Radiation Body Scanners and Metropolis Robot by Teresa Knudsen

Illegal, Immoral, and Unsafe Technology
Body Scanners

Government Body Scanner Image

and

Fritz Lang's Metropolis Robot. Written by Teresa Knudsen. First Published in The Daily Paradise. April 30, 2010.

Reprinted by Teresa Knudsen on Pirates and Patriots Blogger.

November 28, 2011
"The government body scanner image creates an eerie image of a human, similar to Fritz Lang's Metropolis robot without rights, morals or brains."

In 1927, Fritz Lang's futuristic, distopian film Metropolis entered the world stage. Watched by bewildered audiences, the film portrayed a two-tier society, with a small elite ruling class who possessed wealth and leisure, contrasted with the majority worker-slave class, doomed to harsh conditions and no hope of a better life for themselves or their children.

Metropolis Tells the Story of a Two-Tiered Society
A teacher, Maria, breaks the rules by bringing poor children up into the skyscraper garden, where she is quickly told to return to the lowly hovels. Yet, for a moment, she has shown the children a different world, a world of sunshine and flowers and plenty of food.
Her beauty and spirit also shows a different world to Freder Frederson, the wealthy and spoiled son of the city's ruler. He falls in love with Maria at first sight, and determines to follow her down into her world.
Here he finds dispirited workers, whose only solace comes from the hope that Maria holds out to them, that the "Mediator" between the brain and the hands is the heart. Freder begins to see his responsibility to become the "Mediator," between his father's brain and the hands of the workers.
To destroy his son's love for Maria, the ruler, Joh Frederson, helps a mad inventor create a mechanical robot that resembles Maria, but without rights, without morals and without brains. They set the robot to corrupt the city, and it nearly succeeds. Only when the workers fear that their children are dead is there a revolt.

The Role of Allusion in Fritz Lang's Metropolis
Like Maria, art can influence life, bringing new perspectives to the viewer. The film Metropolis exemplifies the techique of German Expressionism, or Technologial Gothic, as explained by Michael Organ in his blog "Metropolis Film Archive." The allusion to a Frankenstein monster, that should never have been created, is clear.
In the case of Lang's film, modern audiences notice similiarities between the slave conditions of the workers and the depressed economy leading to mind-numbing and back-breaking work, leaving no time to enjoy life, or spend time with family and friends, or to help children.
Shaun Ferrell notes in his review of Metropolis, "The next sequences show the workers reporting for their shifts. They wear black and gray clothing...walk in perfect rows, their heads hung, their shoulders slouched. The image is quite clear: their spirits have been broken. They are no longer human, just living cogs in the greater machines of Metropolis."

Metropolis Robot & US "Naked" Body Scanner Image
The US government body scanner images provided by the Transportation Security Administration have similiarities with the Metropolis robot.
The Metropolis robot was created without rights. Like the human slave workers, the Metropolis robot is told what to do by the leader and the mad scientist. The "naked" body scanner image shows a person who has no rights. The TSA staff member has given up her rights ensured by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and submitted to unreasonable search, violating the Fourth Amendment. The TSA staffwoman has apparently committed no crime, but she models submission to a strip search, with her image shown to the world.

A second aspect is the lack of morals related to the Metropolis robot. The ruler of Metropolis and a mad inventor kidnap Maria, and create a robot in her likeness. This doppleganger embodies evil, all the more so as the people trust her, believing her to be Maria. The robot is the classic screen vamp, mesmerizing men, and leading them to doom not only for themselves, but for society in general and their children in particular.
The image created by the US government body scanner is a naked person. The US authorities not only strip innocent men, women, and children of their rights, but also their clothes.

Yet another allusion is the lack of brains, or common sense. At the end of the film, enraged citizens set fire to the robot. Being brainless, the robot is not horrified, but rather amused by the fire, and dies laughing.

In a similar way, the Transportation Security Adminsitration staffwoman who agreed to enter the Rapscian body scanner laughs while being bombarded with deadly radiation.

Audiences were not ready for the harsh view of the future they saw in 1927, as they watched Metropolis. Perhaps like them, modern audiences are not ready to believe that the science-fiction stories of x-ray vision are now a reality at our airports, and soon to be at our recreational events, and on our streets.

References
Ferrell, Shaun. "Classic Review-Metropolis."
Shawn's Quadrant-October 2005.
Organ, Michael. "Metropolis Film Archive."
Category
"Government Body Scanner Image and Fritz Lang's Metropolis Robot"by T.G. Knudsen, Copyright, April 30, 2010 Editorial