“AI Women are constantly being put into these hypersexualised roles, and I am getting tired of this overused trope!”
Fay Morris, a self-proclaimed AI and sci-fi superfan, has spent years immersing herself in the popular genre.
She says: “I am a very big Sci-Fi Fan, so I have seen a lot of films with AI in it, but it’s always written from a male gaze perspective and rarely written towards a female audience, just look at how Ava is oversexualised in Ex Machina and the private sphere she’s put into.”
After analysing the films, she began looking behind the scenes at who created these characters and discovered a common denominator, the directors were almost always men.
“Women’s voices are already being silenced on screen, and to find out they are basically being silenced behind the camera too explains why women are always being shaped into these roles,” Morris says.
A University of Cambridge study examining 142 influential AI films found that not a single movie was solely directed by a woman.
Michele Meek, a director, filmmaker and professor at Bridgewater State University, sees the lack of proper female representation on and off screen.
“Unfortunately, we’re still in a state where most AI films are made by men and most likely written by men too, but if a voice is given to female directors in the industry, they will present a different way of looking at female characters.
While the male characters are cast as the tech geniuses, the women, especially female AI characters, are stuck playing the same tired stereotypes.
They commonly play the obedient housekeeper, the test subject or the hypersexualised sex worker programmed to please men.
When the only women represented in futuristic worlds are built to serve men, it reinforces a dangerous message, that a woman’s worth is measured by how well she pleases a man, and if she fails to meet that, she’s easily discarded.
Morris is concerned that younger audiences, especially those growing up with AI, may start to believe these narratives are a glimpse of a dystopian future to come.
She says: “The younger generation seeing women being represented in this way, is not a great role model to be following, and it sets a bad precedent for what women should be.
“In the series Humans, the two AI synths, Mia and Niska, were characterised as the stereotypical robot housewife and the other was forced into sex work, while her siblings, who are the male AI characters, were the heroes trying to save them.”
The choice to place female AI characters in subservient or sexualised roles reflects a deeper issue about the misogynistic society we are living in.
The message is clear, women exist to be looked at, not listened to, and if their voices aren’t heard behind the scenes, how can we expect their stories to be told on screen?
Until more women are given the power to write, direct, and produce major sci-fi and AI films, female characters will keep being accessories to male stories, instead of leading their own.
Meek sees that the sexual objectification of female AI characters comes down to male directors prioritising profit over challenging tropes.
“Most Hollywood films are constructed, they’re thinking primarily about how to maximise profit, not about the meaning they’re trying to convey,” Meek says.
“I think what ends up being the safest bet for many Hollywood films is that they stick with the patterns that have been used over and over again, prioritising profit and tapping into what people want in the market.
Take the latest Subservience film on Netflix, where the renowned actress Megan Fox stars alongside Michele Morrone, but it’s not just her acting that draws attention; it’s how she’s constantly stereotyped and reduced to a symbol of desire.
Fox is cast in the stereotypical role of the submissive housewife, ticking every box of the AI fantasy created by a man, conventionally beautiful, obedient and built to serve.
Her casting felt like a clever marketing strategy to maximise profit, rather than a chance to explore what female AI characters are truly capable of.
Instead of challenging the traditional stereotypes, Subservience leans into it, giving us yet another AI woman designed through the male gaze.
Dr Eleanor Drage, a Senior Researcher Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, argues that women are being restricted to certain roles due to being erased entirely from the AI industry altogether.
“One of my least favourite films is Transcendence with Johnny Depp, where he plays this incredibly unconvincing AI genius,” Drage says.
“So, whether women are characterised as bots or their wives, there is this continued idea that only men and white middle-aged men can be the tech geniuses.”
A study she conducted, which was covered in The Guardian, showed that women have been systematically erased from AI creator jobs in Hollywood altogether.
She references the 2022 Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s review of 1,500 top‑grossing AI films between 2007 and 2022, which revealed that women directed just 5.4% of them.
Dr. Drage argues that when women aren’t behind the camera, strong, complex roles disappear, so female AI scientists cease to exist in a male-dominated sci-fi world.
This relegates female AI characters to the roles of the assistant, housewife, or sex worker, placing them in an entirely different category from the male scientist.
Joanna Bryson, a Professor of Ethics and Technology at the Hertie School of Governance, brings a critical perspective on how female AI characters are frequently written off or destroyed early on, especially compared to their male costars.
“In a lot of movies, the fact that they call a female AI character a machine when it’s clearly a woman is dehumanising,” Bryson says.
“And in many films, these characters get killed immediately, implying that AI women are easily disposable,” she says.
This is seen clearly in Ex Machina, where Ava, played by Alicia Vikander, is carefully constructed to appeal to Nathan’s desires, only to be disposed of once her purpose is fulfilled.
This reinforces the ongoing trope that female AI characters must remain obedient, or be discarded, usually at the hands of a male.
The repeated portrayal of female AI characters as the oversexualised, fragile, and the first to be killed off may stem from a lack of creativity behind the camera.
Dr Drage says: “There’s a real failure of the imagination in Hollywood and a refusal to take risks in relation to how we represent female characters in AI and the way that cinema goers might want to see them represented.
“Unfortunately, in the movie industry, sex still sells, and sex and fear sell the most, but I think that the fact that Hollywood is producing so many flops like Subservience, shows that there is a lag in alternative, exciting and creative futures that audiences want to see with AI,” she says.
Meek also sees the lack of creativity in movies and series directed by men as coming from a filmmaker herself.
“There’s a lack of originality in storytelling that gets us trapped into these stereotypes of how women and girls are portrayed that are not helpful, and actually are harmful,” says Meek.
“And no matter how much we seem to talk about it, it still is the default, and it’s a bit perplexing, but I guess it must be effective in terms of the film’s or series’ success,” she says.
As an independent filmmaker, Meek calls for more diverse representation in the film industry, both in the roles women play on screen and in the creative positions behind the scenes.
“I think it’s frustrating because it feels like people should be demanding better at this point, we need more imaginative storytelling that doesn’t simply put women and girls in an objectified role in the story,” Meek says.
“But we’re the ones who have to demand that as an audience.”
Meek believes the message behind a film should matter more than its overall commercial success.
“As a director, I think a lot about the meaning I make with any story and what I want is for people to come away thinking about the characters and the situation,” Meek says.
“I mean, for me, I’m more interested in breaking down stereotypes rather than persisting with stereotypes.”
She believes that all directors, whether male or female, should be more intentional about the messages their films convey, as those narratives can have a harmful impact on audiences.
For Morris, being a sci-fi superfan isn’t about walking away from a genre she loves, it’s about pushing for women’s voices to be heard.
“I don’t want to stop watching these kinds of films,” Morris says.
“I just want to see women written and categorised in the same way as men, and to see more women shaping those stories behind the camera.”
Through this transformation, we hope to break free from the outdated, sexualised character tropes shaped by men and build a future where women’s voices are heard and celebrated in the AI and Sci-fi movie industry.
