For WGSS 350, Posthuman Feminism at Allegheny College, we made podcast episodes, classroom style: scripted and presented, never recorded. In spring 2025 I co-hosted ours, The Entanglements Amongst Us, with Reagan and Patrick. This is that episode adapted to the page, from my host script and our slides. Where I tossed a question to my co-hosts, I have kept the question and left their answers with them.
Our episode was about technology and cyborgs in contemporary media, movies and video games both, mainly focusing on pictorial representations of cyborgs. The core question: what do cyborgs in games and media reveal about our evolving relationship with technology, identity, and humanity itself? We wanted to reflect on the positives and negatives of these depictions, what the current scene of technological depictions looks like, and what we can learn about our fears and aspirations from it.
What Is a Cyborg, Anyway?
A cyborg blurs the line between people and technology. And I planted my flag early in the episode: have we always been cyborgs? I think we have, to some extent, always been connected to our technologies. Even a hammer is a tool that enhances our capability to build. What is interesting is that our ideas of a cyborg now involve much more advanced technologies. It is usually about the what ifs.
And we could not talk about the cyborg without bringing up Donna Haraway. For those unfamiliar, Haraway helped pioneer the idea of the cyborg as emancipatory, a challenge to traditional notions of identity, in her Cyborg Manifesto. The blend of human and tech challenges binary thinking and offers productive ways to think about technology. The cyborg has emancipatory potential. But in this episode we also looked at the ways it does not. Is Haraway's cyborg actually what shows up in contemporary media?
The Positive Portrayals
Genos from One Punch Man and Cyborg from DC share an archetype: born human, then a horrible accident or a righteous reason turns them into cyborgs, and now they are on a quest to be a hero for all. One Japanese, one American. I think it is really interesting that it seems to start with an accident and not really with free will. I do like that they use their powers to protect others. But there is a weird power dynamic between normal humans and cyborg humans, like the people cannot protect themselves without technology. I asked my co-hosts what they thought about Cyborg being so military.
Vision is not a cyborg, more of an android, but I wanted him in the episode because he becomes more and more human as time goes on, even developing a relationship with Scarlet Witch. That relationship is really interesting because it reminds me of people who marry inanimate objects, except in this case he is not inanimate, he is an AI that gained sentience. There is actually an artist from Barcelona, Alicia Framis, who married a hologram AI. I feel like that is very pioneering in a way, but I also have an uncomfortable feeling about it not being consensual. Is it possible for the AI to actually consent, or is she forcing it? So I asked the group: do you think more people will marry AI as time goes on, or is this a one off?
Two of the positives belonged to my co-hosts. Artemis from Ready Player One struck me as more of a digital cyborg than a physical one, so I asked for the case there. And I honestly do not know much about Star Wars, but I heard Luke Skywalker gets a robotic hand, so I asked why, and whether that is a good or a bad development for him.
The Negative Portrayals
To be honest, it seems like there are more negatives than positives in media, and I think that speaks to the bigger picture of things. We started with Star Wars again: Darth Vader. How is he a cyborg? Because he relies on the mask?
Ultron is another android that gains some form of sentience. He sees the evil and imperfectness of people. What is interesting is that he came from Tony Stark's intention to protect. It is the idea of a glitch not going the right way. Is this what AI would do if we gave it control of its own life?
Auto from WALL-E is similar to Ultron in that it is not a cyborg, just technology, but it is an example of a robot that is too strict in its programming. Auto is not inherently evil; this one is about the possible rigidness of technology. The bigger picture of WALL-E is interesting too, not only how we personify these technologies but how we just expect them to fix all our problems.
Then there is the Winter Soldier, a special case: a negative portrayal that is not an antagonist. The Winter Soldier is taken over by technology controlled by evil forces. He really demonstrates the fear we have of technology being used to corrupt the good. And it is extremely military: technology used to kill and to force people against their will.
Case Study: Fallout 4
Fallout 4 is something I am obsessed with, and honestly it is what got me into this whole genre of cyborgs. In this world you, the player character, wake up after being frozen for 200 years after a nuclear fallout, and you can choose your own adventure on what you do next. There are different factions, very much at odds with each other. The Institute is a scientific research facility that makes synthetic people, and over time they have perfected it so much that synths literally have skin and muscles and blood, indecipherable from a regular human. The problem is that they are kidnapping people and replacing them with synths that have the same memories and look just like them. People do not know the intentions behind the replacements, and it is not consensual. People often do not know they have been replaced, and even if they do, the synth has everything a typical human would think or feel. There are also bad synths, often very simple constructs, that try to attack you.
As the player you can choose to join the Institute, making more synths and capturing the escapees. You can rescue the innocent synths that want freedom with the Railroad. Or you can kill anything that is not human, and I mean anything, with the Brotherhood. To make your decision that much harder, you meet synths along the way that are quite nice, like Nick Valentine, the detective for hire, or the character voiced by Lynda Carter, who your player can possibly romance. And at the same time you are getting chased by scary looking androids trying to kill you.
I think Fallout 4 is an important example of how technology can relate back to ideas of race, especially with the very obvious reference to the underground railroad. There are a lot of questions of ethics, and of whether certain races of creatures should be valued over others. There are other sentient races too, like the mutants, and the ghouls, who are people who got radiated really badly. The Brotherhood wants to kill them as well. So my questions for the class were: which faction would you join? And do the synths deserve to be treated like humans, even though there is a possibility they will one day turn on humans to serve the Institute?
Our second case study, Ready Player One, belonged to my co-hosts, so I will leave that one with them.
What These Depictions Say About Us
So what did we learn? Media often portrays a conflict between tech and humans. Vision and Ultron are the clean example, where one chooses the side of humanity and the other does not. Notice how the more mechanical it is, the more evil the portrayal we usually see. Ultron has scary red eyes and is very metal, where Vision is fleshy. We put one quote, from Vision to Ultron, on its own slide: “Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and... try to control what won't be. But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that.”
The idea that tech represents order comes up repeatedly. Tech enforces order, which is contrary to Haraway's cyborg. There is also the idea that tech can be used to manipulate: Elon Musk and Nolan Sorrento, the villain of Ready Player One, are eerily similar. Do we think rich people are just going to keep doing that? How do we break the closed loop?
We closed on real life technologies: Neuralink, Amazon One where you pay with your hand, advanced prosthetics. Should we be afraid to embrace these? How can they be empowering? With militaries and armies, the better tech you have, the more power you have over the world, so the hierarchies are reinforced by tech. But VR technologies can be a way of empowering people to communicate with others and express their bodies in new ways. I asked the room: are you a fan of VR?
Our Discussion Questions
- How do we prevent individuals with a lot of money from using technology to gain power?
- Where do you draw the line between human and machine, and does that line even matter anymore?
- Do you feel cyborgs in media are more often depicted as negatives or positives? What does that say about us culturally?
- What role do you think media like movies play in determining our stances on technology?
- Do you have any personal anxieties about cyborgs? Why or why not?
References
- “Fallout.” Bethesda.net, https://fallout.bethesda.net/en/games/fallout-4. Accessed 21 Apr. 2025.
- Haraway, Donna J. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, Routledge, 1991, pp. 149-181.
- Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. “Love 2.0: Alicia Framis Marries Artificial Intelligence.” 27 Mar. 2025, www.boijmans.nl/en/exhibitions/alicia-framis-marries-ai-hologram-ailex.
- One Punch Man. Directed by Shingo Natsume, performances by Makoto Furukawa and Kaito Ishikawa, Madhouse, 2015.
- Marvel Studios. Avengers: Age of Ultron. Directed by Joss Whedon, performances by James Spader and Robert Downey Jr., Marvel Studios, 2015.
- Marvel Studios. Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, performances by Sebastian Stan and Chris Evans, Marvel Studios, 2014.
- Pixar Animation Studios. WALL-E. Directed by Andrew Stanton, Pixar Animation Studios, 2008.
- Neuralink. Neuralink Corp., www.neuralink.com.
- Amazon One. “Amazon One: Palm Payment.” Amazon.com, www.amazon.com/one.