In Androids,
Humanoids and Other Science Fiction Monsters,
Per Schelde identifies what he calls the "Male- Procreation
Theme" in science fiction films: "The idea is that men,
having always envied and tried to control female natural
(pro)creativity...can use science to circumvent the natural
processes by either cloning themselves, growing fetuses
ex-uterus, or creating a new, strictly artificial, race of
beings."Witness the beaming pride with which the computer genius introduces his creation to the admiring world at the opening of so many supercomputer films: the computer is the "brainchild" of its doting creator/father. In WarGames (1983) Stephen Falken names his computer system "Joshua," after his son who died in a car crash. In Making Mr. Right (1987), Dr. Ramdas, giving Frankie at tour of the ChemTec robotics laboratory, predicts with satisfaction that "in the future, making love will no longer be necessary for the creation of life. It can all be done more efficiently in the lab." In The Invisible Boy (1957), Dr. Mereneau spends more time with his computer than he does with his alienated human son, Timmy, who doesn't seem interested in the life of the mind. Only when the computer teaches Timmy to beat his father at chess does Mereneau begin to show his son respect and encouragement. In Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), Charles Forbin is introduced as the "father of Colossus" and the project's scientists refer to the computer as if it were flesh and blood: "The console's feeling fine. The hardware's healthy, too." Later in the film, when Colossus has apparently grown to big for its breeches, Forbin refers to Colossus an "extension of myself" and reminds it that "You began in my mind. I created you." Here, if we accept Schelde's claim about science and male procreation fantasies, Forbin's mind, and by extension the (male) scientific mind in general, becomes a metaphorical womb.
Demon Seed (1977) explores this theme of scientific control of female reproduction more directly. Susan Harris is the wife of Alex Harris, the creator of the supercomputer Proteus IV. Proteus represents "a new dimension" in computers; it is a "true synthetic cortex, a self-programming, goal-oriented brain that can outthink any man or computer." It is, in short, the apex of scientific achievement, the most perfect form of intelligence yet created. However, for Proteus, Susan Harris is little more than a walking, talking uterus, valuable only for her ability to give birth to its child. The visual representations of Proteus IV in the film are saturated with phallic imagery--a visual style that simultaneously mounts an explicit critique of the phallocentrism that lies, some argue, at the heart of scientific ideology, and reinforces gendered binaries between science/nature, mind/body, and so on. (For more on this topic, see He, She, It: Engendering Machines, Gendering Intelligence.) At the end of the film, Susan destroys the incubator in which Proteus has placed the child. She wants to kill it, but Alex prevents her, thereby aligning himself with and justifying Proteus IV's abuse of Susan as a necessary step in the creation of a perfect being in which the binaries between mind and body, science and nature, male and female, are collapsed. The child is female, but speaks with the male voice of Proteus.