When I first started reading Harry Potter I was about 13, and I grew up with the books in a way. The petty rivalries and teenage miseries spoke to me. Of course, the delightful world of magic did, too.
I am rereading the Harry Potter series as an adult and while I still enjoy them, perhaps even more than I did as a kid, there are somethings my heartless adolescent self did not pick up on. Continue reading Thoughts on Harry Potter Now that I Am Grown
Whenever I come across an android in movies, novels, or anime, there seems to be a disquieting amount of comfort surrounding the existence of female androids. Male androids get the heartrending or thought provoking stories of being almost human, of trying to discover themselves and what it means to be human and yet not. Think of Roy Batty in Bladerunner, David in A.I., David in Prometheus – these are characters that are unsettlingly human in a way that is disruptive to the society that made them. These characters are also all white and perceived as male.
Female androids seems to slip pretty comfortably into societal expectations – female as housekeeper or maid, female as pleasantly helpful organizer of information (a sort of housekeeper for business), female as prostitute. If these fem-androids aren’t satisfied with their role as servants to humans, they often act out in ways that are typical narrative templates for women behaving badly. Continue reading Why Are We More Comfortable When Robots Have Boobs?
