Terminated: The Life and Death of the Cyborg in Film and Television

Abstract

As an amalgam of the words ‘cybernetic’ and ‘organism’, the term ‘cyborg’ effectively evokes the figure’s defining characteristic: the fusing of electronic, mechanical or robotic components with a living creature. Ever since the term was coined in 1960 by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in an article in Astronautics magazine (Clynes & Kline 1960), the popularity of the cyborg has grown exponentially, and the figure quickly became synonymous with the science fiction (SF) genre. Cyborgs are created either through the (often brutal) insertion of machine components into a previously wholly organic entity, as in the case of the Star Trek franchise’s horrific Borg,¹ or are designed from the outset as a synthesis of the organic and the artificial, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s quintessential cyborg villain/hero in the Terminator movies. Technically, cyborgism is not limited to humans, but most examples found within film and television narratives involve the blending of (wo)man and machine.²