In addition to occupying spaces that were once occupied by black bodies, stereotypes of blackness are another space androids fill.

One of the things that is peculiar to android representations is even though they generally appear sexed, they are often outside of the male/female gender binary.  This genderlessness is one of the motivations behind Haraway’s a Cyborg Manifesto, a text I find problematic because it comes so close to making the direct link between the cyborg body and the slave body but never actually does.

An  example of the undefined gender of the cyborg is Robby the Robot from the film Forbidden Planet.  Though the film came out in 1956, a time period we generally think of as attempting to maintain very clear gender roles,  Robbie is strong and powerful, has a masculine name, and a masculine voice, but Robby is also comfortable cooking, house keeping and making dresses. In fact, my first thought upon seeing Robby in the vehicle he/she wears to move around more quickly was Robbie is also comfortable in dresses.  While in many ways this gender non-conformity seems liberating, there is a downside.  Androids tend to occupy stereotypes often applied to both black men and women.  While Robbie clearly occupies some very mammy like characteristics, depicted in studio issued publicity stills as the menacing dark figure with the hero carrying the blonde female lead as the love interest of the heroine is aimed to kill.

There are two primary camps¹ we see Androids that interact with humans depicted in, the Violent Sexualized Android and the Mammy Android.

Violent/Sexualized Androids

Androids are able to be sexualized and sex crazed in a way that was historically associated with black bodies.  Specifically, in North America there

is a long history of allowing “whites to sexualize their world by projecting onto black bodies a narrative of sexualization disassociated from whiteness” (hooks 62).  This dissassociation eventually led to a direct association with sexual deviancy for black bodies.  From this we get the stereotypes of black women as the sex crazed Jezebel and the black male as the violent rapist.  While the image of Robby the robot holding the female lead illustrates the android version of this, the representations we have of females are often more sinister.  The two examples we see of the narrative of the black Jezebel existing in androids are the Fembots of Austin Power fame and Eve 8, in Eve of Destruction.  There are some exceptions of course.  Gigolo Joe from A.I. was not violent.  However, what all of these androids do have in common in their representations is an inability to reason outside of their built in need for intercourse with humans.  An interesting separation we have seen in the stereotype at large is, the violence disassociated from sex that then re-encodes the violent actors as an object of sexual fantasy and desire.  While Robby the Robot does not fit this articulation of the stereotype, the Fembots and Eve 8 do.

 

Male Mammies, Female Mammies

In opposition to the Violent Sexualized Androids, we see them portrayed as the ultimate traditional Mammy.  “THEY COULD BE BOTH JOLLY AND DIGNIFIED. BUT LIKE THEIR MOVIE PREDECESSORS, THEY TOO WERE STERILE, NEVER, NO CHILDREN BORN FROM THEIR WOMBS” (Jones 39, style in text). With Androids that act as Mammies, there is no fear of them every leaving their role.  Robby the Robot again is able to fill this role as we see him/her taking care of his/her family and following any order given.  However, there can never be another Robby born of Robby. Another example of this is Rosey the robot servant in the Jetson’s.   She too is sterile.  Her reason for being after the children and manage the house.  They are the sole property of their owners, owners who take credit for their creation and has the final say on if he gets to remain functional.

 

Reproduction

The discussion of Mammies

brings up another issue we see explored often in films, the problem of Android Reproduction and sterility.  As androids are sterile commodities, they exist only by human intervention bringing them into existence.  Even then, they are not reproduced until they are sold/purchased and put to work, a direct parallel to the enslavement of African slaves in the Americas.

One difference though is, as androids are more of a modern factory commodity, the reproduction is more controlled.  Their sterility means that even when the android is desired by humans, and indeed their is intercourse, reproduction is not an issue.  However, there is still a palatable fear of humans and androids mixing.  We see this illustrated in films such as Bladerunner and the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the book the movie is based on.  The fear of mixing creates the dilemma of the cyborg, the being that exists somewhere between Human and Android, and the fear that the android in the being might become nearly in-detectible, allowing the things to pass themselves off as human.  Further, the book does a wonderful job of exploring the parallels with slavery, something that is lost in the film.

 

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