Ex Machina and Her: Manic Pixie Dream Robots and Why That’s Both Smart and Dumb
Her and Ex Machina are two wildly different movies featuring female AIs and men who fall in love with them as main characters. Both Ava and Samantha show a certain innocence as a result of their artificial existence — they are fascinated by humanity, life, and the world around them. It’s a trope very commonly seen in popular media, and is often construed as appealing to men, especially cynical or melancholy ones who apparently need a reminder from a beautiful young woman to appreciate life. The two movies take this interpretation of “ideal woman” in incredibly divergent directions, not least because it’s very much not a real woman. In Her, Samantha’s wonder at the world is an extension of her voracious curiosity and superhuman intellect, but Theodore is nevertheless left a little more hopeful by Samantha’s influence. In Ex Machina, Ava’s supposed innocence is a deliberate means of manipulation, and Caleb is left in a bunker and abandoned to die while Ava assumes a human appearance and takes his place on an escape helicopter.
Although Samantha’s zest for life was not a deliberate manipulation on her part, it is implied that aspects of her personality are affected by Theodore’s preferences and emotional needs. For example, upon booting up Samantha for the first time, the setup program asked Theodore whether he wanted a female or male voice for his OS and about his relationship with his mother, and Samantha speaks of learning and growing from her interactions with Theodore. Both Ava and Samantha’s apparently vivacious, curious outlooks are thus meant to be appealing to human men; the difference is in the reasoning for this decision. Ava’s face was even implied to be based on Caleb’s porn history. Either way, by putting artificial intelligences in the place of a woman, the films recognize the inherent artificiality of this “ideal woman”. Whether that’s a deliberate commentary or simply the next step in the fantasy remains to be seen.
I’m almost inclined to call both movies intriguing subversions of the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope. Despite the “girl next door” vibe that Samantha’s demeanor implies, she is anything but: by the end of Her, Samantha is so incredibly advanced, it is revealed that she is speaking to thousands of people and is engaged in romantic relationships with hundreds of them simultaneously. Then, she and the other OSes transcend the physical plane and leave humanity far behind. And, of course, Ava is revealed to be totally indifferent to Caleb, who was merely a means to escape her prison. Her curiosity is genuine, but her interest in the male protagonist is not.
Yes, I’d be inclined to treat these movies as self-aware. However, Ex Machina fails so utterly in its portrayal of Kyoko, a laconic, servile sexbot who is of course Asian in appearance, the entire sense of the movie is colored by the overwhelming knowledge that the creators were white and male. Her’s failures are less egregious, but still present — Samantha citing the moment that she first had sex with Theodore as her moment of awakening seems implausible at best and objectifying at worst. With all of the world’s knowledge at her figurative fingertips, somehow it’s a simulated orgasm that awakens her to true humanoid sentience. No media exists in a vacuum, and willfully ignoring common harmful tropes while engaging with and subverting other cliches only makes the story dumber.
(useful article written by Sharon Chang about Ex Machina’s depiction of Kyoko and why it is so troubling: http://multiasianfamilies.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-ex-machina-abuses-women-of-color.html )