Den perfekta kvinnan: En feministisk studie av de posthumanistiskt präglade filmerna Under the Skin, Her och Ghost in the Shell

Abstract

This essay analyses the films Under the Skin, Her and Ghost in the Shell which all focus on the artificial woman, a character that is widely represented in both early films and in films produced today. Through feminist film theory, posthuman theory and critical whiteness studies this essay search to answer the question how the artificial woman (all portrayed by Scarlett Johansson) is portrayed in these films, how these films can be placed in an historical perspective and how they represent the technological “human” in a time when the boundary between science fiction and reality seems very thin. The result indicates that the out-dated myth about the “perfect woman” is still produced in films made today which helps to maintain patriarchal structures such as the beliefs that the female body and sexuality is monstrous and should be punished as seen in Under the Skin, that the artificial woman is created through a male fantasy about the “perfect woman” and have to disappear when she starts to examine her own identity as seen in Her and how the digital image work to dematerialise the female body and that Hollywood still use racial structures to marginalise the Asian female body as seen in Ghost in the Shell. The result also indicates that all three films give a dystopian image of new technology and “the other”. This can be used in a way to question our own use of technology as seen in Her and Ghost in the Shell but it can also be used to maintain old myths about the monstrous female body as in Under the Skin.