Oedipal androids: desire and the human in the third millennium

Concerned to make certain a difference between the human and its machinic simulation, two films released at the start of the new millennium put the trope of the Oedipal at the heart of their action. In doing so, both succeed in establishing the real of the human within its terms. However, by taking the Oedipal as the figure of this difference, both films also unleash a set of possibilities for being human in the new millennium that may not have been entirely expected. In a close reading of both Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001) and I, Robot (Alex Proyas, 2004), this article examines the possibilities for human being as they come to circulate within the narrative structures of both films. In doing so it also examines the further difference drawn between what each film offers as the literal and metaphorical rendition of the Oedipal itself. With the metaphorical opened to the space and time of being excluded as a possibility in its literal rendition, the consequences of the subsequent process of becoming of the human are finally laid bare.