Techno-Embodied Performativity in Dystopian Imagination: Gendered Androids in The Stepford Wives and The Heart Goes Last

This article examines gendered androids in The Stepford Wives and The Heart Goes Last as sites of techno-embodied performativity, situating them within debates on posthuman corporeality and queer media potential. It draws on Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra to interrogate the hyperreal perfection of synthetic femininity, Judith Butler’s theory of performativity to reveal gender as a programmed construct, and Paul B. Preciado’s notion of pharmacopornography to expose how technocapitalism transforms bodies into sites of extraction and control. On the one hand, the article analyzes artificial female figures as instruments of power, ranging from hyperfeminine constructs that reinforce patriarchal norms to seductive, ambiguous bodies that sustain capitalist logics. On the other hand, it argues that these mechanical characters also function as sites of resistance: while reproducing normative gender scripts, they expose the constructedness of gendered identity. Furthermore, the article contends that moments of failure open up possibilities for post-gender readings, positioning androids as proto-queer entities that unsettle the boundaries between subjecthood and objecthood and contribute to broader debates on embodiment, desire, and control under algorithmic governance.