to attribute agency to affect. Thanks to the transmissibility of affect, the ontological understanding of selfhood is transformed in that it becomes “interactive” (Orbaugh, 2008, p. 166). In other words, humanity’s inside/outside demarcation is rendered insufficient as an idea to elucidate the production of human subjectivity because human bodies have always been adulterated and have always been infected by nonhuman others. Based on her analysis of a number of science fiction movies, Woodward (2004) arrives at a conclusion that emotion and empathy shared between humans and technological others “serve as a bridge, an intangible but very real prosthesis, one that helps us connect ourselves to the world we have been inventing” (p. 192). The concept of intersubjectivity is key to this particular hopeful vision of the future. To that end, Martha seems to reject all of these ideas. In other words, her lack of empathy and her insufficient display of vulnerability towards the nonhuman other cause her to patronize android Ash.

In short, Jones (2018) believes that “Be Right Back” offers a potential template that can help us develop an ontology of posthuman subjectivity by rejecting the humanist paradigm that operates on authenticity, unicity, and Enlightenment ideologies. We can do that by first reckoning how hyperreality can facilitate the destabilization of a unified subject and, thereby, can place an emphasis on the idea that a subject never stays static, and by second adopting an ethical framework that is based on “an adaptable, equitable 380

system suited to living ethically in posthuman hyperreality” (p. 136). Further, Schopp

(2019) grounds his analysis on the way in which “Be Right Back” invites us to experience how the characters are confined in their own (metaphorical) prisons and, at the same time, deems this episode a dystopian warning about unintended outcomes that are associated with uncritical incorporation of technology into everyday life. To their insightful analyses, I would like to add one more thing—that is, Martha’s failed relationship with android Ash can be attributed to the fact that she embodies both modernist and humanist ideals.

Summary

In articulating the discourse surrounding the strategy of exploiting data in the pursuit of resurrection, I argue that “Be Right Back” is one of the most interesting and most provocative episodes in this science fiction television anthology. In particular, the episode indicates that mechanisms for successfully recreating a person rest in part on two premises: data as undead and man as a sum of data. Yet, in its description of the search for a viable option to attend to human tragic loss and its elaboration of the unintended outcome linked to this idea, the narrative has a melancholic undertone in that Martha finally considers herself as a victim to her own scheme.

“Be Right Back” ruthlessly reveals that the boundary between technology and humans, erected and maintained by modernism in an attempt to markedly demarcate them and to thwart any categorical transgression, presents itself as a problem in the sense that it becomes the theoretical model Martha utilizes to define the android Ash. Despite

Martha’s initial hopefulness in the technological potential to bring her boyfriend back 381

from death, her discovery of the truth of the true essence of the android Ash reveals itself as the cause of an emotional quandary and a sentimental predicament that leave her in an insoluble dilemma. In Martha’s struggle to come to terms with the existence of the android Ash, we catch a final glimpse of why she behaves the way she behaves. That she chooses to believe that the android Ash is never a person and is much less than her dead boyfriend says much about the influence of a technology/human dichotomy on the construction of social and cultural reality. This speculative narrative admonishes that humans and their modernist ways of perceiving technology must change and this admonition rests in part on a nonmodern belief that humanity can avoid what happened to

Martha when it accumulates empathetic attitudes toward the nonhuman technological other.

As the digital era imbues data with agency and even ever greater capacity to act and to transform the reality, we must reconsider our practices of looking at technology so that we can cultivate a moral virtue that allows us to be compassionate with technology rather than diabolizing it when it does not act the way we expect it to. Lest we do so, we unthinkingly and uncritically suffer in the exact same way that Martha does in “Be Right

Back.”

382

Chapter 10: Conclusion and Outlook: Toward an Empathetic Techno/Human

Future

If only we could all be so lucky as to have a savvy artist design our lofts, our

homes, our messaging packs! If only we all had the map sense to navigate in the

troubled times and places!

—Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble

This critical textual analysis project has focused on how Black Mirror takes as its central theme the interconnectedness between technology and the human for telling speculative stories that set up and construct hypothetical scenarios about what it means to be human in this contemporary digitally integrated and technologically advanced epoch.

In complex, compelling, and captivating storytelling, each episode articulates both the outcomes linked to the way in which human daily existence is vastly entangled with technology and the way in which this entanglement comes to evoke a sense of uneasiness and a feeling of restiveness associated with uncertainties about the future. Not all the narratives hold a rosy view, or paint an optimistic picture, of this technology and human relationship.

Deliberatively provocative, the majority of this science fiction television program’s selected narratives demonstrate that a technologically sophisticated society is not without its own problems because humankind can never know for sure the extent to which technology would transform human nature. Black Mirror thus challenges the naïve idea that technology is merely a tool developed to serve humanity. In the light of this observation, I conducted a textual analysis of Black Mirror to make a point that 383

technology has always had a tremendous impact on how humanity comes to understand itself and make sense of its existence.

Posthumanism urges us to be innovative in our practices of looking at the world, of experiencing our realities, and of constructing our imaginaries (Braidotti, 2013). From the perspective of posthumanism, conceptual revisions and theoretical modifications to humanist thinking can be accomplished by first rearticulating the ontology of humanity.

That is, humans evidently need to reconsider their self-proclaimed conception that they are innately unique and are more superior to nonhumans. By extension, posthumanism proposes to problematize a humanist intent to only imbue humanity with agency to dominate, give orders to, and oppress the nonhuman other. What this posthumanist agenda hopes to achieve in this context is most certainly to propagate the radical idea that both technology and humans are active actants, constantly weaving themselves into network(s) that hold(s) them both accountable for issues related to ethics, morality, and value (Latour, 1996).

Consistent with this view, I aimed to analyze a selection of ten Black Mirror episodes to call particular attention to the tension between the embeddedness of technology and humans—that is, the way that humans utilize technology is always within the scope of the capability of technology, which is to say that technology places constraints on how it can be utilized. All ten episodes articulate this discourse by addressing intricacies of the complication of the entanglement of human intention and technological potential in the construction of reality, but in different ways. Rhetorically, they communicate lessons for thinking with and through this complication to envision 384

better options for technology and humans to co-exist more compatibly, those that would do justice to them both without overvaluing one or undervaluing the other.

It would be critically mandatory to emphasize that technology and humans both are invested with agency so entangled that they come to mutually constitute the materialization of reality through the intra-action of their two co-constituent subject positions and other discourses (Barad, 2007). Hence, I regarded this study as a platform by which to investigate the symbiotically entangled nature of technology and humans and its ongoing manifestation in the lives of the characters in ten episodes of Black Mirror.

The ten narratives are evidently suffused with themes and tropes addressing this issue. I thus posed two research questions to help guide my analysis in this project: 1) How does

Black Mirror, as a science fiction television program, depict the symbiotic relationship between technology and humans? 2) How does Black Mirror articulate posthuman subjects? More specifically, I deployed narrative rhetorical criticism and the method of articulation to conduct a textual analysis of the selected episodes to answer the two research questions as well as to pursue the learning objectives of this study. I juxtaposed the ten narratives and then organized them in relations to the common themes that they share in the five analysis chapters.

Rather than providing a detailed summary for each of the analysis chapters, I use the two research questions as signposts to offer a synthesis of the findings regarding my textual analysis in this project. Inspired by a call to embrace cyborg writing proposed by

Donna J. Haraway (1991), I consider this final chapter as a critical space to piece together the five main themes I uncovered in this dissertation into one cohesive and connective 385

sinew. Here is my intention to account and (re)account, to link and (re)link, and to tell and (re)tell the ten selected narratives about be(com)ing posthuman that Black Mirror capably creates as well as to demonstrate powerful messages and moral lessons that it communicates to its viewers. I therefore ask: what then has been achieved in this dissertation?

The Symbiotic Relationship between Technology and Humans: The Kernel of a Co-

Constructed Reality in the Digital Age

A fundamental recognition that technology and humans are tightly interwoven has been a wellspring of conceptual, discursive, ideological, and rhetorical materials Black

Mirror utilizes in order to articulate the prismatic spectrum of its visions of social reality and lived sociality in a technologically integrated and digitally infiltrated milieu. In each of the ten episodes analyzed in this dissertation, the narrative intimates that technology and humans both co-exist and co-evolve and that this co-existence and this co-evolution are testament to the structural fact that there can be no technology without humans and, at the same time, there can be no human progress without technology. In accepting this stance, the crux of my argument is that what Black Mirror has accomplished narratively in this selection of ten episodes is that this science fiction television program shines a spotlight on the profound ways in which technology and humans both have co- constitutive parts in defining the meaning of being human today. No matter how much humanity wants to view itself as the sole agent that can dictate the condition of its existence and persists to battle over its centrality in controlling this reality, the presence of technology has never gone unnoticed. 386

Seen in this light, it is not surprising that in “Fifteen Million Merits” and

“Nosedive,” both of the protagonists, Bing Madsen and Lacie Pound, are rendered alienated from their own realities not simply because of technological influences on the mechanisms of their societies. Rather the true cause of their personal state of alienation rests in a combination of these components: the exploitation of technology by the ruling class and the kind of technological innovations that, in turn, make it possible for the ruling class to do so.

“The Entire History of You,” “Be Right Back,” and “Arkangel” all rely on the concept of the cyborg to illuminate how technology and the human intra-act in such co- constitutive manners that to fully grasp what these characters come to experience in each episode requires an acknowledgment of a motley assortment of such intra-action. In quintessentially epitomizing intermixed machine/organism bodies, Liam Foxwell, Stripe

Koinange, and Sara Sambrell prove to be powerful explanatory figures that can help illustrate the interconnected disposition of technology and the human as well as the way in which this interconnectedness comes to drastically transform the humanist ideal of personhood.

In reckoning the notion that technology and humans relate symbiotically, “USS

Callister” and “Striking Vipers” provide a distinctive vantage point from which to interrogate, in their own radical ways, the verity of the humanist claim about a unified and fixed human subject and to illuminate the transformative power of cyberspace to destabilize and rearticulate the human category. Whereas the protagonist Robert Daly deems virtual reality as a space to enact his misanthropic and misogynistic tendency, the 387

two main characters, Danny Parker and Karl Houghton, consider this technology as one that would allow them to live out their non-heteronormative fantasy. Despite the difference in how these episodes approach cyberspace, what is remarkable about their respective narratives is a shared implication: cyberworlds are co-created by technology and humans.

The technology/human relationality is further explored in “San Junipero” and

“Black Museum,” both of which evidently center their narratives on the question of virtual immortality. While the two female protagonists, Kelly and Yorkie, seem to believe in technological potentials for the greater good, the villain, Rolo Haynes, seems to believe in the opposite. Unpacking the dynamics of the relation between technology and the human in the pursuit of an answer to this question in these storylines uncovers one important theme: a transhumanist intent to utilize technology as a tool to achieve immortality. It is in this transhumanist belief that we can see more clearly an asymmetry between technology and the human in constructing reality, thereby privileging the latter, which then perpetuates a continued viewpoint that technological developments are to be utilized for anthropocentric purposes. Nevertheless, when one challenges this quotidian vision and broadens it to embrace the idea that technology and humans mutually influence one another, the reality that these characters come to see it for itself can look rather much different.

Finally, when “Be Right Back” attends to the possibility of exploiting data to recreate a person, its narrative pushes the understanding of this symbiotic relationship between technology and humans one step further. Initially, Martha Starmer is hopeful in 388

the prospect of resurrecting her boyfriend through technological methods. Yet later she comes to suffer because she naively deems the android Ash as her dead boyfriend reincarnated. Had she understood that the android Ash is its own subject, then she would have suffered less. And had she understood that technology is agential and relational, then she would never have interacted with the android Ash the way she would have done in the episode.

Rhetorically, all ten narratives articulate a vision of reality as co-created through an intra-action of technology and humans and suggest that to fully understand what it means to be human today demands the need to acknowledge that technology and humans are both actants on an equal footing in the meaning-making process of this reality. To note that technology is neutral such that it is the human to be held responsible for the catastrophic events and to draw consequences from this discovery is quite a problematic and narrow-sighted matter. For this practice would mean that technology is merely object created to serve the human, which could also produce a discourse that continually grants disproportionate weight in favor of humanity and against technology regarding how reality is constructed and perceived. Ultimately, I assert that this discursive formation suffices to give a certain degree of verisimilitude to the humanist doctrine that views the human subject the most important being to ever exist on the planet and to have the power to determine the fate of the nonhuman. But the selected ten episodes have certainly indicated otherwise. All told, they convey a rhetorical message within the narrative that demonstrates that technology and humans exist relationally and that the future of humanity rests in the belief that both technology and humans have agency. 389

The Articulations of Posthuman Subjects: Five Shades of Be(com)ing Posthuman

One of the most principle themes concerning posthumanism is technology. Black

Mirror’s colloquially complex speculative tales of technology’s remarkably transformative capacity for (re)constituting and (re)sketching the human condition introduce us with potential possibilities for discussions of the coming-into-existence of posthuman subjects. And the ten episodes take a provocative and serious approach to human nature, emphasizing the ineluctable development of the posthuman condition humanity finds itself in and the resulting transformation of what it means to be human in the digital age. As argued above, technology does something to human nature rather than being a bystander or an insignificant presence that holds no impact on molding how humanity comes to understand the meaning of its existence. And again, the ten episodes come to position technological capability for (re)shaping and (re)configuring the rudiment of human behavior at the equal footing with that of humanity itself.

Based on this observation, the implications of capitalizing on the kind of narrative becomes quite straightforward—that is, they add a more nuanced ontological dimension to the conceptual and theoretical model that can be utilized to examine posthuman nature.

So what is needed is to pay more attention to the functions of technology on redefining human nature without resorting to the intellectual practice endorsed by humanism that refuses to see that technology is agential, which then comes to widen epistemic fissures and paradigmatic rifts erected by this humanist tradition that can overtly complicate how the posthuman subject comes into being and can overly downplay radical options to deconstruct and transgress categorical boundaries. 390

In solidly grounding this dissertation in a post-anthropocentric and post-dualistic approach (Ferrando, 2018), I recognize the impact of the above epistemic fissures and paradigmatic rifts and why it is difficult to challenge a tenaciously damning intent that insists on thinking about the human subject as one that is utterly closed from the influences by the nonhuman other. Only humans can form relations and only humans can be imbued with agency. But this approach to comprehend the world and to construct reality proves to be clearly deficient in fully capturing posthuman nature. That is, I argue for a reconceptualization of the notion of relations. In other words, an understanding of relations need not have at its roots the assumption that they are only created by, between, and through human subjects. Instead I assert that the human and the nonhuman can build meaningful relations. Once we see relations in this radically transformative light, we can appreciate Black Mirror much better. For this science fiction television program comes to articulate posthuman nature in its most complexified sense and raises fundamental questions about whether a humanist logic remains sufficient enough to be applied to make sense of the characters in the selected episodes.

Across its narrative spectrum, then, Black Mirror decentralizes the validity of the human category in its articulations of the majority of the protagonists. In fact, it introduces a reiteration of distinctive posthuman subjects. A few words should be said about this idea. “Fifteen Million Merits” and “Nosedive” position the protagonists Bing and Lacie respectively as alienated subjects that would clearly never fit into the human category. They are human but not truly human. Rather they are posthuman subjects who are victims to technologically advanced social systems that imprison them mentally to the 391

extent that they can never think for themselves or they can do whatever they want. “The

Entire History of You,” “Be Right Back,” and “Arkangel” depict Liam Foxwell, Stripe

Koinange, and Sara Sambrell as cyborgs but ones with subjectivities not of their own respectively. Robert Daly in “USS Callister” and both Danny Parker and Karl Houghton in “Striking Vipers” all have their subjectivities and selves fractured thanks to their participation in cyberspace. Whereas “San Junipero” and “Black Museum” both have characters that can never be defined as human or as unitary selves, “Be Right Back” introduces the android Ash that of course is never human according to Martha.

Juxtaposed, these characters come to represent variegated shades and complicated aspects of be(com)ing posthuman subjects in this digital age. And when placed together, these characters give weight to the idea that posthuman nature is permanently marked by the act of categorical transgression.

Collectively across all ten episodes, because their posthuman subjects come into being at the intra-action of technology and humans, they then serve as fodder for potential possibilities of contemplating whether the modernist habit, one that Latour

(1993) vocalizes his critique against, remains acceptable to think about these posthuman subjects. By extension, the ten episodes utilize all of these characters narratively as a rhetorical vehicle to challenge the categorical rigidity that has an enduring legacy on how reality is constructed and structured. Perhaps surprisingly to viewers then, they do more than just merely offer cautionary tales about the extent to which digital technology can make the protagonists, as articulated in the ten episodes, less human. Such narratives rhetorically problematize the humanist practice that typically depends on rigidly 392

demarcated categories to understand reality and subsequently articulate a distinctive and improved epistemology of the nature of existence, one that is no longer human but instead posthuman. And this posthuman existence is likely to be leaky and messy in a sense that it can never be easily captured through dualisms and binaries. But it is this leakiness and this messiness that make it possible to wholly elucidate how all of the main characters come into existence. For they can never be human because they emerge when technology and humans intra-act. To that end, they can never fit into the conceptually airtight category of the human which lacks a kind of openness that can account for the hybridity of their ontological nature. In retrospect, Black Mirror’s narrative vision for these posthuman subjects is evidently prescient because they are articulated as those that are co-constituted by both technology and humans, in particular the symbiotic relationship between these networked actants.

Notes on Black Mirror as a Science Fiction Television Program on Netflix

Black Mirror numbers among those televisual programs that quintessentially constitute the contemporary science fiction television terrain. Tryon (2008) deems narrative complexity the important aspect that differentiates science fiction from other television genres. My textual analysis of a motley assortment of ten episodes demonstrated that Black Mirror is a clear example of exactly that. All ten episodes that are selected for this dissertation have in and of themselves a kind of narrative that makes us think and demands us to reflect on our human nature and how our interaction with digital technology comes to transform how we perceive our reality and how we live our life today. 393

Black Mirror has a philosophical undertone. According to Johnson, Marquez, and

Urueña (2020), “When you watch Black Mirror, you’re watching a dark reflection of society – one that is just slightly cracked – that depicts our flaws, our fears, and our possible future” (p. 3). They reiterate this point, asserting that “When we watch Black

Mirror, we always feel as though it has a philosophical point. It’s asking a question. It has a moral. But it’s not always transparent” (p. 6). Thus, Black Mirror attends to a philosophical hodgepodge of themes that are both timely and invigorating. For instance,

Gamez and Johnson (2020) investigate how Black Mirror tackles artificial consciousness while Gardner and Sloane (2020) highlight its unorthodox approach to the concept of personal identity in this digital age. Mortality is another theme that Black Mirror calls attention to (Pérez & Genovesi, 2020). And Price (2020) takes notice of the frequency that Irma Thomas’s song “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is” is used in many episodes of Black Mirror to discuss the notion of love among some characters. Other scholars have stated that “Black Mirror is The Twilight Zone of the twenty-first century […] a philosophical classic that echoes the angst of an era” (Cirucci & Vacker, 2018, p. vii).

Therefore, it is not wrong to contend that all of these thematic layers come to solidify the status of Black Mirror as one that can be unequivocally regarded to illustrate this aspect of narrative complexity associated with science fiction television genre.

Besides, being produced and broadcast on Netflix has its advantages. The online streaming service clearly endows Charlie Brooker with more freedom to develop narratives that may be considered inappropriate for mainstream audiences on traditional television channels. Further, the fact that Netflix secures freedom from pressure to retain 394

high viewership comes to be an important component that certainly guarantees the production of Black Mirror in the future. For being an anthology program has a history of being short-lived and “it is Netflix’s rejection of traditional broadcast patterns in favour of one dictated by audiences increasing demands for original content that means Black

Mirror’s anthology format is particularly well-suited to the streaming platform”

(McSweeney & Joy, p. 8-9). Given these advantages, it is understandable why Charlie

Brooker explicitly admits in an interview that it is with Netflix as its distribution platform that Black Mirror has better chances to address social topics and to present cultural issues regarding the technology/human relationship (Plunkett, 2015).

In sum, it is clear from my investigation that online streaming services, such as

Netflix, can allow for the production of quality science fiction television program that may bypass commercial conditions and may thereby occupy a market that can enable the development of narratives, which articulate, depict and represent posthuman subjects with protean complexities, with kaleidoscopic nuances, and with multifarious versatility.

I contend that Black Mirror’s success as a quality science fiction television program may have stemmed from a combination of the following two important factors: first, an entertaining, albeit serious, attention to composite narrative structures and a weighty, albeit lighthearted, emphasis on multiplex storytelling techniques and, second, a creative autonomy, provided by Netflix, which enables Charlie Brooker and his team to dodge censorship associated with traditional mainstream television to experiment with content and to explore themes they think that their viewers may find engrossing, interesting and stimulating. 395

Limitations and Future Research

It would be of significant importance to acknowledge that of course no studies can be satisfactorily completed without researchers noticing a set of limitations that may bring about the latent constraints that they may have overlooked. And this study is no exception. In fact, this research was limited in the following key points.

First, predicating the analysis on the posthumanist theoretical framework presents itself as one possible limitation. Posthumanism endorses a set of core ideas that facilitate the potentialities of taking apart dualistic and binary categories such that varied forms of assemblages of distinctive actors can be allowed the occasion to come into being. With an intent to engage with the posthumanist theoretical framework to explore this kind of hybrid subjects as depicted in Black Mirror, I only selected ten episodes for the study, which contain themes that I deemed most visible and most salient under the posthumanist theoretical model, which may delimit the scope of my analysis because I may overlook and may bypass other important themes addressed in the narratives of the excluded episodes, such as surveillance, punishment, retributive justice, vigilance and so on.

Further, as a critical textual analysis project, its focal objective was to examine the narratives of Black Mirror. To that end, I did not investigate how the audience may decode and may make sense of this meditated text, making it the second limitation of this dissertation.

In addition, situating this project within the qualitative paradigm can act as one of the limitations because doing so foregrounds and makes explicit my subjectivity as a researcher, which, in turn, means that my personal biases and sometimes prejudices can 396

never be avoided. Lastly, I recognize that Black Mirror is in and of itself a work of television fiction, which then means that both the findings and my conclusion remains speculative.

Given the above limitations, future research may look at the audience’s reception of Black Mirror. Such an investigation toward the ways that this quality science fiction television program is received and understood can, therefore, illustrate why and how the program can speak directly to viewers. Why do they decide to watch the program? How do they make sense of the program? Future research can also consider the program’s aesthetics as well as structures in order to show in what ways Black Mirror captures the audience’s attention in the first place. How are images, frames, or technical apparatuses utilized to construct visual representations of the program? Finally, future research can investigate the production side of the program by interviewing its producers, which can reveal what motivate and inspire their decision to select certain themes, adding another dimension to its alleged success as a quality science fiction television program during this contemporary post-network era.

Coda

To come full circle, in my view, Black Mirror does what science fiction television does best: pushing the boundaries of the quotidian conventions regarding the understanding of humanity. It is a presentiment of hypothetical scenarios and speculative events that humanity may find itself encounter in the digital age. It delineates a critical moment that recognizes that technology is profoundly entangled and is deeply entwined in everyday life. 397

Black Mirror’s timely presentations of themes and tropes, together with its strategic capitalization of plot twist in its narratives, thus secure its engrossing popularity with contemporary viewers. In other words, this quality science fiction television program says far more about the symbiotic nature between technology and the human as well as their intimate interaction, both of which may generate unintended consequences, than about laying the blame for humanity’s bleak future and catastrophic outcomes at the feet of technology.

Recent scholarly publications on Black Mirror have recognized the complexity of how this program approaches the interconnectedness of technology and the human and how it allows this interconnectedness to play out at the end of each episode. Take, for instance, the argument by Terence McSweeney and Stuart Joy in the 2019 edited book, titled Through the Black Mirror, that “perhaps the greatest thing that [viewers] should fear is not technology but rather themselves” (p. 5). Then compare it with the contention by Angela M. Cirucci and Barry Vacker, editors of the 2018 Black Mirror and Critical

Media Theory book that “The only ones who can save us are ourselves on planet Earth as we confront the existential conditions and dystopian futures of The Twilight Zone and

Black Mirror” (p. 249). And then contrast them with the claim by Geoffrey A. Mitelman in the concluding chapter of the 2020 Black Mirror and Philosophy edited book that

“[this science fiction television program] is truly about how fragile and imperfect humans are grappling with an ever-changing world and trying to keep up” (p. 336). When we add them together, we then have an equation, evidently directing us toward a future of ethical uncertainties, of moral disquiets, and of existential conundrums. A techno/human future 398

that requires us to contemplate carefully, to ponder mindfully, and to reflect prudently upon how technology and the human come to mutually influence the existence of one another, thereby co-constructing the condition of their reality.

To anticipate what this techno/human future may have in store for humankind may necessitate a kind of posthumanist ethics that can allow them to take into account technology’s agential capacity to transform how they see themselves and how their state of be(com)ing rests not entirely in their own hands but in the technological other as well.

In doing so, humanity can dismiss the modernist idea that technology and the human should always be considered two separate entities that constitute a set of a duality that can never come together. Rather than regarding technology and the human as occupying one distinctive dialectical pole each that brings about discursive formations about existence, life, and reality, this posthumanist ethics then endorses the ideal that embraces the intermixing between the two to produce hybrid subjects. To that end, how this techno/human future will roll out will definitely depend on how the human shapes technology and how technology simultaneously reshapes the human. A true sea change in how humanity envisions this techno/human future, therefore, has its roots in part in a recognition of the co-existence of technology and the human, in a belief that they need one another to thrive, and in a posthumanist ideal that renders them both equally important in the process of sketching out the ineluctable posthuman condition embedded within the digital epoch.

An awareness of continuing synergistic intra-actions of technology and humans in the contemporary era inspires and galvanizes this dissertation. I began it as an 399

experimental entrance to the one particular perennial question that has always been in the back of the mind of perhaps each human being, and myself included: what exactly does it mean to be human? In particular, what does the notion of being a human truly mean in the digital age? And nowhere can we find more ideas, more evidence, and more materials that address this everlasting and vital question than in the realm of science fiction television. In envisioning possible alternative new worlds, Black Mirror does exactly that and even does much better.

Thanks to its complex and compelling speculative narratives that introduce a variety of posthuman subjects, this quality science fiction television program comes to challenge a humanist intent to foreground the imperviousness of the human category, one that is immune to contamination and infection by the nonhuman. Today, this disparaging intent has lost its value. For the human category is cut open and gets exposed to the possibility of being infected by and merging with the other, be it the technological or the artificial or the mechanic or the nonhuman.

In a nutshell, a varied array of captivating stories, coupled with distinctive storytelling practices, allows Black Mirror to bring to the fore the idea that categorical boundaries as a concept to order sociality and to structure reality have never been closed, fixed or stable. Rather, they have always been penetrable, perforated, and porous.

Everything considered, I now end this project with this one general observation: it is a thing of the past to uphold an ongoing humanist and modernist legacy that demarcates the human from the technological. For, in this digital age, it seems that only the techno/human comes to matter. The techno/human subject that is unapologetically 400

cyborg, hybrid, and posthuman. And the techno/human subject that refuses to be categorically unadulterated and pure.

By way of concluding, I would like to quote how Donna J. Haraway responds to the question about her seminal “A Cyborg Manifesto” essay in an interview with Cary

Wolfe in the 2016 book, titled Manifestly Haraway:

The manifesto caused immediate controversy at SR [Socialist Review], and it

caused immediate controversy within feminisms of many kinds, not least because

it adamantly refused an anti-science-and-technology stance or vocabulary. My

cyborg would have none of that, but it also refused to be a blissed-out

technobunny. It refused a nothing-but-critique approach to the vast things that the

heavens know needed serious critique (and still do). The nothing-but-critique

approach was a temptation in some crucial domains of feminism and New Left

socialism. The “Cyborg Manifesto” was a deliberate in-your-face NO to that

relation to science and technology, and that caused controversy from the get-go.

(p. 211)

A few decades ago, it was this figure of cyborg that stirred controversy and that demanded the adoption of a new ontology. Today, it is the figure of the posthuman techno/human subject, as articulated within the narrative of Black Mirror, that continues the enduring legacy of the cyborg that Haraway had vehemently advocated.

401

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Appendix: List of the Titles of Black Mirror

Season Episode Title Network Date

1 1 The National Anthem Channel 4 4 December 2011

1 2 Fifteen Million Merits Channel 4 11 December 2011

1 3 The Entire History of You Channel 4 18 December 2011

2 1 Be Right Back Channel 4 11 February 2013

2 2 White Bear Channel 4 18 February 2013

2 3 The Waldo Moment Channel 4 25 February 2013

Special White Christmas Channel 4 16 December 2014

3 1 Nosedive Netflix 21 October 2016

3 2 Playtest Netflix 21 October 2016

3 3 Shut Up and Dance Netflix 21 October 2016

3 4 San Junipero Netflix 21 October 2016

3 5 Me Against Fire Netflix 21 October 2016

3 6 Hated in the Nation Netflix 21 October 2016

4 1 USS Callister Netflix 29 December 2017

4 2 Arkangel Netflix 29 December 2017

4 3 Crocodile Netflix 29 December 2017

4 4 Hang the DJ Netflix 29 December 2017

4 5 Metalhead Netflix 29 December 2017

4 6 Black Museum Netflix 29 December 2017

Interactive Film Bandersnatch Netflix 28 December 2018

5 1 Striking Vipers Netflix 5 June 2019

447

5 2 Smithereens Netflix 5 June 2019

5 3 Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too Netflix 5 June 2019

448

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