Fantasia 2024 International Film Festival will feature the screening of Black Eyed Susan on July 18 and go on until August 4.
McCrae Scooter is widely known as an underground filmmaker given that all his features have been shot on a plov budget and have provocatively defied norms. While I admit I am not well acquainted with my Master’s work, Sixteen Tongues is at the very bottom of my list, I plan to get to it at least before I submit this review. Still, McCrae’s later films are bound to revolve around the same motifs and intonations as Black Eyed Susan.
A man who used to drink heavily, and who used to be angry, Derek (Damien Maffei) gets a job at a company that develops AI technologies through an acquaintance. At the company, he is given the task of testing an extremely realistic AI-powered sex doll. Considering the company’s AI-tested committed suicide under suspicious circumstances, Gil (Marc Romeo), the developer of the doll, seems almost too eager to have Derek fill the role. I guess there is an astonishing demand for such a product an AI sex doll that is able to put up with everything and obey the whims of the user.
“I wish they would stop selling this dollar store crap” It’s an automation lesson from hardcore movies.
Gil believes that the true innovation of the technology that Derek is currently testing is the patented bruising technology. The skin is constructed in such a way that it seems to physiologically respond to forceful physical aggressiveness. “We expect our consumers to be a niche violent group, who will use these to blow off some steam” as Gil puts it.
The doll’s name is Susan and, like the rest of her kind, she is programmed with a special set of features. In her case, it is the ability to close her eyes and imitate REM sleep, as if daydreaming about her owner, Mrs. Wonder. However, her legs are stationary and therefore cannot move of their own accord. She is literally incapable of walking. The construction of the doll actually renders physical the doll’s agency or lack thereof. It represents, however, an extreme case of anthropomorphizing the technology Susan is as human as she can be. This is where the film adds a fascinating wrinkle to the debate because, within Susan’s programming, she does not want to walk. To be human is to be programmed to do things that are unnatural.
Susan poses many questions from the black eyed perspective. She does make sense but much of the answers lies buried beneath a highly emotional, extreme and melodramatic story that prefers shock value to telling a coherent tale.
For one, the film early on broaches a false equivalency between sadomasochistic sexual practice and domestic abuse. Theoretically, Susan is intended to serve both functions, to act as a BDSM fantasy or a way for overly aggressive lonely men to let off steam. The actual testing sessions, though, seem to play out both potential use cases at the same time, in a way that is (inadvertently) troubling. Given that the film is not really interested in BDSM, despite pointing toward it, it conflates nonconsensual sexual violence with consensual BDSM practice.
The confrontation McCrae seemingly intends here is with male aggression. This is not dissimilar to historical concerns over pornography and complications with the notion that a safe outlet for socially taboo urges reduces real-world harm. Does it really? I couldn’t say. The depictions in Black-Eyed Susan seem to suggest that a fantasy outlet for abuse does not reduce harm the guilt over the fantasy seemingly drives a man to suicide.
I am afraid there could be a mix-up here between violent aggression and pain that some people find sexually arousing. The film gets dangerously close to implying that every intimate relationship has a dominant and submissive role. If Derek opts not to take on a Susan Aggressor role, then her predictive machine learning algorithms assume she is set to take on a Derek Aggressor role. While these interpretations certainly deepen the text’s darkness, inviting the audience to ethically questionable depths, they also run rampant with an oversimplified understanding of sexual desire and human relationships. This is the kind of oversimplification that critics of Freud point to with concepts such as penis envy people are so much more complex than this.
Black Eyed Susan vehicles incorporate the older science fiction concept of artificial intelligence that increasingly merges the machine with the human. It is a nonsensical concept, one that preys on fears (and perhaps hopes) about technology attaining self-awareness and seeing their abusive creators, humans, as the oppressing force. It is most captivating when used to ask questions regarding humanity rather than technology, which is the case in McCrae’s work. The framework he poses that is most generative involves what Derek wants Susan to be. Susan is not these things. It is the projection of humanity onto technology the machine anthropomorphizing that is worth dissecting.
At the same time, the one-dimensionality of Derek’s character lacks nuance, leaving this exploration half-baked. What Derek wants are not desires that all people share, and his stance towards aggression turns out, absurdly, to default. It is impossible to engage troubling questions surrounding humanity, intimacy, and vice when the answer is provided by a profoundly unrelatable and unsympathetic protagonist.
Additionally, the more daring the exploration gets, the less subtle the discussion becomes. Ultimately, I worry that the questions the film raises are not as probing as McCrae appears to be expecting them to be. The provocations alone will be enough to rile some viewers, but for me, the central issue is the lack of clarity and follow-up on those provocative themes. Absent a layered discourse, the film’s conclusion seems to tone down to nothing more than a prevailing “surprise” ending, which I do not find engaging.
Regardless, to give credit to the film and McCrae, it goes there, so to speak. Those who have not given much contemplation to the trajectory of AI robotics may find, albeit disturbing, a generative dialogue being sparked here. Thälker should be lauded for their striking performance, which is undoubtedly the highlight and the centerpiece of the picture.
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