Feminist rights and movements have been put on everyone’s tongue lately. This is why I will do a feminist analysis of the 2015 science-fiction film Ex Machina starring Alicia Vikander as Ava and Domhall Gleeson as Caleb.
To put you into context, if you haven’t seen the film already (which I highly recommand) the story is centred in a not so distant future, the film follows a computer programmer who is invited by his company’s CEO, Nathan (Oscar Isaac) to come and visit him. Without knowing that the real reason for his invitation is to perform the Turing test which experiments if human behaviour and feelings can be emitted by an A.I (artificial intelligence). The subject of the test is Ava, a very seductive robot woman designed by Nathan.
The fact that Nathan acts as a god or even as a woman for having the possibility of creating life with the help of science (this reminds me of Frankenstein) adds to the feminist point of view of this genre and to Ava’s seclusion to the rest of the world. As Virginia Woolf explains in A Room of One’s Own, women have always been boxed and put away by society to make them feel less than they are, as a reason of not giving them a chance to succeed in the world. The end of Ex Machina totally contradicts Woolf’s accusation and empowers her feminist views when Ava manages to fight against her creator and find her place. This can also be a parallel of the parcour women had to go through to fight for their place in society in order to be equal to men. Her name Ava, may also suggest Eve from the Bible. The only woman who was made from the ribs of Adam and was expulsed out of the garden of Eden, with Adam. Like I said earlier, Nathan meticulously designs Ava and admits to have been inspired by Caleb’s pornography profil for him to easily find her attractive and develop feelings for her.
Kyoto is another character that I would like to talk about since she is the other female in the film. Unlike Ava, Kyoto cannot speak. Nathan did not give her that characteristic as he did with Ava. She is also uniquely made for his sexual pleasure as she is his servant gets physically abused . This depicts a patriarcal approach to women in society. She is also the only non-caucasian in the film, this is a direct link to the role of marginalized women in society and the lack of opportunity society gives them due to their race.
These were my reasons why Ex Machina is a science-fiction feminist movie that you guys should watch. If ever you want to feel a moment of #womanpower at the end of a film, this is the choice for you.
Here’s the trailer:
Maude
Mauracia 