The Golem in Suburbia
Well.... so much for 2025.
If you're anything like me, you still find it a little jarring to be actually living through years with implausible, futuristic names like "2025" or "2026". It wasn't that long ago that we associated such numbers with pulp science fiction stories about the conquest of Mars, or apocalyptic interplanetary wars. 2026 is supposed to be a far-off destination in speculative stories about time travel, not the "use-by" date on the carton of milk you bought this morning.
When did that happen?
So yes; 2026 is come. Unfortunately, the reality of this "World of Tomorrow" we find ourselves living through has probably not quite lived up to the grand predictions of yesteryear; especially if you were hoping for flying cars or personal jet packs or world peace. It's certainly true that rather too many unglamourous and archaic relics of Humanity's past are persisting in our everyday lives (the internal combustion engine; religious fundamentalism; The Simpsons) but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there have also been some distinctly science-fictional developments. We did have an actual global pandemic after all (in fairness we had a much worse one back in the 1980s, but that one apparently didn't count because mainstream society made it go away by simply ignoring it) and we do have a globalised high-speed information system connecting people of every age, creed and gender - although everyone seems to be using it mostly to send death threats and cat videos.
And of course we now have machine intelligence available to anyone who feels like talking to it.
Needless to say it's the "machine intelligence" thing that has formed the backbone of the series I have been working through over the last few months, and that series is not yet finished by any means. Don't be fooled by the lifeless, decaying husk of 2025 currently rotting away at our feet even as the semi-formed larval stage of 2026 oozes slowly into view, gradually and inexorably taking shape and preparing to engulf us in its maw of eternity...
Sorry; I got a little distracted there... but come on, how many people here are genuinely looking forward to the New Year (if it's anything like the last few)? Show of hands...? Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes: our current series (The Grok, the Glunk and the Golem) will carry on in January, so this week's Christmas-themed "A.I." movie is not a finale by any means. Think of it as the end of Act I, if you will.
Still to come I plan to visit some of the more creative depictions of machine intelligence (old and new) and I want to continue to explore the idea of "creation by word" - which has taken on new meaning in this era of Large Language Models.
Whether or not one views the modern conversational ChatBot as a true "machine intelligence" (whatever that even means!) we are currently witnessing a period of heightened exposure and unprecedented deployment.
It's everywhere.
Conversational A.I. has entered our living rooms; our classrooms and in some cases our emotional lives. They have been welcomed, they have been ridiculed and they have been reviled, sometimes all at the same time.
So it seems only fitting that we should round out the year with a film featuring a machine intelligence that enters our living rooms, our classrooms and our emotional lives, and is then welcomed, ridiculed and reviled, all at the same time. I happen to have one right here.
A Golem is for life, not just for Christmas
Tim Burton has frequently cited Edward Scissorhands as his most personal film, and the story was explicitly written to be a metaphor for his experiences as a shy, misfit, socially awkward youngster growing up in suburban California in the 1960s.
Part Frankenstein, part Beauty and the Beast, part German Expressionist cinema, Edward Scissorhands tells the story of an unfinished, artificially constructed being who is discovered and taken in by a middle class suburban family.
Received by the community with suspicion, then devotion, then hostility, the story is less about the artificial boy and more about the rigid, conformist society that ultimately rejects him. This is the Golem as the ultimate outsider.
Last month I talked about "slash fiction" - the subgenre of fan fiction that paired off same-sex characters from popular franchises.
As I said at the time, slash fiction provided a way for marginalised individuals to express themselves (and importantly to represent themselves) in circumstances where popular culture left them invisible at best (and demonised at worst).
Those marginalised fans may not have the multi-million dollar resources of a major Hollywood film studio at their disposal, but they have pen, paper and the alphabet... and thus equipped are able to create any Reality they care to imagine. Sometimes they don't even need the pen and paper: remember Fredric Wertham's anonymous psychiatric patient in 1954 who fantasised about Batman and Robin in a relationship, much to Dr. Wertham's obvious horror.
Edward Scissorhands may not be slash fiction as such, but it definitely lives in the same neighbourhood. Tim Burton grew up as an outsider, deeply uncomfortable in his community and constantly aware of his own "otherness". Paradoxically, it was the runaway financial success of his 1989 Batman that gave him the Hollywood clout to make such a deeply personal and intimate parable as this. (Pity Fredric Wertham didn't live to see this; it would have given him the most delightful complex...)
It may be a $20 million production with an A-list cast, but at its core Edward Scissorhands is pure slash fiction (literally, I suppose, given the subject matter). It's a tale in which the monstrous other isn't a monster at all, and the real enemies are conformity and the Tyranny of the Normal. It's the story where (even if just for a moment) the Golem gets the prom queen.
We know better, of course (and so did Tim Burton). The Golem doesn't get the girl, and "normal" always triumphs in the end. But it's a beautiful dream, and a compelling story. That's the attraction of story-telling: it's your sub-Creation. You create the characters; you bring them to life. Maybe you can write them a better life than the one you've been living through.
In the meantime, we have the actual, real-life 2026 waiting for us in the wings.
Maybe it will be well written. Until then, Happy Holidays, and goodwill to all men, women and ChatBots.
We will screen Edward Scissorhands (our final film of the year) at 7.30 on Thursday, the 18th of December at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.
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