Terminator and Philosophy: I'll Be Back, Therefore I Am by William Irwin, Kevin S. Decker, Richard Brown Page B
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Terminators driving police cars, displaying the logo “To Protect and Serve.” In fact, the T-1000 of T2 appears more often in a police uniform than in any other disguise, fostering misplaced trust and confidence from unsuspecting characters.
By inserting Terminators into the present world, James Cameron’s stories illustrate an important change in science fiction. According to Baudrillard:
In this way, science fiction would no longer be a romantic expansion with all the freedom and naïveté that the charm of discovery gave it, but, quite the contrary, it would evolve implosively, in the very image of our current conception of the universe, attempting to revitalize, reactualize, requotidianize fragments of simulation, fragments of this universal simulation that have become for us the so-called real world. 8
Baudrillard understands the present-day world as a world of simulation, a world in which reality and illusion blur and former notions of safety must be constantly questioned. In line with this, the Terminator series focuses on the present rather than on a postwar, Skynet-dominated future. With most of the action in the present, the philosophically minded viewer is forced to examine contemporary culture for signs of impending doom, just like the Connors do. While you and I may not be looking over our shoulders for Terminators, we should be examining the role technology plays in our own lives. 9 This type of self-examination leads Sarah to conclude that time, identity, and everything else change; that there is no constant or control; and that the only thing left is “family and the body God gave us” ( SCC , “Gnothi Seauton”).
No one would have thought that the Sarah Connor from The Terminato r and T2 would eventually learn to trust and rely on the machines that so drastically altered her fate, but she does. Her thoughts while watching young John and the T-101 interact in T2 perfectly illustrate the contradictions of her world:
Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop, it would never leave him . . . it would always be there. And it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him, or say it couldn’t spend time with him because it was too busy. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.
In such a world, can anyone blame Sarah for not being the best mother?
Stain and Social Roles: Why Sarah Won’t Be Mother of the Year
“You suck as a mom.” “I know. I’m working on it.”
—Martin and Sarah, SCC , “Goodbye to All That”
If Sarah truly represents a warrior “stained” from the violence and trauma she experiences in a world most cannot imagine, it should come as no surprise that her mothering skills are a bit unorthodox at best. No one doubts her love for John or her devotion to him. From the moment she knows she is pregnant, Sarah begins making a tape for John about her life and his fate. She tells Dr. Silberman that John is “naked” without her, in serious danger while she remains locked away at the beginning of T2 . John describes a life of running guns and learning to fight physically with shooting practice and fight mentally with chess lessons. Sarah does all of this to prepare John to be the leader he needs to be if she cannot change his fate. In fact, John tells the T-101 that he thought every child grew up like this, and that he never experienced a “regular” school until his mom was sent away.
In SCC , we often see Sarah making pancakes, hugging her son, glaring at John for letting Cameron do his math homework, and so on. Sarah’s attempts at normalcy don’t always work, though. When she tells John and Cameron that she read the school newsletter and knows it’s pizza day, John and Cameron sit quietly and
By inserting Terminators into the present world, James Cameron’s stories illustrate an important change in science fiction. According to Baudrillard:
In this way, science fiction would no longer be a romantic expansion with all the freedom and naïveté that the charm of discovery gave it, but, quite the contrary, it would evolve implosively, in the very image of our current conception of the universe, attempting to revitalize, reactualize, requotidianize fragments of simulation, fragments of this universal simulation that have become for us the so-called real world. 8
Baudrillard understands the present-day world as a world of simulation, a world in which reality and illusion blur and former notions of safety must be constantly questioned. In line with this, the Terminator series focuses on the present rather than on a postwar, Skynet-dominated future. With most of the action in the present, the philosophically minded viewer is forced to examine contemporary culture for signs of impending doom, just like the Connors do. While you and I may not be looking over our shoulders for Terminators, we should be examining the role technology plays in our own lives. 9 This type of self-examination leads Sarah to conclude that time, identity, and everything else change; that there is no constant or control; and that the only thing left is “family and the body God gave us” ( SCC , “Gnothi Seauton”).
No one would have thought that the Sarah Connor from The Terminato r and T2 would eventually learn to trust and rely on the machines that so drastically altered her fate, but she does. Her thoughts while watching young John and the T-101 interact in T2 perfectly illustrate the contradictions of her world:
Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The Terminator would never stop, it would never leave him . . . it would always be there. And it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him, or say it couldn’t spend time with him because it was too busy. And it would die to protect him. Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years, this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up. In an insane world, it was the sanest choice.
In such a world, can anyone blame Sarah for not being the best mother?
Stain and Social Roles: Why Sarah Won’t Be Mother of the Year
“You suck as a mom.” “I know. I’m working on it.”
—Martin and Sarah, SCC , “Goodbye to All That”
If Sarah truly represents a warrior “stained” from the violence and trauma she experiences in a world most cannot imagine, it should come as no surprise that her mothering skills are a bit unorthodox at best. No one doubts her love for John or her devotion to him. From the moment she knows she is pregnant, Sarah begins making a tape for John about her life and his fate. She tells Dr. Silberman that John is “naked” without her, in serious danger while she remains locked away at the beginning of T2 . John describes a life of running guns and learning to fight physically with shooting practice and fight mentally with chess lessons. Sarah does all of this to prepare John to be the leader he needs to be if she cannot change his fate. In fact, John tells the T-101 that he thought every child grew up like this, and that he never experienced a “regular” school until his mom was sent away.
In SCC , we often see Sarah making pancakes, hugging her son, glaring at John for letting Cameron do his math homework, and so on. Sarah’s attempts at normalcy don’t always work, though. When she tells John and Cameron that she read the school newsletter and knows it’s pizza day, John and Cameron sit quietly and
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