Gender, Colonialism and Cyborg Resistance: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Good Hunting

Abstract

The paper analyzes the animated episode Good Hunting of Love, Death & Robots to demonstrate how semiotic aspects of language and story elements are used to allude to such issues as colonialism, gender, identity and posthumanism. The episode is set against the backdrop of change in China as it exists today on a more realistic basis with the Qing rule to a futuristic steampunk city where Yan a huli jing (magical fox spirit) is forced transformed into a cyborg. The metamorphosis into a different person is the loss of the Native identity due to colonization and the discovery of herself back through technology is the finding of women who are in search of power. Through the combination of the theories of Norman Fairclough and the views of Donna Haraway, the paper shows how the episode laments the power of Western rationality and industry on traditional knowledge. It examines how authors write about native cultures and combine metaphors and symbolism to allude that the colonizers had power over language when it targeted indigenous magic and that science and progress were superior. The way through which Yan evolves and ultimately uses technology in her novel demonstrates posthumanist ideas of identity and undermines the obstinate perceptions of gender and humanity. Good Hunting brings a touch of real-life problems of identity, power and resistance that most of people cannot avoid in the new, technologized, postcolonial world. The article finds out that speculative fiction brings up very serious issues regarding the society, and indicates the potential need of further exploration of such characters as well as ideas in varying and other media, particularly as far as marginal populations and the individuals of the disaporic background are concerned.