Icons of Stone and Steel: Death, Cinema, and the Future of Emotion

Abstract

The undesirability of emotion is a theme in many contemporary films and ambivalence toward emotion is not new in Western intel-lectual history. Ever since Plato cast suspicion on emotion in the fifth century BC, we have had a love/hate relationship with it. Whereas the mind has traditionally been associated with timeless rational principles and regarded as a necessary condition of human freedom, emotion has been seen as an obstacle to autonomy that is aligned with the ephemeral body, an entity subject to natural laws and limits, the first and foremost being death. This chapter examines Western culture’s longstanding antagonism toward emotion and maintains that the traditional interest in suppressing or altogether eliminating emotion is motivated in part by its ability to disclose human mortality. This fact is shown in a variety of cinematic works: particularly, and perhaps not surprisingly, those in the fantasy genre. Futuristic works such as I, Robot (2004) and Equilibrium (2002) present the eradication of emotion as a possibility. Likewise, the five films based on Stephenie Meyers’s The Twilight Saga and the eight films inspired by J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series illustrate the desire to master emotion and conquer death.