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Interpretations of Teknolust, Sadie, Susanna, Kate

kgould's picture
Submitted by kgould on Wed, 04/13/2011 - 2:50pm
  1. Primary additive colors are used in technology to create well-rounded, deep visuals from three filters: red, blue, and green. In the world of Teknolust, we could read this as a means for Ruby, Marine, and Olive to create a well-rounded person: Rosetta, or who Rosetta wants to be. The colors also act as a way of individualizing the characters and keeping them as their own person.
  2. The use of the barcode rash and putting the "essence" of the men in jars commodifies and objectifies male sexuality in a way that is often reversed, where the woman would be objectified and commodified. It reduces sex to an object, a product, economizing intimacy.
  3. The use of sex as payment, of producing something that the SRAs need to live, and trying to pay for donuts with condoms, seems to act in a way contrary to how we treat sex outside of Teknolust. Where the SRAs can be read as strong, dominating sexual creatures, this kind of behavior outside of the film is not powerful. Someone who pays with sex is not viewed as being in control of their own will or their body. This ties back into the commodification of sex. 
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Katie V.'s picture

RE:

Submitted by Katie V. (guest) on Mon, 04/25/2011 - 4:19pm.

3. I find it highly interesting that the SRA's require sex in order to function. To me, it almost seems that Hershman-Leeson is attempting to signify that these cyborgs are weak for needing men for survival. In the bigger picture, I believe she is trying to state that there is something inherently lacking in cyborgs that is not lacking in humans that makes cyborgs more vulnerable that human beings.

Alyssa R.'s picture

I also thought the aspect of

Submitted by Alyssa R. (guest) on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 10:08am.

I also thought the aspect of sex in the movie was very interesting. The SRAs were created through cloning, and therefore without sex. The fact that they now need sex to survive is ironic, because they were created without it, but cannot continue to exist without the sperm that Ruby collects from her outings. Sex is a very complex concept, which involves biological processes, physical actions, and emotion. This movie reduces the concept of sex down to the simple fact that it is needed for the survival of the SRAs.

Robert's picture

RE:

Submitted by Robert (guest) on Tue, 04/19/2011 - 9:20pm.

1. One thing that I also saw in the colors was the imprinting of the digital to the SRAs, as the additive colors are used digitally while the pigment colors are used in the printing world. As I mentioned before I was disappointed that the CMYK color scheme wasn't more a part of Sandy's world.

3. I would like to add onto this that I see the strength of the SRAs as dominating sexual creatures is lessened by fetishization by the men, specifically the ones that Ruby has intercourse with on the night that Olive is sick.

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