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dolorosa_12Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Cameron Phillips (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Do you remember this meme? I'm sorry for completely dropping the ball on it, but things elsewhere got so hectic that I lost the will to blog. Anyway, I'm picking this meme up again today.
Can a cyborg be said to have a gender? I don't care, because I'm going with Cameron anyway. Certainly the other characters in the show call her 'she', and that's good enough for me.
One of the things I love about Cameron is that, just like the human characters on the show, she grows and changes, and lives, even if she is made of wires and metal and computer chips. Her motives are opaque, and the other characters frequently wonder if they should trust her at all. In Cameron the show's theme of the tension between fixed destiny and free will finds its purest expression: she was literally created for a single purpose (to kill John Connor, and, by extension, all the hopes of humanity), and then she was remade for another. However, as the show progresses, Cameron reveals that her old programming is returning, but that she is actively fighting it and choosing to defend John (and humanity) because it's what she wants to do.
Summer Glau, the actress who played Cameron, has said that she had her own interpretation of what drove Cameron and where her loyalties truly lay, but that she wanted to leave it up to the audience to draw their own conclusions. It's certainly possible to read Cameron's actions as antagonistic or at least as muddying the moral clarity of John's cause. However, I've always been of the belief that once Cameron developed the ability to override her own programming, she developed something close to a moral compass and the ability to perceive and understand emotions. Once she had these, she was unable to avoid empathising with human beings.
I've always felt strongly that where most stories of human and non-human interaction fall down is in the characterisation of the non-humans. Writers always feel that they have to make them essentially humans with fangs, humans with wings, humans made of metal and so on. This, to me, is wrong. Human morality is tied up with human mortality. If you live forever, if you're invulnerable, if your existence isn't even really living, why would you feel things in the same way as a human being? I prefer it when non-human characters regard humanity with a sort of baffled wonder, and if they grow in their understanding of humanity while never becoming human themselves. This is Cameron Phillips in a nutshell. Every note in her interaction with her human charges is perfect, and my only regret in her characterisation is that the show's cancellation meant viewers never really got a chance to know what moved and drove her.
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship
Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship
Day Twenty-Six: Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like)
Day Twenty-Seven: A female character you have extensive personal canon for
Day Twenty-Eight: Favorite female writer (television, books, movies, etc.)
Day Twenty-Nine: A female-centric fic rec
Day Thirty: Whatever you’d like!
Also, please check out my latest post on my reviews blog. It's an essay on The Fall, and I'd be interested to discuss it with you either here or on the post itself.
Cameron Phillips (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Do you remember this meme? I'm sorry for completely dropping the ball on it, but things elsewhere got so hectic that I lost the will to blog. Anyway, I'm picking this meme up again today.
Can a cyborg be said to have a gender? I don't care, because I'm going with Cameron anyway. Certainly the other characters in the show call her 'she', and that's good enough for me.
One of the things I love about Cameron is that, just like the human characters on the show, she grows and changes, and lives, even if she is made of wires and metal and computer chips. Her motives are opaque, and the other characters frequently wonder if they should trust her at all. In Cameron the show's theme of the tension between fixed destiny and free will finds its purest expression: she was literally created for a single purpose (to kill John Connor, and, by extension, all the hopes of humanity), and then she was remade for another. However, as the show progresses, Cameron reveals that her old programming is returning, but that she is actively fighting it and choosing to defend John (and humanity) because it's what she wants to do.
Summer Glau, the actress who played Cameron, has said that she had her own interpretation of what drove Cameron and where her loyalties truly lay, but that she wanted to leave it up to the audience to draw their own conclusions. It's certainly possible to read Cameron's actions as antagonistic or at least as muddying the moral clarity of John's cause. However, I've always been of the belief that once Cameron developed the ability to override her own programming, she developed something close to a moral compass and the ability to perceive and understand emotions. Once she had these, she was unable to avoid empathising with human beings.
I've always felt strongly that where most stories of human and non-human interaction fall down is in the characterisation of the non-humans. Writers always feel that they have to make them essentially humans with fangs, humans with wings, humans made of metal and so on. This, to me, is wrong. Human morality is tied up with human mortality. If you live forever, if you're invulnerable, if your existence isn't even really living, why would you feel things in the same way as a human being? I prefer it when non-human characters regard humanity with a sort of baffled wonder, and if they grow in their understanding of humanity while never becoming human themselves. This is Cameron Phillips in a nutshell. Every note in her interaction with her human charges is perfect, and my only regret in her characterisation is that the show's cancellation meant viewers never really got a chance to know what moved and drove her.
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship
Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship
Day Twenty-Six: Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like)
Day Twenty-Seven: A female character you have extensive personal canon for
Day Twenty-Eight: Favorite female writer (television, books, movies, etc.)
Day Twenty-Nine: A female-centric fic rec
Day Thirty: Whatever you’d like!
Also, please check out my latest post on my reviews blog. It's an essay on The Fall, and I'd be interested to discuss it with you either here or on the post itself.
