ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes gothic modalities, subjectivities, and spaces in two contemporary science fiction films, Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin and Alex Garland's Ex Machina, each of which places gender-transgressive subjects at its center. These films explore humanity's innate fear of its own organic vulnerability and the brevity of human life by presenting often-violent confrontations between corporeal and fragile humans, invasive and mutable humanoids, and seemingly invulnerable techno-bodies. These films use the body as a contested site for establishing what it means to be human and ultimately suggesting what limits should be placed on women's social and sexual empowerment—and what might befall humankind if such limits are not enforced. But where films like Ex Machina and Under the Skin fall short is when they engage in the binaries linked to sexuality, gender, and race, exposing how technology can be used to shore up oppressive boundaries created within phallogocentric systems of meaning and reify consciousness along gender and race lines.
