Category: Blog Posts

Women Make Science Fiction: Gender is not a genre

Published on by acchambers3 Comments

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I felt like I was gonna make this female action picture and we were going to kick through the glass ceiling and that was going to be that. We all know how naive I was.

– Rachel Talalay, director of Tank Girl (1995)

Women-made cinema is often pulled together and compared as if it is a genre – distinctive because of its creator’s gender identity rather than its content. Women directors should not just be the subject of special screenings and seasons to highlight their place in an industry that is still dominated by men. Continue reading “Women Make Science Fiction: Gender is not a genre” →

Decoding the Digital Beauty : Women in Tech on TV and Film

Published on by acchambers4 Comments

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I hadn’t heard of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist until this week and a Mary Sue post that compared the show to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend – an excellent show with original songs, a complex central woman character (played by the show’s co-writer and creator Rachel Bloom), and a fascinating and nuanced approach to representing and diagnosing mental health issues (see also: You’re the Worst). Is Zoey’ EP that good? No. But it does do something pretty exciting and on brand for me – it has not one woman computer developer but two, and one of them is the presented as the boss. TWO WOMEN IN TECH AS MAIN CHARACTERS as part of a mildly diverse work force where women appear at different levels of the company hierarchy. Continue reading “Decoding the Digital Beauty : Women in Tech on TV and Film” →

The Fall: unsettling short film captures our fears about Brexit, Trump and an uncertain future

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97373e1ebdbbc953This article contains spoilers for the short film The Fall (Glazer, 2019, BBC Films).

Something very strange – and more than a little scary – happened at around 10pm on Sunday, October 27. Out of the blue, viewers of BBC2 found themselves watching the latest film by British director Jonathan Glazer, perhaps best-known for the unsettling Scottish-set science fiction horror Under the Skin. Continue reading “The Fall: unsettling short film captures our fears about Brexit, Trump and an uncertain future” →

Women in Science Fiction: Teaching Gender and Genre

Published on by acchambers4 Comments

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From the January to March 2019 I ran a course on WOMEN IN SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA at HOME (an independent venue for contemporary theatre, visual art and film in Manchester, UK) as part of their wonderful 2019 season Celebrating Women in Global Cinema. The course recruited quite a diverse group of participants who helped me to work through some important and emerging ideas about the place of women in science fiction. Continue reading “Women in Science Fiction: Teaching Gender and Genre” →

There’s a reason Siri, Alexa and AI are imagined as female: sexism

Published on by acchambers1 Comment

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Virtual assistants are increasingly popular and present in our everyday lives: literally with Alexa, Cortana, Holly, and Siri, and fictionally in films Samantha (Her), Joi (Blade Runner 2049) and Marvel’s AIs, FRIDAY (Avengers: Infinity War), and Karen (Spider-Man: Homecoming). These names demonstrate the assumption that virtual assistants, from SatNav to Siri, will be voiced by a woman. This reinforces gender stereotypes, expectations, and assumptions about the future of artificial intelligence. Continue reading “There’s a reason Siri, Alexa and AI are imagined as female: sexism” →

Oscars 2018: why Andy Serkis has yet again been denied the recognition he deserves

Published on by acchambers1 Comment

Originally posted: January 2018

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Tiffany Haddish (star of Girls’ Trip) and Andy Serkis (War of the Planet of the Apes) co-hosted the 2018 Oscar nominations broadcast in anticipation of the 90th Academy Awards in March. Haddish is the breakout star of one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters, tipped for success this award’s season. Serkis, meanwhile, is a phenomenally successful actor, but one whose face is not always seen on screen – despite a lengthy list of acting credits. Continue reading “Oscars 2018: why Andy Serkis has yet again been denied the recognition he deserves” →

Movies and Scientific Accuracy (Microbiology Today)

Published on by acchambers1 Comment

Originally published: November 2017maxresdefault.jpg

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a virus.

In Planet of the Apes (1968) Charlton Heston faced a future of intelligent apes in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust but in the 2011 re-launch of the franchise – Rise of the Planet of the Apes – the fall of humanity follows a global pandemic that kills 1 in 10 humans whilst heightening ape intelligence. Although Rise of the Planet of the Apes falters in accurately representing the processes of science it does have a striking visualisation of the spread of the ‘Simian Flu’ – an unintended side effect of an attempt to cure Alzheimer’s disease. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an example of recent film and TV that shows that lab-engineered outbreaks have replaced the nuclear holocaust on screens as the imagined and expected end of humanity (see mid-credit sequence video below). Science and scientists are central to causing and perhaps saving humanity from extinction. Continue reading “Movies and Scientific Accuracy (Microbiology Today)” →

Why science fiction set in the near future is so terrifying

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Originally posted: February 2017humans-557936a4530ac

From Humans to Westworld, from Her to Ex Machina, and from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to Black Mirror – near future science fiction in recent years has given audiences some seriously unsettling and prophetic visions of the future. According to these alternative or imagined futures, we are facing a post-human reality where humans are either rebelled against or replaced by their own creations. These stories propose a future where our lives will be transformed by science and technology, redefining what it is to be human. Continue reading “Why science fiction set in the near future is so terrifying” →

Westworld: Imagined Futures and Re/imagined Pasts

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Originally posted: January 2017

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Westworld was my favourite series of 2016. It presented a rich science fiction future that managed to be fresh and exciting despite being a remake based upon a 1973 movie by the same title. It had and continues to have lots of opportunities for developing exciting and prescient narrative that can be explored in what I hope will be a long running series. I was mesmerised from the opening credits, which I wrote about here. Westworld played around with time and I will have to rewatch all ten episodes as I attempt to distinguish between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’, and past, present and/or future. Continue reading “Westworld: Imagined Futures and Re/imagined Pasts” →

Science & Future World Building in Westworld’s Credit Sequence

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Originally posted: October 2016westworld-sun2.gif

Westworld finally got its UK premier last night. It seemed like an eternity between the US release and our chance to explore, and I successfully navigated the minefield of avoiding spoilers and opinions on the first episode that might interfere with my own initial response (and enjoyment). The first episode wasn’t perfect – I wanted more, but it was necessary to give over time and space for worldbuilding (both the Western theme-park and the futuristic workplace) and introducing the basic concept of the show. It’s based on the 1973 SF-Western movie Westworld written and directed by science fiction writer Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain, Disclosure), it was Crichton’s first foray in directing, and it famously stars Yul Brynner as a killer-robot called ‘The Gunslinger’. The film and now the HBO TV series is set in a near-future adult amusement park where the super-rich can pay ($40,000/day) for an immersive storyworld ‘holiday’ where they can do use the robots as they please to act out their wildest Wild West fantasies. Continue reading “Science & Future World Building in Westworld’s Credit Sequence” →