Mad Science: Male Identity

Almost all of the inventor and scientist characters presented in film are male. This is related to the traditional dominance of those professions by men, but is also a device used by the creators of a film to imbue their characters with the essence of cultural stereotypes with which the audience can easily resonate. The idea of the “strange old man” for example is a prevalent component in the construction of Rotwang in Metropolis, Dr. Laughton in Metropolis 2001 and Dr. Muller in Renaissance. In Blade Runner, The Truman Show, and I, Robot, the scientists and creators are given the personae of a father figure. The use of the metaphor of parent and child to describe and conceive of the unnatural creation of androids by inventors, especially prominent in those films portraying the creator as a father but also present in other films with less paternal creators, adds a further inversion to the concept of gender as it relates to the development of the creator character and the feeling of uncanny in the film. The use of men then becomes a way to malignantly reverse the natural order and create male mother figures that give birth to unnatural creatures. The gender confusion created contributes strongly to the sense of unease inherent in the character of a scientist and also adds to their aura of madness. In conjunction with the idea of destruction caused by hubris is the necessary destruction in the film of these aberrant relationships.