Mirroring Cultural Fear, Anxiety and Dystopia in American Cinematography: The Movie “A.I.” (2001)

• Authors: Cringuta Irina Pelea

Title variants

PL

Strach kulturowy. Lęk i dystopia w kinematografii amerykańskiej. Film „A.I.” (2001)

Abstracts

PL

W niniejszym eseju podejmuję próbę analizy kulturowej i socjologicznej sposobu w jaki film A.I. Sztuczna inteligencja Stevena Spielberga wykorzystuje temat typowego dla Zachodu, kulturowego i podświadomego strachu przed robotami o ludzkich kształtach. Narracja filmowa zasadniczo odwołuje się do kwestii wielowymiarowych relacji emocjonalnych pomiędzy ludzkimi robotami, zaś proponowany apokaliptyczny i dystopijny dyskurs podsyca technofobię zachodniej widowni, ukazując strach w jego wymiarze kulturowym, społecznym i filozoficznym: „zatracenie człowieczeństwa”, „nieuchronność katastrofy” i „nieuniknione zniszczenie Ziemi o charakterze apokalipsy”. Co więcej, film wykracza poza granice opisowe technofobii, nawiązując umiejętnie do globalnych problemów współczesnego świata, takich jak: zanieczyszczenie środowiska, klęski głodu, przeludnienie czy degradacja przyrody w skali planetarnej. W tym eschatologicznym i pozbawionym nadziei scenariuszu postać Davida sportretowanego jako dziecko-robot, które niezmiennie deklaruje swoją miłość do ludzkich – adopcyjnych i wstrzemięźliwych – rodziców, jest metaforyczną ilustracją postępującego rozkładu więzi rodzinnych, robotyzacji i alienacji rasy ludzkiej, będącej o krok od tego, by stała się niewolnikiem technologicznego złudzenia. Mimo tych wszystkich zagrożeń David przeżywa alegoryczną przemianę: z symboliczego, budzącego strach Obcego zamienia się w kogoś niosącego ratunek ludzkości i zapewniającego, na sposób nonkonformistyczny, przetrwanie gatunku ludzkiego – staje się „nowym człowiekiem”.

EN

Through this essay, we aim to provide a sociological and cultural analysis of how the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, directed by Steven Spielberg, explores the subconscious and culturally specific Western fear of humanoid robots. While the background of the story tackles the problematics of the multilevel emotional relationship between robots and humans, the movie’s dystopian and apocalyptic discourse feeds the Western public’s increasing technophobia, by encompassing “fear” in its philosophical, social and cultural dimensions: “the loss of humanity,” “the imminence of disaster,” and “the apocalyptic and irreversible destruction of Earth.” Moreover, the film goes beyond the mere depiction of technophobia while subtly addressing some worldwide contemporary problems of high interest, such as pollution, starvation, overpopulation, or nature’s destruction on a global scale. In this eschatological, hopeless and post-human scenario, the depiction of David as a robot child expressing his eternal love for his distant adoptive human parents metaphorically illustrates the continuous altering of traditional human kinship, robotization, and alienation of the human race, which is on the verge of being enslaved by the technological wrath. However, David makes an allegorical transition from symbolizing the fearful Otherness to bringing the redemption of humanity’s vestige and marking the survival of the human species, albeit in a radically altered form: He becomes “the new human.”

Keywords

PL

A.I.; apokalipsa; strach kulturowy; dehumanizacja; eschatologia; dziecko robot

EN

A.I.; apocalypse; cultural fear; dehumanization; eschatology; robot child

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Slawistyki PAN
• Journal: Colloquia Humanistica
• Year: 2022
• Issue: 11
• Pages: 1-22

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Cringuta Irina Pelea

• Universitatea Titu Maiorescu [Titu Maiorescu University], Bucharest

• https://orcid.org/0000000210809650

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Identifiers

DOI

10.11649/ch.2631

Biblioteka Nauki

31339682