textual analysis
How are the Promethean and Oedipal theories
represented in science fiction films in Contemporary cinema?Prometheus was a Titan in Greek
mythology that was given one of the most important
roles which was the task of building mankind out of clay.
His attempts to improve the lives of man, was not well received well by Zeus. The main thing that aggravated Zeus about
Prometheus was when Zeus banned mankind from the use of fire. Prometheus stole it from Olympus and delivered it to the humans. Zeus feared that by giving
mankind fire they would use it to fight the gods. This made Zeus scared and he punished Prometheus
for these rebellious acts of giving
mankind fire by bounding him to a stake on Mount Kaukasos where an eagle was set to
feed upon his liver that would regenerate after ever feed.
Oedipus was born to King Laius and
Queen Jocasta. King Laius found a prophecy in which said that his first-born
son would grow up to murder his father and marry his mother. To prevent this,
the baby’s mother placed a stake through the 3 days old child and gave him to a
servant to place on the mountain to die. But the servant could not go through
with it so gave it to a local Sheppard. The local Sheppard gave the baby to
King Polybus and Queen Merope in the city of Corinth, knowing they could not
have children of their own. The king and queen never told him that he was
adopted he found out from one of his friends he did not believe this so he went
to an oracle. He found out that the prophecy said he would kill his father and
marry his mother, believing he was fated to murder Polybus (adopted father) and
marry Merope (adopted mother) he left Corinth. Heading to Thebes (the home of
his true parents).Oedipus met an older man in a chariot
coming the other way on a narrow road. The two fought over who should give way,
which resulted in Oedipus killing the stranger and continuing on to Thebes. He
found that the king of the city had been recently killed and that the city was
at the mercy of the Sphinx. Oedipus answered the monster's riddle correctly,
defeating it and winning the throne of the dead king and the hand in marriage
of the king's widow (his mother). The way that both of these Greek mythological
theories can be applied to science fiction films is down to the idea of playing
god and defying the ones who had created you and going against the orders of
the people who have made you and have given you the power but throwing it back
in their faces this would be for the promethean theory. For the Oedipus complex
it would be sleeping with the person who created you or sleeping with a
relative.
Primary Womb is a story about a love started between
two children, Rebecca and Tommy, who swear to love each other forever. Then
Rebecca has to move Japan with her mother rather than stay with her grandfather
on the island. The two are ripped apart. A number of years later Rebecca
returns as a young woman to find that Tommy not only remembers her, but still loves her as much as the day she
left. Tommy is a now political activist fighting against the biotech
corporations who specialise in cloning. Tommy plans to spoil the opening of the
new cloning centre by planting a bag filled with cockroaches in the new
facility. Rebecca insists on accompanying Tommy.Driving to
the cloning centre Rebecca asks Tommy to stop the car so that she can have a
piss at the side of the road. Tommy leaves the car as if he needs to go as well
but as he steps out of the truck and is hit by a passing van that knocks him
down and kills him. Rebecca and Tommy's parents are suffering from grief.
Rebecca wants to use new scientific advancements to have Tommy cloned and
thereby bring him back to life. By her self to be impregnated using Tommy's
DNA. Tommy's mother objects, his father agrees to give Rebecca Tommy's cell material.
However she continues and gives birth to a new Tommy. Tommy is now raised as
Rebecca’s son, the two have a close relationship. Years later, Tommy has grown
as old as he was before his had been killed. He is now the Tommy Rebecca fell
for. When Tommy brings a girl home to stay with them Rebecca behaves jealously.
Tommy struggles with what appears to be sexual tension between himself and his
mother. The original Tommy's mother, arrives unexpectedly and stares silently
at Tommy, he recognizes the stranger. Frightened and frustrated by Rebecca's
lack of explanation, Tommy lashes out at Rebecca, ignoring his girlfriend, who
quickly departs. An angry Tommy demands answers from his mother, Rebecca, who
gives him original Tommy's old laptop with pictures of himself and his mother
and father. Tommy initiates sex with Rebecca. The next day Tommy has packs his
things and left by the time his mother has woken up. The film ends as it begins
with a pregnant Rebecca on the porch. The characters that this effect is both
Thomas the cloned version and Rebecca.The Oedipus
complex signs start to show from within the formative years, but if the child
does not have a male role model in his life to get jealous of this will carry
on in to the later years of childhood. A scene that shows the Oedipus complex
quite heavily is when the clone of Thomas must be about 8, him and Rebecca are
playing outside by a swing set at this point they start play fighting and
Thomas end up on top and say “now I can do anything I want to you” this
reinforces the fact that Thomas and Rebecca have sexual feelings for each
other. Rebecca does not seem to resist this she seems to embrace this statement
so maybe she enjoys these comments? Although, Thomas is only young at this
point. This also backs up that this is normal behaviour for the both of them,
as it does not seem to be awkward between then. This also shows that his up
bringing by only his mother has effected his psychosexual development. The lack of a male role model in the
clone is explanation for this behavior and love for his mother, as he has never
known differently. “while he is still a
small child, a son will already begin to develop a special affection for his
mother” [2] This statement is heavily evidenced in this scene.
The lack of a
male authority has allowed the relationship to start getting incestuous and out
of control. The scene I believe show this is when Rebecca is watching Thomas
and his girlfriend play outside then Thomas picks up a net that he finds and
places it over her and starts kissing her on the cheek and hugging her at this
point Rebecca starts making what can only be described as orgasm noises and
Thomas’s girlfriend seems creeped out about this but Thomas isn’t bothered at
all. This shows the audience that this would be a normal thing that happened
between clone Thomas and his mother. A statement from Freud about his childhood
can apply to this scene."I found in myself a constant love
for my mother"[]
This
shows that Thomas has not really grown out of childhood and in this essence the
Oedipus complex. Thomas’s behavior also backs this up. As whenever his mother
tells him not to do something he out right refuses and carries on like a child.
This scene also shows reverse Oedipus complex as Rebecca is lusting for her child.
Rebecca’s behavior towards Thomas acts also does not help him get out of his Oedipal
love for his mother. If the
Oedipal lust is not handled it will get out of hand and the child will try and
rape the mother or the mother will willingly let him have sex with her. Thomas
is now a young man and Rebecca has told him that he is a clone if her ex
boyfriend. The camera shows them almost face to face, this shows the sexual
tension between them this gets too much for the both of them and they both fall
for each other and Thomas comes in to Rebecca’s room and confronts her about
who he is.He climbs on
top of her and starts passionately kissing her, and soon they start having sex.
Once he has finished he just gets up and leaves never to be seen again. This
shows the audience that their sexual feelings have got too much for each other
and have broken them and they have both fallen for each other.The fact he
gets up and leave also backs up the point of not having a male role model in
his life and not knowing how to treat women. Also the fact that he has sex with
his mother proves that this film has aspects of the Oedipus complex in it.
The
Promethean theory also appears in womb, this theory only appears once in the
film in my eyes. This is through the idea of playing god. How this is shown in
the film is when Rebecca is impregnated with a clone of Thomas going against
Thomas’s parents view on this as his mother disagrees with this. This is like
when Prometheus gave the humans fire against when Zeus disagreed with
this.
The subject
of Prometheus is explored in the film made by Ridley Scott set in the close future, archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw and
Charlie Holloway discover a star
map in a cave in Scotland that is
the same as others that has been found over time. They take this as an
invitation from the human’s creators, the "Engineers". Peter Weyland,
the CEO of Weyland Corporation, Gives the archaeologists money to fund space on
a ship called Prometheus to follow the map to the distant moon. The ship's crew
travel induced comas while the android David monitors their voyage. Arriving
a few years after there departure, The mission leader assigned by Weyland
Corporations Meredith Vickers tells them there objective is to find an
engineer, and not to make contact without her permiss
ion.
The ship lands on the moon, near a large what
seems manmade structure, which a team explores. Inside they find the
decapitated corpse of a large alien, they believe to be an Engineer. Dr Shaw
recovers its head. The rest of the crew also find some body’s, leading them to
assume that all the Engineers are now dead. Two crewmembers are unsettled by
their discoveries and try to return to the ship but get lost. The expedition is
forced to be delayed, as storm come in which means the crew have to return to
the ship. David unknowing to the rest of the crew takes a cylinder. In ship's
lab, the Engineer's DNA on the head they found matches the DNA of humans. The
cylinder David takes leaks a black liquid. David spikes a drink with the liquid
and gives it to Holloway, Shortly after he has finished the drink Holloway and
Shaw have sex.
When
they go back to the structure. David discovers a control room containing a
surviving Engineer in hyper sleep, and a map with Earth on it. Holloway falls
ill. He is rushed back to ship. Vickers does not allow him to
get on, and kills him with a flamethrower. Sometime after the recent incident a
medical scan reveals that Shaw, despite being told she can not cannot have
children , is pregnant. Fearing
for her own safety, she uses an automated surgery machine to extract a squid
like creature from inside of her. Shaw then discovers that Weyland has been in
Hypersleep aboard the ship, although they had been told he
died. He tells Shaw that he want the Engineers to restore his
youth. Weyland and the remaining crew
return to the structure. David wakes the Engineer up from hyper sleep tells him
what Weyland wants. The Engineer does not like this so rips David’s head off
and throws Wayland in to a wall resulting in his death before starting his
spacecraft. Shaw and Vickers flee. Shaw tells the pilot still on the ship that
the engineer is planning to kill all mankind. Knowing this he ejects the
lifeboat and rams the ship into the alien craft, while Vickers
running to an escape pod. The Engineer's ship crashes onto the ground and
crushes Vickers. Shaw runs to the lifeboat to the squid creature has grown to a
large size. David's still talking head tells Shaw that the Engineer has
survived. The Engineer bashes the lifeboat's door and attacks Shaw, who
releases the squid killing the Engineer. Shaw recovers David's remain. With his
help Shaw launches another Engineer spacecraft.
The
theory that is heavily present in Prometheus is the Promethean theory. As the
underline story seem to be a rebellion of defiance towards your creator or god.
The rebellion or defiance is normally comes from the race they have created.
Even
artificial life will turn against its creator, displayed in the film when David
the android who acts as butler to the crew on the ship offers a drink to Dr
Holloway, having spiked the drink with a black liquid that he finds in the
structure, knowing that this liquid is some kind of poison he still goes ahead
with it anyway for his own gain.
This
poison has an odd effect on his body and when he has sex with Dr Shaw she
becomes impregnated with what later can only be described as an alien squid,
but this poison also cause him to fall ill and his own crew go against him and
Vickers kills him.
You
know that the black liquid is a major point in the scene as when David puts it
in the drink it is a close up. Also the fact that the liquid is black
represents death and destruction. This also shows the fear of technology as
well as this could be foreshadowing if humans carry on developing technology I
will have the power to kill it creators.
If
we found what created us it would kill us. The scene I am using for this is the
scene where David wakes up the Engineer from its hyper sleep and Wayland asks
David to tell it to “help save my life” the engineer does not like this
question so he pulls David’s head off and kill Wayland with it. The lighting is
quite dark in the ship they are in this signifies death and can even signify
the devil. This also links in to the Promethean theory as the Engineers created
human and they were not happy with what we became so they were going to punish
us. “Prometheus, in eternal punishment, is
chained to a rock in the Caucasus,
Kazbek Mountain, where his
liver is eaten daily by an eagle”
If we carry on will it distort humanity?
In the film it is said that the engineers created the ultimate biological weapon
and we can assume that this biological weapon is what killed them. This is the
biggest evidence for Promethean theory as the creatures they made have lost all
humanity and have totally disregarded there creators and their life.The Promethean theory is shown heavily in Prometheus from all aspects of
life From the creations of humans to humans creating there own life
advancements.Overall I believe that all contemporary science fiction films have
themes of the Promethean theory but not all of them have themes of the Oedipus
complex, but have other aspects of Frauds works like psychosexual development.
Paul, Robert A. (1991). "Freud's
anthropology". In James Neu ed. The Cambridge Companion to
Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 274. ISBN 978-0-521-37779-9.
2 Sigmund Freud 1 introductory lecture on
psychoanalysis volume 1 page 243, The penguin Freud library (general editors, Angela Richards (1973-1982) Albert Dickson
(1982-)3 "The Aetos Kaukasios (or Caucasian Eagle) in the
Prometheus Myth". Theoi.com. Retrieved 2012-05-18.
No comments:
Post a Comment