In Donna Haraway’s work “A Cyborg Manifesto,” Haraway explains the trope of the cyborg in science fiction, a being that is “couplings between organism and machine” (292). In the 2011 film Source Code, a military pilot, Colter Stevens, is tasked with identifying the perpetrator of a soon to be bombing. While embodying one of the many victims of said bombing, Stevens visits the last eight minutes of Sean Fentress’ life until he is finally able to identify the bomber, as Blouin argues in a manner that “[forces] the viewer to confront illusions of transcendence through sublime sensation” and that “the medium itself makes freedom impossible” (104). Though Stevens is not made into a machine as we conventionally see in cyborg films, his experience within the source code puts into question “what defines someone as human” (Nishime 39)? Untraditional in presentation, Stevens new “bodies,” his motivations, and the way in which Stevens is presented to Goodwin and Dr. Rutledge expresses how Stevens in Source Code shows a chilling display of cyborg theory.
In Michael J. Blouin’s work “Tarrying with Sublimity…” Blouin explains the limitations of the cinematic form in regards to the subliminal in Source Code. Historically “disabled” bodies are not regarded as human. Many people with disabilities still struggle daily with autonomy, often systematically forced to rely on others. While Blouin argues that Source Code is limited in its attempt to go beyond the edges of cinema--does this help us understand Stevens as still human? If the film were to present him only as text in the beginning or for example in the perspective of Goodwin, how would that change the way we see Stevens? Overall, Stevens’ wish to be allowed to die is something which is 100% human. Stevens “would rather be human” (Nishime 43). I would argue that having Stevens’ perspective as the focal point of the film side lines his existence as a computer, therefore making him seem more human to the audience than to the government employees. So, though limited in the realm of cinema, this aids the idea of Stevens existing as a “good cyborg.”
To begin, we watch as Stevens has taken multiple trips at this point into the source code, successfully identifying the bomber after Dr. Rutledge forces Stevens to venture back to back. We watch as Stevens is back in his pod, crouched in the room while speaking to Goodwin on the other side. During their heated conversation, we suddenly are taken to Goodwin’s side. Gyllenhaal’s speech is cut short, the audience finally exposed to Stevens’ true form, text on a screen. This revelation gives Stevens his cyborg-like existence, both computer and human. Goodwin never answers Stevens' question of whether or not he is dead because his existence is beyond the binaries of normal life, he is neither alive or dead. Instead she states “a part of your brain remains active.” Stevens is significantly dehumanized in these instances, becoming more machine than human, to Dr. Rutledge, Stevens is no more than brain activity and text, a computer that can be erased and rebooted which is expressed through the type of language Rutledge uses regarding Stevens. Throughout the film, he speaks in “code,” telling the others to send out “strings” to see if Stevens will come back online. Stevens is not perceived as human anymore due to his lack of autonomy.
Throughout the film, Jake Gyllenhaal’s body and face represent what we as audiences cannot see--”cinema [making] visible the potentially invisible” (Muri 264). From the first moments Stevens returns to Beleaguered Castle, he attempts to understand where he is through Goodwin. He repeatedly asks to be briefed and that information must be given to him about his own status. However, the team is hesitant to let Stevens know more than necessary. While forced to venture into the source code repeatedly, Stevens and Dr. Rutledge agree on an ultimatum, when Stevens successfully completes the mission, he will be allowed to die. In this case, Stevens is representing the desires of the good cyborg, he is “[dreaming] of the liberal humanist’s malleable, disembodied self” while he is stuck in “a criminalized body” (Nishime 40). Stevens cannot be free of the source code, unable to return to his physical body. Both manifestations of Stevens are enclosed, almost as though Stevens is a prisoner. In the source code, he is strapped into a chair, unable to get out and he has no control or access to his ventures into the source code. His physical body is trapped in a different way, strapped to machines which are keeping him alive. Stevens' goal to receive the peace of death exemplifies this point, he is trapped in life, not given the “freedom” of death. His desire is to be free of both prisons.
Becoming increasingly tired and distraught, Stevens exclaims, “what you’re doing here can’t be legal” to which Dr. Rutledge replies, “many soldiers would prefer this to death.” The laws and regulations, though soldiers on their own can be considered sold bodies to the government, are further ignored in the case of Stevens. He is not considered human, he is something that can be programmed, rebooted, a tool. Though we as audiences see Stevens' expressions and experiences in the source code, Goodwin and Dr. Rutledge are only seeing text. Even eye contact as we see it in the film turns out to be Goodwin or Dr. Rutledge looking into a lens. The camera shows Goodwin later in the film, staring at the screen as Stevens begs her to let him repeat the source code one last time. As she stares, the camera pivots to show the lens above the computer screen, an extreme close up of the lens that represents Stevens eyes. He is a machine.
The physical form we see Jake Gyllenhaal as within the majority of the film is not truly him until the end when his real body is revealed, or what’s left of it. In all instances where we see Stevens within the pod-like room, we are seeing what Goodwin describes as Stevens' manifestation of his own environment. As stated in the work by Muir, “we do not—yet—conventionally visualize in strings of zeros and ones, nor we readily read and comprehend them, unless perhaps if we are computer experts” (268). As stated in the work by Nishime, “inevitably, nostalgia and its close sister, melancholy, accompany the breakdown of borders, whether between human and machine, white and Other, or real and imaginary” (Nishime 42). Now, assuming the identity of Sean, Stevens is tasked with attempting to pass in his new form. Stevens assuming the new identity of Sean is exemplified by the scene in which Stevens calls his father for the last time. Throughout the film, Stevens mentions his father, and in a low emotional and physical point, Dr. Rutledge uses Stevens’ father as a means to push him further. He calls his father, though assuming a different identity, telling his father all the things he wished he could have told him if he were still alive or himself.
Midway through the film, Stevens ventures into figuring out his own status. While in the source code, he asks Christina to see what has become of Captain Colter Stevens. Later, she approaches him with caution, informing Stevens himself that he is dead and has been for months. Stevens, distraught and confused, begins to experience what seems to be a hallucination or a glitch, Christina’s face and voice morphing to that of Goodwin’s. The glitch happens at the moment of high emotional stress, here Stevens is an android who is “not merely glorified appliances; rather, [he is] autonomous” gaining experience and knowledge in the source code and “feeling emotions and pain” (Nishime 39). Stevens is sent back to Beleaguered Castle, where he asks Goodwin if he is dead. It is in this revelation when Stevens’ capsule first changes, it expands, he is no longer strapped in but the room drops, the monitors now above Stevens’ head, he lays in a manner that we later see is similar to how his physical body is positioned. Stevens' true body is a little more than a torso, his stomach is half open, a clear case covering his internal organs, his hands gone, and a gaping whole on the side of his head. The use of Stevens’ body, or more so his mind in Source Code is an example of “the calculation of [his] performance capabilities” and “the usefulness of bodies” (Shapiro 21). Stevens is used for the greater good, potentially preventing another attack, but he can never again own his own body or chose his own path, like an avatar in a video game, Stevens is bound to source code as a prisoner, tied down to a “body” or computer without a way to escape without the help of Goodwin. Still, while a version of Stevens becomes free at least of one restraint, by the end of the film Stevens is still where he started, locked away in a chamber, awaiting the next disaster.
Source Code is able to highlight an issue in militarism that is often omitted in stories about soldiers. The dehumanization of Colter Stevens, though seemingly futuristic in the context of Source Code, reflects much of the politics we see today—soldiers used as just bodies is nothing new. Ultimately, Source Code, a film seemingly not about cyborgs, can bring into question the definition of what makes a human. As we see in the film, Goodwin does see Stevens as human when she decides to end his life support but to Dr. Rutledge, this is a loss in the program and mostly, a loss of a tool, not a human life. Us as audiences are told otherwise, as we have stuck with Stevens throughout his experience in the source code, despite his physical status, Colter Stevens is human. The final shot of the film, an overhead shot shows Stevens once again in his life support chamber, though still locked away, he is physically there, he is human.
Work Cited:
Michael Blouin, “Tarrying with Sublimity: The Limits of Cinematic Form in Duncan Jones’
Source Code,” 2013.
Haraway, Donna (1991). _"A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and
Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature_. Routledge.
Muir, Lorna. 2012. Control Space?: Cinematic Representations of Surveillance Space
Between Discipline and Control. Surveillance & Society 9(3): 263-279. http://www.surveillance-and-society.org | ISSN: 1477-7487
Nishime, LeiLani. “The Mulatto Cyborg: Imagining a Multiracial Future.” Cinema Journal,
vol. 44, no. 2, [University of Texas Press, Society for Cinema & Media Studies], 2005, pp. 34–49, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3661093.
Shapiro, Michael J.. “Every Move You Make: Bodies, Surveillance, and Media.”
Social Text 23 (2005): 21-34.
Source Code. Dir. Duncan Jones. Summit Entertainment, 2011.
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