Cinema transformed from a tool to display attractions to a medium to express feelings in which directors convey their opinions and ideas. Therefore, political and social events around the world started to become subjects for more and more films. Encapsulating the society’s ideologies and myths, films became a potent means for manipulation and for reinforcing the society’s norms and values. However, for the directors themselves, films soon transformed in artistic works in which they could use subversive techniques in order to question and to critique agents of power. The 2010 Hindi film “Robot” and the Korean film “The Host” which was released in 2006 will be analyzed in this paper in order to understand how non-human characters like cyborgs and monsters create political and social allegories. In these films, digital ontology is used to create images that discretely reveal the realities that the global-oriented corporate cinema tries so hard to conceal in order to reshape our geopolitical reality according to their needs.
Monsters have been long used by literature and the cinema in order to represent, allegorically, the social and political realities that the corporations and the state would like to hide. As Jeon shows in his article, “from Grendel to Frankenstein’s monster to Godzilla, one strategy that literature and cinema have often returned to is the monster that figures an everyday or ordinary social problem in terms that are distinctly out of the ordinary” (88). In contemporary cinema, non-human entities have diversified and typically suggest to viewers that in the postmodern world, capitalism, race relations, feminine empowerment, and immigration are deeply embodied in the public discourse, and need to be carefully examined and discussed.
In the contemporary society, robots, cyborgs and otherwise digitalized or technologically enhanced entities are used by filmmakers in order to create images which struggle for survival, recognition or justice, in a postmodern world where capitalist forces or tyrannical leaders enchain humans. Therefore, as a representative of the same forces of corporatism which created them, robots and cyborgs are ambiguous characters, being on the one hand, used to send powerful messages of condemnation for the faults of the current political and social problems that threaten societies, and on the other hand, illustrating the magnificence of technological progress, regardless of how dark the forces of progress are.
Directed by Bong Joon-ho, “The Host” is a Korean Sci-Fi horror which tells the story of a biological hazard that gives birth to a monstrous and maleficent creature. The monster has emerged as a result of military neglect after a military pathologist orders the dumping of a dangerous substance into the Han River. Years later, an evil amphibian creature emerges from the river and threatens the safety of Seoul citizens. Narrated from the point of view of a family which lost a daughter to the monster, the film tackles complex issues, such as environmental responsibility, female victimization, and more importantly, US hegemony in Korea (Jeon 88). Even though Korea has been an ally for the U.S for decades, the powerful country has been a threat to the sovereignty of the newly formed republic, while also being a safety net against the threat of communism.
The capitalist orientation has favored American businesses which ventured in Korea, in the detriment of local businesses, thus expanding the gap between the rich and the poor, but also increasing the power of the corporations and of the state, while minimizing the power of the people. As Jeon shows, “IMF restructuring accelerated already nascent neoliberal reforms in Korea, encouraged a turn to financialization, ended the protectionist developmental state, and established conditions that were extremely favorable for American investment capital at the expense of Korean middle- and lower-class workers”( 89). The monster thus represents an allegory of US military (Jeon 88). However, it may be argued that the monster also represents the threat of international corporations, whose impact in the country is devastating, leaving people unable to react, and destroying the lives of those it touches.
Technology has always worked more in favor of the state and the military, than in favor of the people. This idea is expressed in “Robot”, a film produced by Indian cinema, under the direction of S Shankar. In this film, a team of researchers manage to create an android for the Indian army. His creator tries to make it more humane, by incorporating emotions into the design, and at this point, the android purposefully fails the test, after being rejected in a romantic pursuit. Completely perverted by a ruthless entrepreneur into a killing machine, Chitti becomes the leader of an android army, which takes down the army and causes chaos into the city.
Thus, in this film also, the android is perceived as a potentially useful technological tool, which proves instead to be a danger for the society. When the android become more humane, as a result of neural programming, it fails the tests on purpose, thus making his creator’s efforts meaningless. This represents a powerful stand against its abuse by those in power. Therefore, by using a non-human entity, the filmmaker creates an allegory for the military abuses that often occurred in states where the power of the people is limited. In addition, while denying working for the military, the android reaches the hands of a villain, who uses him against the state. In this regard, Dr. Vaseegaran states that he cannot reveal the secret technology because “it can be easily misused” (Shankar). His line is a foreshadowing for the future events in the film.
However, as a representative of the digitized world, the cinema reveals its own weaknesses through this film. As Jeon shows in this respect, Sci-Fi films can reveal “the radical complicities and genealogies of digital representation that cinema shares with contemporary military and financial technologies” (89). Therefore, similarly to the military and financial technologies, the cinema also uses technology not only to pursuit financial interests, but also to manipulate the viewers which then willingly become engaged in, and can easily be convinced by, the ideologies comprised in these films. This subversive strategy of the filmmaker thus challenges the corporate world of cinema, while using its own technology in order to do so.
In “Robot”, Chitti is perceived first as a positive tool in the hands of the people who use it as anything from a maid, to a hero, or a killing machine. However, as soon as it becomes independent and stats having an emotional life, Chitti becomes difficult to control. Furthermore, it can be easily manipulated to turn against the authorities. This trajectory is compatible with the trend of the past century of representing machines as a danger for authentic life. As Jeon explains, “the allegorical CGI monsters in these films thus function as a point of contact and collusion between the inhuman, machinic apparatus that pervades today’s control technologies and human life (89). However, it is worth noting that in “Robot”, Chitti is used by various human forces and that, as a machine, it is perceived as neutral, able to perform good and evil deeds depending on its ‘programming’.
However, at a deeper level, Chitti is also a representative of the subdued Indian citizens, who are also socialized to obey the laws, and the state. At the end of the film, while questioning why it had been dismantled, Chitti answers, “I started to think”. This suggests that the state favors a population of passive citizens, who do not stop to think for themselves, and ingest the information offered by the state, and by the media. From this point of view, this film is also correlated with “The Host”, where the people are also encouraged to allow the government to think for them.
Therefore, in “The Host”, the monstrous creature is an allegory for the U.S. hegemony, in Korea, and the destruction it creates. It also represents an allegory for the problems and chaos created by the corporations which are protected by the state, to the detriment of the people. On the other hand, in “Robot”, Chitti is a technological product which can be used to create chaos and destruction, but also, it represents an allegory for the tragedy of the citizen of the contemporary consumerist society, which is valuable for the state as long as it does not think. In both of these productions, the filmmakers discreetly rebel against the power of corporate cinema by creating allegories for issues that cannot be openly discussed, in a world dominated by financial forces.
Works Cited
Jeon, Joseph Jonghyun. “Neoliberal Forms: CGI, Algorithm, and Hegemony in Korea’s IMF Cinema”. Representations 126(2014): 85-111.
Robot. Dir. S. Shankar. Perf. Rajinikanth, Aishwarya Ray. Sun Pictures. 2010. Film.
The Host. Dir. Bong Joon-Ho, Perf. Song Kang-ho. Showbox. 2006. Film.
