Torchwood: Cyberwoman (spoilers, but then the title is a spoiler)

[beccaelizabeth]

So, Cyberwoman. Why a woman?
And also, why didn't the Cyber process cut her breasts off?

I can think of reasons, but only writer-reasons, not character-reasons.
And no, I'm not referring to 'because they wanted her to look hot in that costume', though I kind of think she does.

Try changing it and see what it does to the impact:

Makes it all about gender. And hence sexual orientation.

And makes it a problem either way.

Heterosexuality is pretty secure in itself. Any individual relationship is not going to have a huge impact on Representation of Heterosexuality. And if it manages to problematise it a bit, it can live with that.

So if they're going to stick with having this be Ianto's story... No, pause a bit:

If we flip it over entirely to be Toshiko's story and a cyber-man in the basement then it will be taken as a representation of women. And making a woman be all about the obsessive love, devotion, working only to support the life of another, generally acting more from emotion than reason and breaking into tears all the way through... Well, you'd be hearing the screaming from a large portion of the audience, because hello Stereotype Central.
The tech knowledge would be a nice bonus, but by making it all go Horribly Wrong it would taint that side.

So right off making it be Ianto, apparently heterosexual male, who goes all obsessive-carer about a woman, they've inverted gender stereotypes and done something a little bit new and interesting.

If it was Ianto being obsessive-carer about a man, they have instead added to the queer stereotype - gay man at the bedside of a doomed/dying lover? Not a new image, and one I can live without for a while, thanks.

So she has to be a woman. And there has to be no doubt she is a woman, otherwise it starts pulling in all sorts of gender issues like does the loss of emotion come from losing her femininity.
She has to be very clearly womanly, yet still cybered on the inside, still gone cold.

It can be argued that this leeches off the caring+sharing=feminine stereotype to add to the horror (by inverting it), but I'll call that part clever and move on.



Now why she has to have weird high heels on her cybered legs or be so totally fetish is another issue entirely.
Possibly it could be a clever comment on the objectivisation of women, the way seeing them as sexbots leeches all their humanity out.
Which would tie in with the terrible fate of the man who was treating her as an object.
And make it all a Big Themey Thing.

Or, you know, the costume designers could be teenage boys. That happens too.

... But, er, I rather liked the look, so, *shrugs*

Comments

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

Nice points. I rather like the way they're playing with gender and other stereotypes in the show. I wish they'd do more of that.

[and-i.livejournal.com]

While I'm not sure that reasoning necessarily went through all the production team's heads, I actually find that quite good as an excuse logic for her.