12 years ago, in 2013, Spike Jones released the motion picture, Her, staring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlet Johansson. And overnight, the idea of digital women as romantic companions was everywhere. Her was followed rapidly by a slate of other pop culture media exploring the pheonomen, like Westworld, Ex Machina and BladeRunner. The trope was very popular in the mid-2010’s. In this episode, Jill interviews Alannah Mayes about her research investigating the representation of fembots in pop culture media from 2013-2018, and what this trope might be able to reveal about our cultural perceptions of feminity, masculinity, gender, loneliness, and digital companions.
For transcripts for this episode, go here:
To check out Alannah Mayes’ Zine “Why You Gotta Be A Fembot?” go here:
https://research.ebsco.com/c/ay5fwn/search/results?q=why+you+gotta+be+a+fembot
For more on Loneliness Around the World, age, gender, and cultural differences in loneliness, go here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886920302555
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110066
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