Popular Culture in His \"The

Popular Culture

In his "The body for beginners," Dani Cavallaro addresses issues such as the reproductive politics of the body, noting that "conventionally, women are associated with biological reproduction and men with technological reproduction." The purpose of the present paper is to discuss the theme of production/reproduction as it appears in the following two narratives.: The fly (a movie which came out in 1986 under the direction of David Cronenberg) and the book written by H.G. Wells called "The island of Doctor Moreau."

The movie which has become a classic tells the love story between a scientist and a woman. Right from this status definition, it becomes clear which is the active and which is the passive party. The scientist invents an instrument which is initially set to teleport inanimate things from one teleport to another. After becoming involved with the journalist Veronica Quaife he is inspired to improve his machine in a manner that will allow it to teleport living entities. The ex-lover of Veronica comes into the picture and seems to be threatening the relationship. As a gesture of rebellion and anger the scientist uses himself as a guinea pig. The trick with the teleporting machine is that if it has two objects inside it, it will unite it. The researcher will be horrified to see that a common fly was caught with him inside the telepod. Regardless of his efforts not to become contaminated he will eventually undergo a terrible transformation.

The book on the other hand introduces the readers to a paradisaical island in the south seas. It is here that Docter Moreau lives. Edward Prendick ends up on the island after a shipwreck only to discover that the doctor likes to play god. The guest comes across monsters which are half human- or better said people who have been turned into half monsters through the interventions of the scientist.

Taking these two narratives as a basis for interpretation, it is very interesting to see how a speech relating gender and the production/reproduction processes is created. We could begin by analyzing the movie. Both the man and the woman have socially acceptable jobs, but while she is a journalist and tells people about what is happening around them, he is a research scientist, who makes things happen. He is therefore a creator, someone who is dedicated to production. She on the other hand is meant for reproduction.

What are the more profound connotations of the movie? The woman is the source of inspiration, but she will also be the cause of the ultimate decay. She inspires the scientist to improve his creation, but her presence in his life is not exclusively positive. Drawn by his emotions the researcher is not careful when he acts as a guinea pig in his teleportation experiment and this mistake proves to be fatal. It is interesting to see the stages of the transformation and how they impact both the characters. In the end the woman will remain with the former ex-lover who created the tension in the relationship between her and the scientist. The last scene in which she has a nightmare about being pregnant with him- scared of having to give birth to a monster child is more than relevant. Regarding the movie as a meta text we understand that the man incarnates the creator par excellence.

The fact that man's creation rebels against him and destroys him is a very intriguing social and political statement. On the one hand we could interpret this metaphor as man's fundamental incapacity of creating something really important. The researcher not only did not improve his machine, but lost his life in the process. His goal was beyond common sense, romantic and idealistic and the denouement of the story demonstrates that whenever man abandons reason he is most likely to have a tragic ending. Naturally, the woman, who has a passive role, is in a certain way responsible for the dramatic denouement. This is a patriarchal perspective upon society and the meaning of the individual in the social web (constructed in strict relation to his or her gender). Man fails to be a true creator, instead he stand a chance at technological reproduction. The biological reproduction however is the one which wins over the technological one through the death of the researcher and the possibility for the woman to be pregnant.

More or less the same considerations can be drawn from Wells' book. If in the movie Jeff Goldblum was trying to improve technology, Doctor Moreau is trying to improve the very human nature. In his experiments there is no respect for humanity. This, together with the terrible consequences of his work transform him into a monster. None of the people subject to his experiments reach a complete transformation. All of them stop at half of the transformation process, achieving a double nature which gives them a monstrous dimension.