Gerard Johnstone’s sci-fi horror comedy depicts women’s technological abilities as uncontrollable threat
In more than one sense, Gerard Johnstone’s 2022 horror romp M3GAN shows the nasty agenda that can hide beneath an innocent surface. The sci-fi horror comedy mixes genre tropes of evil doll, killer computer and mean kid and appears to be less influenced by its director than by its prolific producer James Wan. The latter has the titular toy doll (Amie Donald) look like a stylish social media sibling of his other brainchild Annabelle. Those two characters’ kinship is underscored by a shared reactionary subtext. These underlying narratives are easily more frightening than either film’s jump scares. The android antagonist clinically named M3GAN is placed in a well-worn scenario which has proven an indestructible classic of conservative cinema. A child free career woman has to care for a child and soon understands that traditional motherhood makes her much happier than success, independence and money.
Here it’s expert robotic designer Gemma (Allison Williams) who suddenly has to care for her orphaned 8-year-old niece Cady (Violet McGraw). The little girl’s moving-in is particularly stressful for Gemma since she is mentally pregnant with her own progeny. Instead of churning out more of the farting Furby-like pests she created for a her supervisor’s tech toy company, Gemma has been working on an artificial intelligent android girl right from the uncanny valley. What is unnerving about the title character is not her near-human appearance but her styled hair, make-up and semi-adult features evoking a Realdoll™ customised for pedophiles. The subtle sexualisation of the android who is representative of a child predefines it as a product of a cishet male fantasy. This is asserted when an older boy, after threatening Cady, assaults M3GAN in a sexualised manner which proves fatal for him.
The android antagonist is a walking, talking warning sign of precocious girls and the individualist, rule-defying women they might grow into. Even though M3GAN’s first victim is portrayed as unsympathetic, her insensitive rationalisation of the lethal self-defense is presented as mocking a murder. Male aggression is played down, female aggression played up, as not to be seen as protective and provoked. The emphasis in Akela Cooper’s plot is not on dangers of technological advancement but the dangers of female advancement by accessing knowledge, skills and positions of power. Gemma’s excellence in the traditionally male dominated IT sector superficially seems to contradict reactionary assumptions about gendered abilities. But this is subverted by her main creations being anthropomorphic substitute companions.
While her faceless first creation from her college days is more of a makeshift buddy, the disturbingly realistically looking M3GAN is the proxy child of a woman averted to the traditional mother role. Defying gender norm is narratively linked to breaking social and legal rules. An additional example of this is Gemma’s elderly neighbor, an eccentric childfree single senior who collects baby strollers and dotes on her vicious dog. Gemma breaks rules at work and Cady acts the more unhinged, the longer she is with her aunt and M3GAN. Predictably, Gemma’s attempt to have in her an electronic kid that she can turn off at will and use to ease the burden of Cady’s guardianship is thwarted by M3GAN’s murderous inclinations. This killing drive emphasis the warning of unchecked female intelligence that Gemma’s storyline provides.
What allows M3GAN to discharge herself from outside control is her unlimited learning ability. Without a hint of moral complexity, the snarky super doll turns into a coldblooded killer. This negative framing of independent cognitive skills adds to the plot’s underlying anti-intellectualist, anti-individualist sentiment. The importance of living up to social expectations is further confirmed when Gemma lectures her niece that instead of overcoming her grief with M3GAN’s friendly support, being sad is how Cady “should feel”. This self-denial in favour of normative situational behavior corresponds to the film’s overall message: Social expectations have to be met regardless of one’s personal feelings or preferences. Maybe being a foster mother isn’t fun like inventing cool robots but that’s just how women should be. Thus, Gemma must embrace her human child and kill off her AI offspring: an impertinent incarnation of dangerous female aspiration, born of her self-absorbed intelligence. And ready to be reassembled for the upcoming sequel.
- OT: M3GAN
- Director: Gerard Johnstone
- Screenplay: Akela Cooper
- Year: 2022
- Image © Universal
