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A review by jarrahpenguin
The Computer's Voice: From Star Trek to Siri by Liz W. Faber
3.0
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I accepted a pitch to review this book based on the copy on the back of the book, which praises the book as both "elegant" and "highly accessible" and promises an exploration of "contentious questions around gender: its fundamental constructedness, the rigidity of the gender binary, and culturally situated attitudes on male and female embodiment." But I didn't get far into the book before I realized that the ad copy made a significant omission in failing to mention the analysis is almost entirely based on psychoanalytic feminist theory.
I'm fairly familiar with psychoanalytic feminist theory from my Gender Studies undergrad but I wasn't the biggest fan and in my opinion this book doesn't totally succeed in breaking free of the the theory's pitfalls of gender and cultural essentialism, though there are attempts. Nor does it provide the supporting evidence that I would need to believe things like the contention that Picard's holodeck fantasy character Dixon Hill's nickname "Dix" is a hidden way of overcompensating for the threat to his masculinity posed by Lwaxana Troi. It seems to be enough for psychoanalytic theorists that an on-screen representation aligns with something Freud once said, and if you do a survey of average people and they don't concur, it must be because they aren't schooled in the workings of the subconscious.
This book was relatively accessible compared to the materials I read in my undergrad, but not relative to non-fiction books in general. I had a really hard time finding anyone with enough of a grounding in feminist psychoanalysis (or even straight-up Freudian psychoanalysis) to talk about this book with, even after reaching out on my social networks. When I tried to explain the underlying logic of arguments like "the Enterprise is a passive female womb" to anyone who hadn't studied psych or gender studies, I was met with blank stares.
Ultimately the book was an interesting exploration of psychoanalytic feminist theory to Star Trek and more. If I was back in Gender Studies doing film theory this would've been a neat book to study. I also appreciated the discussion on how the gendered role of voiced computers and AI in media has changed from the 1960s to today with Siri and Alexa, but I don't know that I would recommend this book to Trek or sci-fi fans who don't already understand and embrace psychoanalytic theory.
I accepted a pitch to review this book based on the copy on the back of the book, which praises the book as both "elegant" and "highly accessible" and promises an exploration of "contentious questions around gender: its fundamental constructedness, the rigidity of the gender binary, and culturally situated attitudes on male and female embodiment." But I didn't get far into the book before I realized that the ad copy made a significant omission in failing to mention the analysis is almost entirely based on psychoanalytic feminist theory.
I'm fairly familiar with psychoanalytic feminist theory from my Gender Studies undergrad but I wasn't the biggest fan and in my opinion this book doesn't totally succeed in breaking free of the the theory's pitfalls of gender and cultural essentialism, though there are attempts. Nor does it provide the supporting evidence that I would need to believe things like the contention that Picard's holodeck fantasy character Dixon Hill's nickname "Dix" is a hidden way of overcompensating for the threat to his masculinity posed by Lwaxana Troi. It seems to be enough for psychoanalytic theorists that an on-screen representation aligns with something Freud once said, and if you do a survey of average people and they don't concur, it must be because they aren't schooled in the workings of the subconscious.
This book was relatively accessible compared to the materials I read in my undergrad, but not relative to non-fiction books in general. I had a really hard time finding anyone with enough of a grounding in feminist psychoanalysis (or even straight-up Freudian psychoanalysis) to talk about this book with, even after reaching out on my social networks. When I tried to explain the underlying logic of arguments like "the Enterprise is a passive female womb" to anyone who hadn't studied psych or gender studies, I was met with blank stares.
Ultimately the book was an interesting exploration of psychoanalytic feminist theory to Star Trek and more. If I was back in Gender Studies doing film theory this would've been a neat book to study. I also appreciated the discussion on how the gendered role of voiced computers and AI in media has changed from the 1960s to today with Siri and Alexa, but I don't know that I would recommend this book to Trek or sci-fi fans who don't already understand and embrace psychoanalytic theory.