In the film Ex Machina (Garland), a programmer, Caleb, is selected by his company’s CEO, Nathan, to evaluate the artificial intelligence (AI) called Ava. However, Ava is smart and deceptive that she slyly manipulates both men and flees from the experiment hub. Analyzing the film reveals how the supposed theme of ‘human versus AI’ can be the covert propaganda for male superiority. On the exterior, Ex Machina presents Ava as a humanoid, yet, Ava is more a physical embodiment and a metaphor of a woman rather than an AI, as it(she) is repeatedly shown through the lens of feminization. Through the projection of male superiority, the film subtly spreads patriarchal propaganda by mirroring the parallel relationship of human-to-AI and male-to-female.

Discourses on gender, especially the feminized and objectified AI of Ex Machina, have been discussed amongst scholars. For instance, according to Catherine Constable, Ava’s physique conforms with the traditional notion of beauty and femininity through “smallness of stature,” “breasts atop a transparent curving corset,” and “slenderness” (292). Constable reveals that the film’s demonstration of AI surpasses a mere android imitation; instead, in reality, it is a female human form (292). Besides Ava’s physique, Kyoko is also another parallel of a woman depicted in the movie, symbolizing passive, peripheral, and sexual female stereotypes. Perhaps at first glance, the film can be conceived as the consequences for humans due to artificial intelligence. However, the representation of AI in this film is deeply rooted in femininity, unintentionally but still firmly aggrandizing the preexisting norm of patriarchy.

The feminized conception of AI is visible through the film’s resemblance to the typical plotline for Hollywood’s representation of domestic violence (DV). Diane Shoos, the writer of Domestic Violence in Hollywood Film: Gaslighting, insists that the media portrays DV in a predictable narrative with a “hyperbolic notion” (qtd. in Sidortsova). She criticizes that the typical plot of the victim’s ultimate empowerment through murder (Shoos 28) and the monstrous depiction of the abuser (Shoos 159) is a false report—it can be one of the classic but ultimately an inaccurate representation. Although someone may be likable, respected, or even a great father, it does not discount the fact of their violence in the past. Shoos’ argument on plotlines exactly corresponds with that of Ex Machina, where the AI is feminized and abused. By stabbing and killing Nathan, Ava finally succeeds in escaping from the violent attacker; this is directly parallel to the typical plot of a DV film where the female victim is eventually able to stand up against the male abuser. The depiction of Nathan as a sexual and physical abuser —a monstrous villain—underscores that the human-to-AI relationship of the film is, in turn, identical to the one between male and female. Since the misrepresentation of abusers may lead to an incomplete understanding of DV, AI as an embodiment of an abused woman in Ex Machina reinforces the propaganda of gender hierarchy time and time again.

Assigning the AI’s gender as female alters the original relationship of human-to-AI to women-to-men. This ultimately reflects dystopian posthumanism, which refers to the strict division between humans and posthumans, according to Di Minico (68). She argues that the cause of the utopian relationship deficiency between men-women and humans-posthumans is partly due to the incomplete rejection of patriarchal boundaries (Di Minico 82). Ex Machina is an exemplar of Di Minico’s idea because the film ironically proposes Ava, a posthuman beyond human’s physical and intellectual limitations, in the context of human superiority. The anthropocentric view of the film further expands to male superiority through AI feminization, confirming the dystopia caused by lasting patriarchy, as Di Minico suggested. An incomplete rejection of patriarchy distorts posthumanism like Ex Machina in modern society. For example, the posthuman AI assistants developed by IT conglomerates having majority female voices verifies gender bias, says BBC (Wakefield). In the end, posthumanism, which has been ‘genderized’ through AI feminization, solidifies the gender hierarchy and reaffirms the propagation of patriarchy.

Ex Machina propagandizes male superiority by creating Ava not with a genderless identity but by assigning her as a woman. Being an AI that has been assigned female and is constantly confronted with patriarchy, markedly through the plot of domestic violence, makes it difficult to assert whether Ava is genuinely a posthuman if the gender hierarchy, one of the limitations to equality, is present. What should be noted here is that Ex Machina is not known as an explicit sexist movie. It rather received outstanding critic reviews and was selected as one of the top 20 AI movies from the Guardian (Hogan and Whitmore). However, the film functions as a product of patriarchy that circulates propaganda, ultimately implying its deep entrenchment in society, exerting influence without the audience noticing.

Works Cited

Constable, Catherine. “Surfaces of Science Fiction: Enacting Gender and “Humanness” in Ex 

Machina.” Film-Philosophy vol. 22, no. 2, 2018, pp. 281–301. Edinburgh University Press, doi:10.3366/film.2018.0077. Accessed 24 Oct. 2021.

Di Minico, Elisabetta. “Ex-Machina and the Feminine Body through Human and Posthuman 

Dystopia.” Ekphrasis vol. 17, no. 1, 2017, pp. 67-84, www.ekphrasisjournal.ro/docs/R1/17E5.pdf. Accessed 25 Oct. 2021.

Ex Machina. Directed by Alex Garland, performances by Alicia Vikander, Domhnall 

Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, and Sonoya Mizuno, A24, 2014.

Hogan, Michael and Whitmore, Greg. “The top 20 artificial intelligence films – in pictures.” 

The Guardian, 8 Jan. 2015, 

www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2015/jan/08/the-top-20-artificial-intelligence-films-in-pictures, Accessed in 24 Oct. 2021.

Shoos, Diane. Domestic Violence in Hollywood Film: Gaslighting, Palgrave Macmillan, 

2017.

Sidortsova, Stefanie. “Big Little Representations: How Hollywood Shapes Our Views of 

Domestic Violence.” Michigan Tech News, 3 Mar. 2018, 

www.mtu.edu/news/2018/03/big-little-representations-how-hollywood-shapes-our-views-of-domestic-violence.html, Accessed 24 Oct. 2021.

Wakefield, Jane. “Female-voice AI reinforces bias, says UN report.” BBC, 21 May 2019, 

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48349102, Accessed 26 Oct. 2021.