Mark A. Hadley
January 20th, 2008

How much would a bionic woman set you back these days? If you were thinking six million, then I suggest you may have to make an appointment with your bank manager. Bionics must rely on petroleum products because when television producers set out to recreate one of the ‘70s favourite TV shows, they couldn’t conceive how a new Jaime Sommers could cost any less than 50 million. And I’m certain that won’t include the repair bill for all of the walls this new character is going through…

The new bionic woman, played by Michelle Ryan, has been thoroughly reworked for the new millennium. No longer one of America’s leading tennis players, Jaime has been reinvented as a raunchy bar tender (think Coyote Ugly) who qualified for Harvard but dropped out of college to care for her younger sister when she was dumped on her doorstep by a dead-beat dad. And forget that sky-diving accident with the six million dollar man (remember Steve?). She finds herself on the operating table after a truly stunning collision between a Mack truck and the car carrying her top-secret surgeon fiancé. It’s no surprise he can’t bear to live on without her, and so it’s off to the body shop Jaime goes (forgive the pun!) for two new legs, an arm and bionic hearing, plus Terminator-style eyes and super-healing nano-technology. This model even comes with a GPS unit - it’s no wonder Toyota is so keen to buy up Seven’s advertising.

For all of her futuristic technology, however, the bionic woman’s problems are grounded firmly in the world of today’s career woman. And the series hasn’t troubled to revise its basic ‘70s feminist philosophy. The male characters see Jaime as either a mate, pupil or serf. Jonas, her secret agent boss is a cranky misogynist who finds himself at the mercy of all the women in his life. At one stage he straps on a lie detector and tells a colleague that he is passionately in love with her without so much as a beep of protest. “How did you do that?!” she asks. “I’ve been married,” he replies. He is determined Jaime will assist him “… stopping rogue organizations determined to destroy civilisation as we know it.” Even the series’ villain, a cyborg named Sarah Corvis, feels compelled to warn our heroine that ‘the agency’ don’t want her to know how powerful she is. But she needn’t have worried. Jonas is no match for Jaime who, upon discovering her powers, lays down the law. “If we do this, whatever it is, we do it on my terms.”

However it’s the struggle to be both carer and provider that will catch the attention of the female twenty-somethings; Jaime’s work-outs will be enough for the men. By day Jaime battles terrorists who’ve done away with all those messy ‘agendas’ and are just out to kill people, the more the better. By night she has to play surrogate mum to a moody teenager who has a court order keeping her from the Internet and is on the verge of being expelled. And of course there’s no encouragement from this quarter. “That’s not real food!” Jaime scolds as sister Bec pops a pop-tart for breakfast. “You’re not a real mother!” her sibling fires back. Ouch.

Ryan’s character is the latest in a series of ‘honest feminist’ characters who have admitted that there is no super woman out there who can perfectly balance both roles, but are still unwilling to give up the struggle. They may be unhappy and thwarted, the reasoning goes, but their ambitions and fighting spirit are part of what makes them who they are. Giving them up would be tantamount to giving up themselves. So far from considering the increasing struggle as evidence of a flawed philosophy, it becomes part of their self-definition. All women wrestle with their identity, right?

The combination of technology and identity, however, gives rise to a theme that is far more interesting for the Christian. Jaime faces a personal crisis as she considers each of the parts of her that have been cut away and replaced. How much of herself did she lose in this transformation? Science fiction author William S. Gibson labelled this dilemma ‘cyber-psychosis’ in the ‘80s, suggesting that ‘upgrading’ too much of ourselves could result in a complete loss of touch with our essential identity. After all, does the woman who has gone up a cup size or the man who has pec-implants ever lose the feeling that it’s not all them? Strangely, I think a very similar idea of ‘loss of self’ prevents people from becoming a Christian. They can see the improvements – few people are really blind to the peace Christians carry around with them, or the obvious improvements in character – but they wonder if it will still be them after the transformation.

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