Bicentennial Man

UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY / COLLEGE OF NURSING MOVIE ANALYSIS Samantha Alexis E. Zagada Section III-10 RLE 4

August 5, 2013

Bicentennial Man I have formulated some inquiries and thoughts before and during the period of watching Bicentennial man. First, I thought if I watch this movie, I would feel nothing. Just like any other films shown by the teachers to the student, it will be boring and forgettable. Second, I asked myself, what on earth could be the relationship of this movie to my subject philosophy and especially to my course? Third, I thought it would be futile to watch this movie because even the title didn’t capture my attention. I thought I would not learn anything. Fourth, after organizing my thoughts, I came up with my top five scenes in the movie which I considered as gifts. These are as follows: “It’s an android.” “What’s an Andrew?” The first gift I recognized, that was given to Andrew, is a name. Everybody or everything in the world has a name. Well, I think, if a thing has no name, it does not exist and if does not exist, it won’t make any essence at all. So, since Andrew was given a name, he started to exist in the minds of his new masters as Andrew, especially to the one who gave him the name, the little child whom he calls as little miss. But if he was not given such name, he’s just unessential, of no importance at all. I think, this is relevant for me because when I was given The name, I started existing and making imprints on people. I started to have a path to take, my so-called essence in the world. The philosophical concept of this is Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism. This concept talks about “existence comes before essence”. This means that, “all that is given is that WE ARE, not WHAT WE ARE”. Glass Horse, Wooden Horse The glass horse was broken. Little miss became frustrated. Andrew made her a new one made up of wood and was handmade. Little miss, then, gave him Woofy, the stuff toy dog. This is the start of their friendship. The second gift that was given to Andrew is a friend. This is the scene wherein he started “socializing”. One of the characteristics of man is that they are a social animal. He started to develop his “humanity” through socializing with friends. He learned to crack a joke, play the piano, and gain knowledge. Just like me, I learned things because I socialize to people. I learned from experiences and from their knowledge. This philosophical topic is by Aristotle who believes that “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society

is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.” “One would like to pull one’s own” One, referring to Andrew, has been endowed with the 3rd gift called money. He earned his money through selling his handmade clocks. This is where he “upgraded” himself. He wanted to have “more expression” because he developed more feelings he wishes to be expressed. He wanted other parties to know what is on his mind by showing an expression. What his mind conveys is shown by his behavior. This is related to the philosophical concept of Gilbert Ryle about behaviorism. It is, according to literature, explains that any mental states and activities are shown, explained and defined in terms of the behavior observed. Andrew wants others to know that he feels sad, happy, or angry by expressing it on his face. This scene, in relation to me, is I, too, am what I feel. I am defined by my behaviors. People can see what I feel because it is a direct reflection of what is inside my head. “One would no longer be your property.” The family gave Andrew something that caused millions of lives and hundreds of wars. It is the idea called freedom. He has been a “slave” technically, because he has a master to serve to. He has been doing what he wants but he wants more than that. He wants to imbibe in him the idea of freedom. He wants freedom not just outside of him, but also inside. So he asserted his decision to his master. He made himself feel like a free man, not someone who can be commanded at. He wanted to be recognized by others as a free thinking man. Thus, he became a free man. This idea is related, philosophically, to the views of Hegel about power. He claimed that each person is continually involved in a struggle to get the recognition from others that we need to exist as truly independent, free persons. A slave, according to literature, is a slave because that is what others see him as being. Like Andrew, who started to be seen by his masters as “slave”. And a master is a master because others recognize him as such. Hegel claims that a person can know that he is a free and independent person only if others would recognize him as free and independent person. In the movie, Andrew, pleaded to his master to be recognized as a free man. He even gave his money to be acknowledged as such. Just like Andrew, I, too, am struggling to attain freedom and recognition from others.

“In order to follow that heart, One must do the wrong thing.” Andrew has received love a lot of times, but he failed to acknowledge it. But when he started to understand human works, he also appreciated love. He started to feel something when Portia came along. He did everything to her, for her and with her in order for their love to be accepted. He created artificial organs, feelings, spinal cord, and even made himself mortal. He sacrificed immortality in order to feed his hunger and thirst to become a real human, the one that dies. He

followed the order of things, which follows that human beings are only allowed to live for a certain period of time. He accepted the uncertainty of being a human. He said “I would rather die a man than to live forever as a machine.” Dying is the completion of Andrew’s transition from a robot to a human being. When he died, he became a real human person and he was recognized by the world as a human being. It is because, I think, of the fact that it is innate in a human to be mortal. There can be no philosophical concept that can deny this fact. In the Allegory of the Cave, the enlightened one sacrificed himself by returning to the cave to enlighten others. Andrew did the same thing. He sacrificed his immortality, in order for the people to know what he contemplated and learned in the real world. It takes a lot of courage and strength to do such thing. He followed his heart and did the right thing [for others] and the wrong thing [for himself]. He died with the one he truly loves, recognized by the whole world as a human, remembered by the things he had contributed to mankind and I know he would have said “One is glad to be of service”.