[Courtney] Picture it.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The year 2000.

Taco Bell recently launched a new product known as the Cheesy Gordita Crunch.

My mother and I are moving – as we so often did – after a long day of hauling boxes.

The tube TV is sat on the floor.

It is far too heavy to actually put up on the entertainment… [Royce] Center?

Or was this too small to be a center?

[Courtney] Well, I was about to say entertainment center, but I don’t think we had a proper entertainment center.

It was too heavy to pick up off the floor.

It was a tube TV.

The tube TV is sitting on the floor, and we have opened just enough boxes because it’s the first day of a move.

Cable has not been hooked up to the house yet.

We opened just enough boxes to pull out the VCR and the very first VHS that we could find.

That VHS, you ask?

None other than Bicentennial Man.

So began one of my most cherished traditions of watching that fucking movie and ordering Taco Bell every single time I moved houses.

So today we’re gonna talk about robots and sex and humanity!

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back.

My name is Courtney.

I am here, as always, with my spouse, Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple.

[Courtney] And I know some of our listeners are young enough, and this movie is just old enough and not quite large enough in the pop cultural zeitgeist, that I’m sure some of you have no idea what movie we’re even talking about, and that’s fine.

I love this movie so much.

It is so near and dear to my heart, and yet it’s got one of the most aggravating instances of a piece of media using sex and sexuality to humanize an otherwise inhuman character.

And we’re gonna talk about that.

This is a phenomenon that we’ve talked about before.

I think one of the bigger, earlier instances of us talking about this was in Dexter, where Dexter is a human character, but he was so explicitly asexual, about as asexual as you can possibly get without saying the literal word.

In literally episode one of that series he’s talking about how weird and foreign and unnatural sex seems and how it’s so undignified and he’d never want to do something like that.

[Royce] It was really played up in the pilot.

It was a frequent joke throughout that episode.

I feel like it was present but maybe dwindled a bit throughout season one, and then they just forgot about it.

[Courtney] Well– [Royce] Intentionally stopped using that.

[Courtney] The lines were funny enough that, as we were watching it, we were like: is it wildly problematic that they’re taking this serial killer who they’re going out of their way to talk about how inhuman he is, he doesn’t feel any emotions, you know, all of those tropes, and also saying asexual?

Yeah, yeah, that’s problematic.

But like, at least he had some banger lines that we kind of related to and giggled about.

So that’s not nothing.

But I would have loved the conversation about Dexter to just be like, these lines were great, give us a character that is spitting bars like this who maybe isn’t constantly being put in your face, “Oh, he’s inhuman.

He’s– he doesn’t feel any emotions.

He doesn’t have any empathy.” And using that as a lazy shorthand to just be like, “See, still less than human.

Doesn’t want sex, doesn’t have sexuality.

Definitely not human.

Look at how inhuman this person is.” I’d like to talk about how that’s a bit problematic without then being like, you also decided to drop that as soon as you said he needs to be a little more human.

[Courtney] Because the constant ‘nothing relatable, no emotion at all, as far from human as you possibly can be’ only goes so far.

And they had several seasons of this show, so they had to start giving him some kind of character development.

Because that’s what audiences crave, even from anti-heroes like Dexter.

They want some development.

But they decided their development was going to be giving him some more emotions.

And maybe he is sexually attracted to someone.

Maybe he does start having sex with the person he’s in a relationship with.

And that, literally him developing a sexuality, coincided with them starting to give him more empathetic emotions and relationships with other people.

So yes, that is a very clear-cut instance of using: lack of sex means less human, sex means more human.

But Bicentennial Man was so on the nose about this harmful, harmful trope.

And it kills me that I adore this movie so much because it’s so bad.

And like– Since we’re picturing it, Sioux Falls, 2000, we’re excited to try the new Cheesy Gordita Crunch.

[Royce] This would have been a fairly new VHS at that point in time too.

Had you seen the movie before this?

Like, in theaters?

[Courtney] Oh, I don’t think we saw it in theaters.

[Royce] I was just looking at this.

[Courtney] This was like, cheap seats era.

Like those were the only movies I saw were the cheap seats.

[Royce] I was curious, but this movie was released in theaters in December of 99 and hit VHS in June of 2000, so it would have been pretty recent.

[Courtney] There is– And I don’t know this for sure, I have vivid memories of exactly what pieces of media we, like, specifically stole from Blockbuster.

[laughs] [Royce] And this wasn’t one?

[Courtney] Well, we rented the Tarzan Nintendo 64 video game so many times.

Because I had a Nintendo 64, but we could not afford any games for it.

But we’d rent the games at Blockbuster sometimes.

But this game we came back to over and over again, because we couldn’t even save it.

Like, you had to beat the entire game all the way through.

[Royce] You didn’t purchase memory cards?

[Courtney] No, we couldn’t afford memory cards.

[laughs] So you had to get good enough at each level that you could reliably finish it.

So over and over again.

And I distinctly remember one day where it’s like time to return the Tarzan 64 game again, and my mother was just like, “You know, we’ve fully paid for this game at this point for how many times we’ve rented it.” And we never brought it back.

[Royce] You just crossed that Blockbuster off the list.

[Courtney] We’re just like, “We rent from Hollywood Video now.” So I don’t know this for certain, but there’s a non-zero chance that we rented Bicentennial Man from Blockbuster and then just never– Actually no, no, no, no, no.

We must have gotten this by perfectly legal and scrupulous means because I’m picturing it.

Sioux Falls, 2000.

That cover of Bicentennial Man, the blue cover that’s like Robin Williams on one side and the robot version of him on the other side.

I see that in my mind’s eye so vividly.

That was not a Blockbuster case.

We did not steal that.

So this was like fully our movie.

I don’t recall seeing it in theaters, so I don’t think we did, but for one reason or another we bought this movie and it was like the first movie we found trying to open boxes because we didn’t have cable hooked up yet.

[Courtney] Tube TVs on the floor, we’re eating Cheesy Gordita Crunches.

And thereafter, that was the ritual: every time you move, you watch Bicentennial Man that night at the end of the day, and you get takeout from Taco Bell.

And it’s funny, the progression of the Taco Bell too.

Because at the time in 2000, I could eat a Cheesy Gordita Crunch, but very shortly thereafter, I stopped eating meat altogether.

So I would have to get like a bean and cheese burrito or something.

I wasn’t vegan yet, I still did dairy products.

But then, I’m pretty sure your first time watching this movie was when we moved, right?

[Royce] I think I had seen it way back in the day and had little to no memory of it.

[Courtney] Just didn’t have this visceral memory I did?

[Royce] Yeah.

[Courtney] Or repetition of it.

Because I fully– when I was coming down, moving to Kansas City, I was like, the day I moved down, “We have to watch Bicentennial Man and get Taco Bell.” And like, yeah, the last time this happened it was like, “Oh, now they have Black Bean Crunchwrap Supremes.” So this movie is about a robot.

Robin Williams is just like robot butler that you can buy in the not so distant future.

[Royce] Yeah, interesting that this was made in 1999, and this future with incredibly sophisticated robots that they envisioned was set in 2005.

[Courtney] Oh no.

Was it really 2005?

[Royce] Yes.

[Courtney] Yeah, that didn’t age well.

Did we even- We didn’t even have Roombas by 2005, did we?

[Royce] I don’t believe so.

I think a significant portion of the country still didn’t have home com– Well, it wouldn’t have been that uncommon for someone to not have a home computer.

[Courtney] So this fully human-sized and shaped robot shows up at this presumably very wealthy family’s house.

And the entire premise of the movie is that he just gets increasingly more human throughout the movie.

And it starts subtle, like he’s very much a robot, he’s in service to the family who purchased him.

He refers to himself as One.

He doesn’t use, like, human pronouns for himself.

He says, “One is glad to be of service.” But they start to realize maybe there’s something a little bit different about this robot when he starts expressing creativity that they don’t understand a robot to be capable of.

[Courtney] He accidentally breaks a little glass horse for the youngest girl in the family, and it was her favorite glass horse, and he felt so bad that he learned how to carve wood and carved a new horse for her.

And of course, the family is like, “Oh, where did you get this design?

Where did you copy it from?” And he said, “Oh, I didn’t copy it.

I created it.” And they’re like, “Mh… I don’t think robots are supposed to be able to do that.” So the, you know, the man of the house in this situation is really, like, excited about this and is sort of asking the robotic company, “Have you seen anything like this?

Is he unique?” The robotics company isn’t too happy about it.

[Royce] They– Yeah, the patriarch of the family is able to catch on this, but the robotics company basically see this as a liability error.

[Courtney] Yeah.

[Royce] And they want to destroy it.

[Courtney] Yes.

So they’re like, “Oh, well, we’ll decommission this one and give you a new one.” And he’s like, “No!

This is my robot.

Hands off.” [Royce] And they turn around going, “Okay, how much?

What do we need to pay you?” I got the impression that this sort of thing happened often enough that they were aware of it and that was, I guess, either a potential legal liability or PR issue or something like that.

If a robot was allowed to develop in a way that would allow them to ignore some of their protocols that they.

[Courtney] Yeah, I mean, they literally say, like, people, we’re in people’s homes.

[Royce] Yeah.

[Royce] Coutney: [Royce] Our robots are taking care of people’s children.

Like, people aren’t going to want to hear that they have free will or the ability to think for themselves.

So it’s a big liability.

But once he realizes this, he’s like, “You know what?

No, this is my robot and he’s unique and I’m going to start mentoring him.” So he’s like, “Oh yeah, you’ll do your normal, you know, duties for the family around the house.

But then in the evening, come to my study with me and we’ll start, you know, we’ll start learning.

I’ll give you a proper education.” And even though we have this little inkling of like, oh, this robot has, you know, creativity, he has the ability to create art on his own, that’s the first step, he still has some very robotic characteristics at this point that start to slowly chip away.

[Royce] Like he’s very happy to be this family’s robot, he’s very happy to serve them.

He also has– Like, literally, the patriarch of this family gives him, in these study sessions, the birds and the bees talk.

And while he’s still, like, fully metal man, can’t make facial expressions that convey emotion, nothing like that has happened yet, he’s learning about sex, I guess, for the first time from this guy.

And his reactions are like, “Why would people do that?” [laughs] He’s like– he literally says, “It just sounds so messy.” [Royce] Which, I brought this up at one point while we were watching the movie.

Some things about the robot’s knowledge seem so weird to me, and maybe it was because this was written in 1999 and they said they were in the year 2005.

But the concept of the internet as we know it was not present.

[Courtney] Yeah.

[Royce] Like Robin Williams’ robot was not just going online and instantly obtaining information.

[Courtney] Mm-mm.

Well, that– that’s an interesting thing to point out, too, because when he learned how to carve, like he said he made the design himself, but he said, “Oh, I downloaded books about how to carve.” And the way it was presented was like, “I individually went to each of these books.” And yeah, that’s– What a weird period of time to think about.

Also like, I don’t know where this is right now, but I have seen pictures and videos and write-ups of like this 90s museum where they have, like, living rooms set up with tube TVs.

And– [Royce] And old game consoles.

[Courtney] They’re like, “The last decade before the future.” But yeah, so as he’s getting this birds and the bees talk here, he’s like, “Yeah, it sounds messy.” And then he’s learning about, like, oh, sperm and egg fertilization.

He’s getting that kind of talk and he’s like, “But you said only one sperm gets to the egg.

What happens to all the others?” And the guy’s like, “Well, they die.” And he’s like, [whispering] “They die…?” Almost like he’s so startled and has such an abundance of empathy for all of the sperm that just die.

And it very much reads as, like, robot cannot comprehend anything about sex.

Actually, I’m gonna pull up the transcript for this part because I also remember the robot like– who the family names Andrew.

They name him Andrew.

So Andrew was like, “Oh, I hope people don’t feel like they have to have sex.” I remember the word obligation.

Let’s find this.

[Courtney] Okay, here it is.

[reading] “And nine months later, a baby is born.

And those, Andrew, are the so-called facts of life.” “People actually do this, sir?” “Yes.

And married people, one supposes, they see it as some kind of requirement or obligation.

Well, it’s not exactly an obligation.” “That’s a relief.” Then they talk about the sperm and how he feels bad for the ones that die.

And, you know, Andrew asks like, and it agrees that it actually feels good.

It feels good for both parties.

And he’s like, “Yeah, I mean, in an ideal world.” And he’s like, “And people actually do this frequently?” And he’s like, “As often as they can, as a matter of fact.” And that’s when the robot says, “May One speak frankly with you?

It’s just that the whole process, it sounds so messy.” So we got– He’s baffled.

He doesn’t understand it at all.

And we’ve only just gotten a hint of his humanity beginning to awaken.

[Courtney] But as series of other things continue throughout, he starts to express more emotions.

He even, as technology starts to get better, wants to get an upgrade so that he can show more expressions on his face, which he can now pay for himself because he has money now.

He got so good at wood carving that he’s carving all of these clocks that apparently just rake in the cash.

This robot is really rich all of a sudden.

Even in the future where we have fully humanoid robots, people still want, like… [Royce] Massive grandfather clocks and things?

[Courtney] Yes!

[laughs] And of course there’s a big legal conversation of, like, can a robot even legally have a bank account?

Should the robot even get his own money, or is this the family’s money since he’s a robot and the family owns him?

And so there’s all those conversations, but he eventually does get his own stream of income and his own bank account.

There is a weird scene where the little girl has grown up and a man proposes to her, and she does this whole, “I’m going to ask the robot a question, but the question’s actually about him, but I’m not gonna tell him.” Which is a weird thing that humans do with each other sometimes.

But she basically hints at the fact, like, “Yeah, I probably I should marry this human man who asked me to marry him.

He’s a pretty good man.

But I have this other friend and I think I might have feelings for this other friend.” [Courtney] And then the oblivious robot is like, “Well, the answer is simple: marry your friend.” And she’s like, “But I couldn’t!

It’s too complicated!” Which there are some really weird connotations about that that the movie does just kind of brush over.

I did not ever realize how weird this movie was until one time I mentioned it to someone and they’d never even heard of it and I tried to explain it to them.

I was like: well, little girl grows up and she’s kind of in love with the robot, but she ends up marrying another man.

But then she ends up having kids and her kids have kids and then her granddaughter looks just like him– and or looks just like her, and then the robot ends up falling in love with her granddaughter.

Who looks just like her.

And that was about the point where I was like, wow, that movie was kind of fucked up, huh?

[Courtney] Just a little bit.

So as his family starts to age and he starts to get increasingly more human with more autonomy and more rights, he asks the patriarch of this family if he could be declared free.

He’s like, “I’ve learned so much about freedom.

All of your books talk about all these people who go to war for concept of freedom.” And he’s like, “Of course I’ll still serve you.

I still want to be here.

I still want to be part of the family.

I want to help, but I just want to be legally free.” And for some reason this really upsets this guy.

He’s really upset and he’s like, “Fine, you’re free.

Get out of here.

Go.

Leave.” [Royce] Yeah, for someone who was so intellectually curious earlier on– [Courtney] And progressive in his views on robot rights?

[Royce] Yeah, this seemed like it kind of came out of nowhere.

[Courtney] Yeah, because Andrew’s just like, “I don’t want to leave.

I want to serve you.” He’s like, “No!

You’re free.

Get out of here.” [Royce] Which, after that, Andrew just– we said he had to somehow buy some land.

But in the movie, he’s just shown walking to an empty spot on the beach and building a house.

And we were like, [Courtney laughs] Are you squatting?

Like, what is this?

[Courtney] Yeah, you know, it is interesting because the family truly did try to treat him like one of the family.

Because, well, the older of the two children hated him and tried to break him real bad.

And so the dad at that point earlier on was like, “He is a robot.

It’s just a robot.

But you need to have respect for property, too.

So we’re treating him like a person around here.

He’s a member of the family now.

You can’t break members of the family.” So they, like, even said that they– he could use like their last name.

So he’s Andrew Martin now.

And he’s really proud to be a Martin.

When he introduces himself to people after he goes on this big journey, because now he’s been kicked out of the house because he’s free now, and he builds this big beautiful house on the beach.

He decides he wants to go and try to search for other robots to see if anyone else is like him.

[Courtney] It’s so lonely being the only robot with human emotions and creativity and freedom.

Maybe there are others like me.

So he gets this big database of where other robots of his, like, make and model are, and he goes searching for them.

And every time he finds one, he’s like, “Hello, my last name is Martin.” Like, that’s how he introduces himself to them.

And most of them are not.

Most of them are either out of commission or they’re still very robot-y and aren’t exhibiting the humanness that he has been exhibiting.

But he finds another robot that at first he thinks is like him, and it’s owned by a guy who actually works in, like, robotic technologies.

[Royce] Yeah, that is Rupert, and he is the son of one of the early creators of these line of robots.

And he seems to be doing underground, probably not above board modifications and experiments to try to make robots more human-like.

[Courtney] Yeah, well– [Royce] Or at least not approved by the company.

[Courtney] Yeah, well, he said that, like, his dad was responsible for the technology that gave him more facial expressions, for instance.

And basically the robotics company is like: there isn’t a market for this.

People don’t want their robots being human.

So they sort of cut off funding to do additional research like this, but he’s still trying.

But he even says, like, “I just can’t get people to fund my research.” But then Andrew shows up and is like, “I’m a multi-millionaire robot who wants to be more human.

I will fund your research.” [Royce] Yeah.

Here, have my clock money.

[Courtney] Have my clock money.

That good, good clock money.

And he is, for, like, no good reason, this person who this– this robot at this point, he’s not legally a person yet.

This robot who is getting increasingly more human as time goes on, who started with this, like, overabundance of empathy where he’s feeling bad for sperm that die, that don’t make it to the egg, is just a beast to the one and only female robot he ever met.

And that is just totally played up for comedy for no good reason.

Pure robot misogyny.

He just fucking hates her for no good reason.

[Royce] Well, he’s first surprised or disappointed because he thought, hey, maybe this was another sentient robot.

And– [Courtney] Well, she had gotten a modification where she can, like, dance now.

So she can like swivel her hips better, and that’s what he saw before he met the guy who was able to give her that modification.

And so he was like, that’s unique.

[Royce] Yeah, but once he talks to Rupert, he kind of, as he’s talking, guesses, “Oh, you had a personality chip installed.” And that really frustrates him because it’s, “Oh, this robot isn’t like me.” There’s just a program running to simulate this behavior.

[Courtney] Yeah, and he just hates her so much though.

[Royce] He’s incredibly annoyed by her.

[Courtney] He’s so annoyed.

She’s like, “Isn’t it great to have personalities?” And he’s like, “No, your personality is terrible and I hate you.” And he’ll, he’ll like– as a robot himself, he’ll look at this Rupert and he’ll be like, “Turn her off or I will.” Like, he’s just beastly to her.

And she’s not that bad.

She’s kind of charming.

Her name is Galatea and I kind of like her, actually.

But then he, like, tries to break her at one point.

You just, like, hear a fucking chainsaw or something in the background as he’s, like, going after her with something.

[Royce] Impact drill, I think.

[Courtney] Sure.

[Royce] Well, he asked, like, “Excuse me, do you have an impact drill?” [Courtney] [laughs] And it’s like, wow, you feel bad that sperm’s dying, but the one woman robot that exists, you just cannot fucking take it, and you want to destroy her?

Cool, cool Andrew.

But while funding all this research, you know, the first sort of thing that happens is he gets like simulated skin.

He gets skin and hair and a face.

And at first it’s just superficial, he can’t feel as if it were real skin, but he looks completely like a human now.

So he goes back home to brag about how he looks like a human, and not understanding how time passes, I guess, that’s when he meets the granddaughter of Little Miss; the little girl from, you know, the original family who looks just like her and has never seen this man before, hasn’t even seen the robot before.

So, strange man just walks into the house and is like, “Hello, I’m back.” So after that whole thing finally gets sorted out, you see some, you know, impacts of time moving and mortality.

[Courtney] The, you know, aboriginal patriarch of the family ends up dying, and then Little Miss grows older and she dies, and as she’s dying in her hospital room, she’s holding that wooden horse that he carved for her all those years ago.

And her granddaughter is there when she dies, and she starts crying, and then he’s like, “This is cruel that you can cry and I can’t.” He’s like, “I’m also sad and I want to cry like you.” So he is also like, “Is just everybody, every human I love just going to die?” And she’s like, “Yeah, obviously.

We’re humans, we die.

That’s what we do.” And he’s like, “Well, this won’t do.

If all the humans I love are going to die, then I need to know how to cry.” So he goes back to, you know, robot genius that he’s funding and is like, “I need to be more human.

I need to cry.

I need to feel things.” And so he just slowly over time gets more and more modifications.

[Royce] Yeah, he starts using his own time and intellect and expertise to help the robotics person build a lot of things and ends up, in trying to make himself more human, ends up inventing several things that are sort of the robotic in between.

There are things that could be used for transplants.

[Courtney] Oh yeah, like individual organs.

He’s recreating all of them.

So now we’ve got a beating heart.

[Royce] Yeah.

He’s trying to create an artificial body that is as close to the functioning of a human body as possible, but in the meantime this works both ways and he’s creating artificial organs that can be implanted in humans in the point of organ failure.

And so as all of these years are progressing we get the indication that some people in society are becoming more cyborg-like along the way.

[Courtney] Yeah, well and the big breakthrough comes because for a while all this skin and hair was all just very superficial.

But after more research is done, robotics guy is like, “Hey, I think I can actually get you a central nervous system now.” So now he can feel things.

And now he has this artificial stomach that actually works in a digestive system.

So now he can eat and drink things.

So he, like, the first time he can feel he goes to Little Miss’s granddaughter.

I don’t even know her name because all I remember is Little Miss.

[laughs] The number of times I’ve seen this movie and I can’t even remember everyone’s names.

[Royce] Portia.

[Courtney] Portia!

He goes– That sounds correct, yes.

Thank you.

He goes to Portia and he’s like, “Poke me in the eye now!” Because clearly that’s the best way to demonstrate I feel things now.

He went for, like, the most, like, squeamish one.

Just poke me right in the eye.

And she does and he goes, “Ow!” And then he’s like, “A-ha!

I felt it!

It worked!” So now he can feel pain and, you know, now he can eat food and drink drinks.

Which that was like a big thing earlier.

Like, he adopted a dog that just sort of washed up and if anyone offered like, “Oh, do you want anything to eat?” He’s like, “I don’t have a stomach.

But my dog has a stomach.

He would like some water, but I cannot drink water.” So, hey, now he can, now he can do that.

And he’s eating food and it’s so good.

And he likes feeling even pain because it means he feels something.

[Courtney] But then when he’s like, about as close to human as you think he can possibly be, I guess this kind of coincides around the time like, oh, you should be able to eat food.

You should be able to drink if we do X, Y, and Z.

Then he’s like, “Also, if my schematics are correct…” Always got it with the schematics.

“I think I’ve come up with a method to make you a complete man.” And like, so we have Robin Williams, who is now looking like himself and not like a metal man anymore, and his fingers are sort of like laced on his lap, and he like lifts up both of his thumbs and just looks straight down.

And then he looks back up and he’s like, “Complete?” Like he knows exactly what that means.

You’re gonna have a functioning penis.

[Courtney] And so robotics guys, like, “It’s not in a reproductive sense, of course, but in terms of approximating the physical sensations, you know, that occur.” “Friction?

Sexual relations?” And that’s when the most egregious monologue, maybe in the history of cinema, happens.

And I hate that it’s Robin Williams because he is so gosh dang likable and he delivers it so earnestly that it makes me, the acest ass person you ever met, almost want to believe in sex.

Almost.

I’m not there yet and I will never be.

But this Robin Williams monologue would get me about as close as I possibly could.

And I hate it.

If anyone else was delivering this, I would have never watched this movie this many times.

[Courtney] But he goes on to say: “I’ve always been fascinated by sex.

I mean, curious because of what they say.” And this is the part that’s so weird, because the first time the concept of sex is introduced to him, he wants nothing to do with it, and he doesn’t understand it.

He’s like, “That sounds messy.

That sounds violent.

Those poor sperm.

Do humans actually like this?

Seriously, they do this as often as they can?” Like, he’s not into it.

So I don’t know where and how along the lines of time he’s like, “Actually, you know, the sex thing probably sounds pretty good.” We don’t see this development, but now that he’s about to become a real boy, now his opinion on sex has to change.

Because that’s what makes us human, right?

Sex is what makes us human.

That’s what they always tell us.

[Courtney] So Rupert asks, “Well, what do they say?” And in the most charismatic way possible, Robin Williams damn near loses himself while looking up to the sky and speaking dramatically about the joys of sex.

But he says, and this, I’m pulling up a transcript, because if any of you have not actually watched this movie and you’re just listening to us rehash it, you need to know exactly what they say, because it’s so irritating to me.

[reading] “That you can lose yourself, everything.

All boundaries, all time.

That two bodies can become so mixed up that you don’t know who’s who or what’s what.

And just when the sweet confusion is so intense you think you’ll die, you kind of do.

Leaving you alone in your separate body.

But the one you love is still there.

That’s the miracle.

You can go to heaven and come back alive.

Go back anytime you want with the one you love.” [Courtney] And while he’s saying that, you occasionally get a glimpse of Rupert’s face, and it’s just so pathetic.

It’s like an intense yearning, longing look that this guy is just sitting here as he’s listening to this monologue about how sex sends you to heaven and back.

And he just says, “And you want to experience that?” And Andrew says, “Oh yes, please.” And then Rupert, looking as pathetic as possible, just says, “So do I…” So I’m also gonna say, we got the double whammy of ‘virgins are pathetic’ joke.

That’s gotta be what they’re going for with that, right?

Like they’re doing the 40-year-old virgin thing with Rupert when he delivers that line.

[Royce] Crammed into a, like, brilliant scientist character, yeah.

[Courtney] So then he becomes a real boy and starts having sex with Portia… And Portia’s about to, like, get married to someone else too.

But this time he’s bolder.

He’s gonna be bolder than he was with Little Miss.

He’s fully gonna try to stop this wedding from happening.

He goes to Portia while she’s, like, in the church trying to get things ready for the upcoming wedding and he’s like, “Don’t marry him.

Because you should love me instead.” Me, the robot that your great-grandfather bought in the year 2005.

[chuckles] Because I have a penis now and we can go to heaven and come back alive anytime we want.

[Royce] There’s a lot of paraphrasing going on.

[Courtney] No, I’m pulling right from the transcript.

[laughs] And so she does call off the wedding actually, but o-oh, he’s still legally a robot.

So they can’t actually get married for realsies.

So I guess they kind of get married in, like, a non-legal ceremony.

But, you know, she’s also a human.

And just like she pointed out to him earlier, humans do in fact die.

They do age.

They do hint at the fact that as a direct result of his technology, humans are able to extend their lives, not even necessarily just because of life-saving organ transplants with these new mechanical organs, but she says she’s taking something that he’s created.

[Royce] Yeah, what was that called?

It’s never explained, it’s just mentioned in a line or two.

[Courtney] Yeah, he’s like, “Well, you can stay alive longer now.” And she’s like, “I don’t always want to take your DNA elixirs.” It’s like, I don’t know what a DNA elixir is, but that exists now.

And she’s like, “I won’t always take your DNA elixirs.

I won’t have all of my organs replaced.

I want to die because I’m a human.” And the two things that make us human are having sex and dying.

And we’ve already had sex.

[Royce] So there’s only one thing left.

[Courtney] There’s only one thing left to do to fulfill my humanity.

Well, this will not do.

You see, he wants to be a human, and he is so very close to being a human.

You see, he has started having sex.

Do you see how human he’s gotten since the first time when sex confused him?

Well, now he’s like, “Well, dang, I guess I gotta die.

Let me figure out a way to do that.” And, I mean, they brush over all the details.

I’m sure schematics were involved, but he basically creates and installs blood.

[Royce] Yeah, something like that.

Something that will slowly degrade all of his artificial organs and things.

[Courtney] Yeah.

[Royce] And it has a transformative effect on his skin too.

[Courtney] Oh yeah.

[Royce] Like he appears to age.

[Courtney] He basically finds a way to just age and become mortal now.

And so now that he is mortal and now he’s aging, he’s starting to get gray hair, he’s starting to get wrinkles.

He goes to like this world council to try to ask to be legally declared human.

[Royce] He does that before beginning to age because the council says humanity will never accept an immortal human.

[Courtney] Right, he does appear before them twice and there’s a time gap.

And the first time they declined him, so then he’s like, “Well now I’m gonna die, maybe let’s try again.” And there is, in a really weird way, like so many lines and just like human rights issues that are tackled in, like, sometimes a very inelegant way in this movie that can be really relatable to a diversity of, like, queer experiences even.

Because he’s like, “I want my marriage to Portia to be seen as valid.” Like, we have already committed ourselves to each other, we have this relationship, but society doesn’t see it as a valid relationship.

So he’s trying to get, like, legal status for that.

Even on top of that, when he’s before these committees, he’s saying, “I just want to be acknowledged for who and what I am.

I may have been brought into this world as a robot, but I am a human.” Oh my gosh, he is transhuman.

Oh no!

I like how this is like the opposite of actual transhumanist goals though, because like the transhumanist movement and people are like humans who want to become more immortal or in some cases more machine-like.

[Royce] This was an un-aging robot who decides to become human to die.

[Courtney] Yeah.

But yeah, he straight up says in front of this council, like, “I’m not looking for a claim, I’m not looking for approval, but the simple truth of that recognition.” Like, that’s why he wants to be human, because he is.

And he just wants people to recognize that.

And he says, “I just need that recognition if I am to live or die with dignity.” So it’s.

It’s all about dignity with him.

And, you know, the ending is really beautiful and devastating, actually.

It’s like.

Andrew and Portia in whatever this futuristic hospice is, which looks terrifying, by the way.

They’re like future hospitals are just like pure stark white rooms that are mostly empty and just look horrifying.

I don’t know why they thought that would be good future hospital situations, but– [Royce] I think that’s just futuristic design aesthetics a lot of the time.

[Courtney] Yeah.

But for some reason, this council that– this world council, they’re like representatives from all the different countries there, is like streaming, like, live televising their answer.

So they’re like, “Oh, it’s almost time.

Turn on the TV.” And this, you know, nurse comes in and it’s like, “All right, turn it on.” And they do declare him a human.

They also say, like, since he is legally human now, he is also the oldest living human to exist.

But he just, like, fully dies right before he hears them say that he is human.

Like he just dies right then and there.

So Portia’s left and she turns to the nurse and – gasp – calls her Galatea.

That’s the girl robot!

That’s the girl robot that he hated so much.

Now she’s all humaning.

At least looks like it.

And this, this actually really bothers me just from a continuity place.

Because, as beautiful as it is where she’s like– she even says– Galatea is like, “I’m so sorry he didn’t see it.” Like, this is all he wanted.

And, and Portia’s like, “Maybe he didn’t need to.

He’s at peace now.

He didn’t need it.” [Courtney] And then she asks, Portia, “Would you unplug me?” Like, she’s on some amount of life support, whatever this futuristic life support is now.

And she basically asks, like, “Okay, I mean, he died.

We got our answer.

I’m done.

Time to do the human thing that is dying.” And so this robot, this robot named Galatea, who we have been told is not human like Andrew is, is just like, “Okay, I’ll do it.” Oh– because another big thing I didn’t mention, he stops referring to himself as One after he gets his freedom from his family.

After they’re like, “Okay, you’re free.” He starts saying, “I am glad to be of service.” And he starts referring to himself with personal pronouns.

There’s a really sad moment when they decline his request to become a human where he says, “One is glad to be of service,” again.

And it’s like, oh no, he just got put in his place and reminded that he’ll never be a real human.

[Courtney] So you’ve got all of these, like, direct ways in which he behaves or refers to himself throughout, which is good, you know, writing-wise and definitely hits you in the feelings when it was such a big moment that he started referring to himself as I and then he rolls it back.

So Galatea says, “Oh, you know, as the great Andrew Martin used to say, one is glad to be of service.” And she unplugs her.

And now I’m thinking back to like the laws of robotics, because this was a thing, like the very first thing robot version of Andrew did when he got dropped off at the family is like, “Oh, one time only presentation.

Here’s the law of robotics.

Here’s what we have to do.” And like, one of those laws is you cannot do anything that would bring harm to a human.

[Courtney] And obviously from, like, a human moral standpoint, there are absolutely arguments to be made that, you know, autonomy with assistance in, you know, dying in terminal instances at the end of life, being able to take control for yourself.

Like, these are absolutely– There’s an argument to be made that that is not harmful and that there are ways that that can be done very helpfully, very– Like, morally, we can make that decision.

But I’m like, if this is a robot who has not even as far as we’ve been told started to become human like Andrew did, how is she allowed to do that?

It bothers me so much because it is otherwise a really good movie except for those two things: the making the robot sexual as a means of progressing his humanity is a problem, and breaking their own continuity for the very end scene, which would otherwise be a beautiful end to a movie.

Unforgivable.

The two grave sins of Bicentennial Man.

[Royce] As you were explaining that, I was just trying to look up if there are discussions about that, and there are.

A lot of people caught that and were trying to reconcile it.

[Courtney] Are there?

You know– That’s the thing, because if I watch a new piece of media, like now, if there’s something about it that bothers me, there might be situations where I will look up conversations or forums and see what other people are saying, but it never occurs to me to do that for older media.

And, like, that didn’t exist when I first watched this.

I couldn’t just go online and be like, what’s everyone else saying about Bicentennial Man?

[Royce] But, well, the thing is, this movie does not really go into science fiction tech, particularly not when we’re way in the future.

They gloss over the devices, the– the DNA Elixir.

We’re never told explicitly if Galatea had upgrades that may have basically granted her sentience.

If Andrew somehow figured that out, that’s glossed over.

That’s something that people are wondering.

We don’t know if the three laws of robotics are still fully in.

I haven’t read enough Asimov to know, I think those are usually pretty infallible, although sometimes twisted in a way that humanity doesn’t expect.

[Courtney] Yeah, and like I had to assume, but you have to fill in so many gaps that Galatea is also, like, on a journey to becoming more human with some sort of her own personality.

Because, for one, she wasn’t getting these upgrades alongside him.

This is the first time we have seen her with skin and like hearing the name Galatea, like that’s a big– that’s a big name drop, that’s a big revelation.

We just thought this was a random nurse and now it’s that robot.

So– But like, if she’s the nurse taking care of them when they’re about to die, like Andrew fucking hated her.

And she is the only person Andrew has ever hated this much.

It’s her and maybe Little Miss’s son.

Like those are the two people he hates on this earth.

So why would he be allowing that to happen?

I don’t know.

Maybe she started becoming human too.

And he’s like, “All right, now you can hang.” [Royce] I mean, I think that the reason he hated her was because while trying to pursue his own humanity, he found the personality chip offensive.

That was kind of the impression that I got.

So if he did actually do work to give other robots sentience, well, that is not the same person anymore.

[Courtney] See, it’s interesting that you’re saying that the personality chip is offensive because you have to fill in gaps to come to that conclusion.

And I like that explanation, like your explanation of that could retroactively make that better.

But they never explain that.

Like when she says, “Oh, you and I, we’re the same.

We have personality.” He’s like, “Is your personality chip turned on?” And she said, “Yeah!” She says, like, “I think personality is–” is it personality or intelligence?

It made it feel like you had a choice.

Like, do you want your robot to have, like, A or B?

[Royce] Yeah, but even in that context, the robot intelligence was not sentience.

It wasn’t the same thing as what he’s displaying.

[Courtney] Yeah, because she says, “I think personality is much more fun than intelligence, don’t you?” So, like, he definitely got upset because once Rupert comes in, he’s like, “She’s just a standard NDR robot, isn’t she?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And he’s like, “[sighs], I thought she was special like me.” But, like, being offended at the personality chip would be a more interesting explanation for his rage, but he seems to just detest her personality.

Like everything she does annoys him so violently.

We have never seen him be violent toward anyone, but he’s violently angry about this robot.

[Royce] It could be.

I mean, this is the only example we get.

We don’t see any other robots that have personality chips like these in them.

[Courtney] They have them though.

Like when he gets delivered, he gives that as an option.

He’s like, “Oh, would you like to–” after he gives like the laws of robotics, he’s like, “Oh, you have another option.

You can– you may have one with or without personality.

Would you care to see a demo of the personality chip?” And so they just like– they’re just like, “Eh, no, thanks.

That’s fine.” So that gave me the impression that, like, there’s a personality chip with like a few different settings.

And the demo is like, “I can talk like this or I can be this way,” and like give you all the options, here are the personality.

So we are introduced to the idea of a personality chip before we meet Galatea.

But Andrew did not have his personality chip turned on, and yet he’s a very, very special human trapped inside a robot’s body.

So he develops a personality of his own anyway.

[Courtney] But yeah, he’s like straight up cruel to the personality she has too, because at one point he replaces her personality chip with one that just makes her, like, a complete bitch.

Like, Rupert will tell her to move boxes and she’ll just, like, knock him on the floor and then glare at him.

Like, Galatea has so many good lines.

Their lines just burned into my head.

They’re like, “We have personality!” And then her throwing around boxes and her just yelling at Rupert to shut up.

“Shut up and let me do my work!” And she’s like, “All day long it’s ‘yes, Rupert, sir,’ ‘no, Rupert, sir.’ ‘Would you like another beverage, Rupert, sir?’ And it chaps my ass!” Like, it’s so burned into my brain.

Galatea is actually a queen and an icon and she deserves better justice.

[Courtney] But then Rupert’s like, “Andrew, what did you do to her?” He’s like, “I replaced her personality chip.

Isn’t she more interesting now?” And he’s like, “Well, arguably.” So even he is like, “Yeah, more interesting, but I can’t get any work done because she’s being abusive, confrontational, uncooperative.” And he’s like, “Please give me the old personality chip back.” And as Andrew does, he’s like, “Fine, she can be perky again.” And it’s– you know, there’s a weird– Andrew being so cruel to her is also a very weird thing in the, like, greater human rights or robot rights discussion of this movie.

Because he’s so upset that she’s perky.

Like, “Ew.

Okay, you can have her perky again.” Like, we all hate a perky woman, don’t we, guys?

And Rupert’s like, “Perky?

She’s just a robot.” As he’s saying it right to– As he’s like, “She’s just a robot.” Andrew in a huff is like, “What are you saying to me?!” And, like, leaves and storms off, getting so– It’s just a robot.

And then Rupert’s like, “No, Andrew, I didn’t mean it like that.

You’re not like the other robots.” [Courtney] So actually, I think Andrew is a self-hating robot, and that’s actually why he wants to be a human so bad.

This movie’s a hot mess.

But it truly is one of the clearest examples of using sex and sexuality to humanize a character.

This one, literally so.

Will that stop me from watching it again, if and when we ever move?

No.

But this is also why I am a little less on guard about the ever-present taboo of if a robot character is ever allowed to be labeled or implied to be asexual.

Because there are different degrees of this.

And I know aces are always going to have their own individual opinions on things like this.

Some are like, if it is not human, if it is literally not a human, should not ever call it asexual because we as real life asexual humans are often so so dehumanized that I can understand the emotion that leads to that opinion, for sure.

[Courtney] But I do think there’s a lot more nuance to it than just robots can never be seen as asexual.

Because my kind of rule of thumb in the way I see things is: asexuality can and does get used to be a lazy shorthand for not human or less human, and that should never be the case.

That is how you do it wrong.

Because we know asexuality is a real human orientation.

So what that should be is just like any other orientation, it should be a way to flesh out a character, to fully realize a character, to give them more depth and nuance.

And that can be a means to humanize someone if you do it correctly.

So if you have a theoretical robot in a piece of media who is or seems to be asexual to whatever degree they’re going to explicitly label it or otherwise, if they’re using the asexuality as a means to still humanize that character to the audience, to say this is something that is not a bad thing, this is not something that is indicative of not being human, then there are ways that I think that canon does work.

[Courtney] And that’s why I still think you should all let me have it, Maybe Happy Ending is asexual robots.

Because they have robots here who, yes, do not have sex, have an opportunity for it, and it is played off fully as a joke.

Does not happen, does not come close to happening.

So they are at the very least not sexual robots, but they are still humanized as characters.

Their entire arc is not: look at how unhuman they are.

The underlying emotion is we want you to root for these robots.

We want you to root for their relationship.

We want you as a human to be able to relate to the robot, so in some way we as the writers need to humanize them to you.

And if you can use asexuality as a means of humanizing someone, that is the best case scenario.

Just don’t use asexuality to dehumanize.

That’s the baseline rule.

That is the rule for me.

[Courtney] Because there are robots and media that ace people, explicitly ace or not, have fully related to.

I know there are ace people out there who really relate to Data from Star Trek.

Like that is fully a thing.

In the era before this one, where we started to get some ace representation in media, a lot of us only had non-human characters to relate to just behaviorally.

That is a problem in and of itself, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t individual aces out there who didn’t relate to them heavily and don’t still have a very important place in their heart.

I haven’t read them yet, but I’ve even heard from friends and listeners that there are, like, newer books out there where there is explicitly a robot character that is explicitly said to be asexual.

And I’ve had people ask, you know, what is your opinion on that?

And having not read the source material yet, maybe I will at some point, my opinion is: is the asexuality there as a means to humanize this character?

Or is it a lazy shorthand for dehumanizing them further?

[Courtney] If it’s the former, I will likely be for it.

If it’s the latter, absolutely not.

And we really do just need representation of all kinds, too, right?

Like, I made a big fuss about 2025 being the year that the Tony Award winner for Best Play and Best Musical were both asexual.

I wouldn’t be shouting from the rooftops as hard about Maybe Happy Ending being ace representation if it wasn’t right there alongside Purpose, which is a very nitty gritty realistic drama that explicitly names an asexual character and has a very compelling character, and asexuality is an important part of the narrative.

Like one really good realistic portrayal of asexuality can make a world of difference for us being able to open up and accept other things.

Because if we didn’t have one, then we’d be right back to, “Well, all the ace characters are robots, all the ace coded characters are not human.” That’s a problem.

We need a diversity of it.

[Courtney] And the diversity just strengthens all the others.

Because, believe you me, if Purpose didn’t exist, I would not be sitting here going, “Maybe Happy Ending is the first ace representation on Broadway!” Absolutely not.

I would not be doing that.

But we live in a world where Bicentennial Man exists.

They literally turned the robot human and made him start having sex.

That, yeah, I’m gonna let myself be a little excited about robots who can still be in love and aren’t having sex.

[chuckles] What a world we live in.

So that is going to be all for today.

I hope you all enjoyed me rehashing an over 25 year old movie?

So that is going to bring us to today’s featured MarketplACE vendor: Aurora Comic.

[Courtney] There will be a link in the show notes on our website, as well as the description box on YouTube, where you can find tie-in merch and art prints for the fantasy webcomic Aurora, which if you have not started reading yourself maybe that’s a better place to start.

You can read at comicaurora.com.

Links for that will also be available.

Aurora is a fantasy webcomic which updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, written and illustrated by Red, better known for her work on the YouTube channel Overly Sarcastic Productions.

And if you read and love the comics, you can even order a physical copy of Volume 1 at all your usual places: Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, you name it.

Links for all of those are going to be in the show notes.

[Courtney] Please check out Aurora Comic and the tie-in merch shop.

Because, for as much as we need a diversity of asexual representation in media, we also need to support asexual creators.

Because we really do have some amazingly talented humans in our community.

Thank you guys all so much.

As always, thank you all so much for being here.

If you’re listening on YouTube, go ahead and pop a comment.

Let me know your favorite and least favorite asexual robots that exist, because maybe I’m in a mood to comment about robot sexuality since this is two episodes in a row.

So feel free to give me more ammunition.

Or don’t, if you’re done hearing about robots and sex or their lack thereof.

One way or another, we will be back with another topic and we will see you all then next week.