Complit 133 Introduction to Science Fiction

McLean Taggart

The film Annihilation, by Alex Garland, subverts the concept of the colonial gaze by mystifying its application onto a standard colonial relationship. The colonial gaze, as described by, “The Colonial Gaze and the Frame of Science Fiction,” by John Rieder, describes the “cognitive framework establishing the different positions of the one who looks and the one who is looked at” (Rieder 7). The colonial gaze is commonly used as a framework to paint groups as developmentally nascent, and cognitively impaired, treating them as subhuman. This framing is then used to excuse atrocities and mistreatment, negating the damaging effects on the impacted groups as they are stripped of their humanity. It is often applied to works tackling colonization, or the act of establishing control in a region over the native population. Under a standard colonial relationship, a colonizer is a group or entity that establishes control over a region while the colonized is the group or entity natively existing inside said region. Superimposing the colonial gaze onto standard colonial relationships, “…distributes knowledge and power” to the colonizer while “…denying or minimizing access,” to the colonized (Rieder 7). In Annihilation, an entity called the shimmer crash lands on to Earth and begins enveloping its surroundings in a refractive cloak. Following standard convention, the shimmer is acting as a colonizer as it is forcefully imposing its control onto Earth over humanity, the native, colonized group in this instance. Despite establishing a standard colonial relationship, as the film progresses it subverts the application of the colonial gaze through denying the shimmer cognition, portraying humanity as a technologically advanced race, and framing the shimmer’s actions as a natural phenomenon.

The first step the movie takes to subvert the application of the colonial gaze is denying the shimmer any form of cognition. Through doing this, the film puts its colonizer label into a tenuous position. Under the colonial gaze, an intrinsic feature of a colonizer is the sense of a divine right to expand influence. The colonizer sees land outside of their possession and, with intent, forces their influence over it (Ram 3). Some friction is met when trying to impose this definition onto the shimmer. When the female protagonist of the film, Lena, interacts with the shimmer, she notices that its actions are simply a mirror of her own. After killing the shimmer, she is being interviewed and, upon being asked what its intentions were, replied with, “I don’t think it wanted anything” (Annihilation). This reaction stunned onlookers as they assumed the shimmer was a hostile being as most colonizers are. This occurrence paints the shimmer as a being with no thought, one that mimics its surroundings and acts instinctively. Another instance that shows the shimmer’s lack of cognition is when it merges with Lena’s fiancé, Kane. The Kane doppelganger seeks out Lena as that is the only directive the original Kane gave it. Upon meeting her, it was unable to answer any questions about its past and had no answers for what its future looked like. This lack of foresight shows that the shimmer is incapable of forming intent. Through portraying the shimmer as an entity with no cognition, the title of ‘colonizer’ is hard to bestow upon it. Whereas colonizers typically possess power and knowledge, the shimmer has neither. Its actions are intrinsic instincts of its survival, acting more as a bacterium than a human. This existence is in direct contention with the standard treatment of a colonizer, putting into question whether this title can truly be applied to it. This contention puts the colonial gaze into a situation where it can not properly describe the colonizer side of the colonial relationship. This does not fully subvert the application of the colonial gaze since one half of the relationship can still be explained, however, the film continues its attack onto the colonized side through its portrayal of humanity.

Another way in which Annihilation subverts the application of the colonial gaze is by treating the colonized humans as a technologically evolved species. The standard colonial gaze portrays colonized groups as inferior and in need of progress (Ram 5). Through an advanced portrayal of humanity, the film does not conform to this standard colonial gaze of colonized groups, elevating humanity to Earth’s apex group. The opening scene of this film follows Lena into a workday as a professor of cellular biology at Johns Hopkins, educating her students on cellular mitosis. By opening with advanced modern science, the film is setting the stage for a technologically advanced humanity. The portrayal of colonized groups under the colonial gaze establishes them as, “… a kind of anachronism that allows them to view their own cultural past”(Rieder 7). The film intends for the viewer to be able to relate to the period of the film, treating them as a member of the present rather than a figment of the past. In the film, humanity is also given complete control over the flow of information and knowledge. After the Kane doppelganger is captured alongside Lena, she wakes up in a top-secret military base operating under the directive of uncovering the mystery of the shimmer. They send reconnaissance missions into the shimmer with drones and computers to discover its true nature. Despite all missions before Lena’s remaining unsuccessful, the teams are still able to learn some facts about the shimmer such as its strange magnetic field and the rate by which it expands. This knowledge may be minimal; however, it is more than the shimmer could ever obtain due to its intrinsic lack of ability to think and learn. This acquisition of knowledge contends with the colonial gaze framework of a colonized group since the group is normally denied access to knowledge (Reider 7). By putting humanity in a position in which they can obtain more knowledge about the shimmer than the shimmer can about them, the film actively fights the colonial gaze knowledge dynamic. Through fighting this dynamic, the film brings into question whether or not the colonial gaze accurately describes humanity’s positioning as a colonized group. By putting both the colonized group and the colonizer in a tenuous position regarding their placement under the colonial gaze, the film successfully mystifies both sides of the colonial relationship. After mystifying this relationship, the film only has to tackle the concept of colonization to push the usage of the colonial gaze beyond its bounds, completing the subversion of its application.

The final method by which Annihilation subverts the colonial gaze is by tackling the action of colonization through the shimmer’s expansion. Through the colonial gaze, colonization is seen as an act of spreading influence over an inhabited region to mold it to closer represent one’s interest (Ram 4). The film presents the shimmer’s actions as a natural phenomena rather than a forceful expansion of influence. This difference takes the colonial gaze outside of a framework by which it can be applied to one by which its application fails. The shimmer’s cloak is a forcefield that joins with nearby physical matter, refracting the shimmer, the environment, and biological life into a singular, fused existence. The expansion of the cloak occurs naturally as it runs into more matter, acting like a gas expanding to fill its container. At first sight, the shimmer’s action seems to follow the standard colonial gaze depiction of colonization well, as its cloak takes the land and changes it. Upon closer inspection, however, friction is found between the colonial gaze’s description of colonization and the shimmer’s actions. As described by Josie, a scientist on Lena’s shimmer exploration, “It refracts everything. Light, waves, fields, DNA” (Annihilation). Rather than expressing control over the region, the shimmer is fusing its existence with its surroundings, taking life, the environment, and itself and fusing them into a singular refracted entity. Instead of imposing control onto the region, the shimmer is taking a natural approach and integrating itself into its structure. The shimmer simply changes the environment into something new, much like natural evolution over long periods. This mode of operation brings rise to a disconnect between its actions and the standard method of colonization under the colonial gaze. The shimmer is not imposing beliefs, power, or control while appropriating land, rather it modifies natural processes and allows them to play out with time, incorporating itself into this evolution. Through this subtle difference, the film directly combats the colonial gaze’s need for control. While the shimmer is acting as a colonizer, forcefully taking land from those already living nearby and changing it, it is not doing so in a manner any different than that of a flood wiping out the nearby fauna. Through portraying the shimmer’s actions as a natural process, the film disallows the colonial gaze to accurately describe the film’s method of colonization. Having subverted both sides of the colonial relationship as well as the concept of colonization itself, the film succeeds in subverting the application of the colonial gaze.

Annihilation establishes a standard colonial relationship of the colonizer and the colonized to push the viewer into framing the film through the colonial gaze. The shimmer is initially presented as an extraterrestrial colonizer expanding its influence and forcing humanity, the perceived colonized group, to flee to safety. Throughout the film, the relationship between the shimmer and humanity is mystified in an attempt to subvert the colonial gaze. By restricting the shimmer from cognitive function, while promoting humanity to a position of technological superiority, the film strips their initial titles and puts them into boxes that do not fit directly into the standard colonial gaze framework. After mystifying this relationship, the colonial gaze is further combated by presenting the actions of the shimmer as a natural phenomenon rather than an attempt to expand influence. This action pushes the colonial gaze even further and makes one ask whether or not the colonial gaze is even applicable to the scenario. The evolving colonial relationships succeed in changing character while refusing to fit under a single framework. Through these actions, the film takes the colonial gaze from a framework by which it fits the scenario to one under which it can no longer be applied. It is through this evolution that Annihilation pushes the colonial gaze past its bounds and out of its working parameters, successfully subverting its application.

Works Cited

Garland, Alex, director. Annihilation. Paramount Pictures, 2018.

Rieder, John. “The Colonial Gaze and the Frame of Science Fiction.” Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. Wesleyan University Press, 2008, pp. 1-33.

Ram, Kalpana. “Gender, Colonialism, and the Colonial Gaze.” The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2018, pp. 1–7.