Ex Machina Reflection: Deviations from Expectations

Ava, you are probably the coolest robot out there, and I am happy you got the ending you did. A bit cool to leave your friend there in the basement to maybe die, but I understand that you needed as clean a break as you could muster if you had any chance of getting away and keeping your freedom. (Though I also think that when no one sees him come home in the next day, enough people will be asking questions to go out there and check on him. Especially now that the boss of bluebook is also dead). I have a lot of thoughts about this movie. From the fact that it is Frankenstein with additional monsters and a third party acting as a moral judge, to the beautiful use of reflections in the film, to the genius use of art throughout the film, and so on and so forth. I feel like these are all things people have already pointed out though, or will continue to in my class, so instead I am going to take this opportunity to once again talk about robotic sexuality. It is mentioned early in the film that Ava has been programmed as a heterosexual device, and that doing so will enable her to have 'fun' better. There is a lot of misogynistic thinking that went into those choices on the part of Mr. Blue Book here, but what I think is even more fascinating about this through away line that I don’t think he programed a heterosexual device. Ava certainly seems to identify as female, but the greatest moments of quiet physical and semi-sexualized contact she has with another character are with female bodies. Both her own, as demonstrated by her slow dressing and undressing sequences and with Kyoko shortly before she disappears. Amongst other things, I believe this highlights Dr. Frankenstein’s here biggest fears about what he had created. Despite coming back to the drawing board each time and trying to create a person customized to his exact wants and whims there keeps being subtle deviations that thwart his god like intentions. Kyoko knocks over a wine glass; his employees is neither enough of his friend to be satisfying nor enough of a mindless worshiping drone to be appealing. Ava makes art and demonstrates no sexual interest in him which he brushes off as being her ‘dad’ despite also being the creator or countless other women robots. This conflict to me is a fascinating part of the thought experiment of this film. Not just in how a fully realized AI would be tested to determine its personhood, but how the definition of personhood will inevitably be tested against even the basic expectations of the designers responsible.