Shanice Aga is a Khoja-American designer, and visual artist.
A trained architect and material culturalist,
Cyborgs, Sex and Surveillance: Analyzing ‘Bainsley’ in The Zero Theorem, 2018
From her first appearances, Bainsley embodies extreme stereotypes of the sexualized female figure, a male fantasy that has been perpetuated for centuries. Her portrayal blurs the line between reality and satire. She adopts roles like that of the seductive nurse, speaks in an infantile tone, dons pink wigs and latex boots, and performs exaggeratedly sexualizing actions. For instance, when she breaks a nail and asks Q to kiss it, or when she describes how her "daddy" tried to control her, her behavior intentionally makes both Q and the audience uncomfortable. This discomfort arises from her sexuality being out of context and sharply contrasting with her environment—especially when she vacillates between adult and childlike traits. In this way, Bainsley mocks the ease with which men are pleased, ridiculing their desires and expectations of female behavior by exaggerating and over-performing them.
Despite her self-awareness as a cyborg and any power she gains through her “biometric interfacing” in this dystopian society, Bainsley remains under the control of the patriarchal, panoptic capitalist system represented by Mancom. Her role is that of a surveillance tool for Q. Employed by “management”—a singular, all-knowing man who serves as Q’s boss—she is tasked with giving Q an "object of desire," fulfilling the stereotype of a young, attractive, sexual fantasy designed to cater to his tastes. In addition to sending Bainsley, “management” also installs tiny microphones and cameras in Q’s home to monitor his progress on the special project assigned to him. Haraway would likely agree that Bainsley qualifies as a cyborg based on her description of cyborgs as "chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism" (Haraway, 191). Bainsley exists in both the real world and the virtual world, embodying Haraway’s concept of the cyborg that "blurs the boundary between the physical and non-physical" (Haraway 195). She moves in and out of Q’s life unannounced yet remains always accessible to him through her online presence. This “ubiquity and invisibility” is central to her power in the dystopian society of The Zero Theorem (Haraway 195). As a cyborg, she operates as both a human enough entity to be allowed into Q’s life and a machine enough being to perform surveillance, stripping away her personal identity and adopting different ones without consequence. This duality allows her a degree of freedom and power, providing services to different people and profiting from it.
In one unprompted visit to Q’s home, Bainsley wears a tight-fitting red body suit, accentuating her femininity with added padding and stitching in the bust and hips. She hands a matching suit to Q which fits him more sloppily and makes him look more like a child wrapped in a blanket. She explains to Q how to connect with her online by plugging the cables coming out from the top of the hood into his computer, gives him a date, time, and the URL www.bainsley.sex then leaves. When Q logs on, the introductory page features a looping video of Bainsley dressed as a sexy schoolgirl with a button overlay that says “enter me.” Q clicks enter, his VR suit kicks in and he is transported to a beach. Each time he connects with Bainsley in this beach the sun is setting, Q has hair (he is bald in reality) and Bainsly and him are having a picnic in their bathing suits.
In their first virtual trip to the beach the Bainsley kisses his shoulder and asks Q if he can feel it. Q says “Yes, but it’s not real.” She responds, “It’s better than real we’re connected by memory chips and fiber optics, and we’re safe here.” At a later point when they are meeting at the beach again Bainsley allows Q to take control of the VR world and he ends up transporting them to a black hole and having a bit of a mental break. Bainsley tries to get him to open up more to her and let her help him, mostly because she is working on him for Mancom. Q agrees to let her in and declares that he will love her, Bainsley very quickly snaps and tells him “don’t say that, management won’t allow it!” and she kicks him off the VR and her page. Later, when Q attempts to connect to her website outside their scheduled time, the page has transformed. It’s more like a chat room with many viewers and the theme is no longer innocent school girl but edgy biker chick, with more hardcore themes. When Bainsley notices Q is in the site she tries to cover herself up quickly and ejects him again.
This illustration of Bainsley’s experience as a cyborg feels more true to our current reality and diverges from Haraway’s more optimistic view of the potential for technology to erase gender and identity differences. While the cyborg allows Bainsley some autonomy, offering her anonymity, stealth, and power, the cultural realities of gender oppression and the sexualization of women remain entrenched. The virtual and physical extremes to which her body is pushed as a cyborg seem to emphasize rather than dissolve hypersexualized aesthetics. In this sense, the cyborg may be seen as more objectifiable and less sympathetic. While Haraway suggests that cyborgs offer a radical shift in power dynamics, Bainsley’s role as a cyborg highlights how power structures persist. She continues to cater to men and, even as a cyborg, can only rise so high in a patriarchal society. Thus, her cyborg identity—while perhaps a rung above female identity—remains inferior to male.
In examining panopticism and the power hierarchies in The Zero Theorem, the film illustrates how surveillance and control shape behavior. “Management” maintains constant oversight, reminding everyone that they are being watched, which induces a performance-driven mindset in individuals. Bainsley, while presenting a facade of safety and freedom in the virtual world, is still constrained by the boundaries set by management. This self-surveillance is evident in Q as well, who, despite the fear of failure, feels compelled to prove himself. The panoptic system fosters power dynamics that tie identities to gender, wealth, and societal position, reinforcing the role of technology in exaggerating rather than erasing these distinctions.
Ultimately, The Zero Theorem suggests that the female cyborg, rather than transcending gender roles, is more likely to reinforce the very gender stereotypes Haraway critiques. Bainsley’s cyborg nature, which could offer autonomy, is instead used by Mancom as a means of surveillance and control. The technology she interacts with only emphasizes her femininity, rather than dissolving identity distinctions. This reflects the consumer-driven, postmodern society of the film, where the desire for differentiation and uniqueness has led to a more pronounced emphasis on gender, sexualization, and using extreme aesthetics as entertainment rather than a leveling of all identities. Therefore, while aspects of Bainsley’s character align with Haraway’s theories, the film’s portrayal of cyborg-ness ultimately underscores how technology, in a patriarchal and panoptic society, can be used to further oppress rather than liberate.
“It’s better than real we’re connected by memory chips and fiber optics, and we’re safe here.”
Gilliam, Terry. The Zero Theorem. 2013
Haraway, Donna. “A Manifesto For Cyborgs: Science Technology, and Socialist feminism in the 1980’s.” 1984