The Problem of the Sexy Cyborg: The Ethics of Cyborg Imagery

In this article, I discuss two popular tropes about the cyborg in speculative fiction visual media: apotheosis — the pinnacle of human form and function; and grotesquerie — the violation of that perfection through fascinating horror. I look at these tropes in service of discussing the effects of such images and cultural understandings on actual cyborgs. The everyday or common cyborgs that are disabled people; the ones with prosthetics, who use wheelchairs, hearing aids, beta blockers, and Ritalin, who have artificial valves, knees, and pacemakers. I argue that the imagery of perfection and horror that surround cyborgs in media reinforce problematic tropes about disabled people, specifically the tropes of the super crip, pity, and bitter cripple narratives, and the ugly is evil trope where physical disfigurements and disabilities are often shorthand for moral failing. I connect these tropes to longstanding beliefs that were foundational to the eugenics movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, and that still cause resistance to robust social services for disabled people.