Subverting or Reasserting? Westworld (2016-) as an Ambiguous Critical Allegory of Gender Struggles

Abstract

This article analyses the first three seasons of HBO’s Westworld (2016-2020) by considering them a critical allegory of gender relations. In so doing, the text pays special attention to the self-reflexive construction of its SF worlds, and to two of the main characters’ arcs, the female androids (or gynoids) Dolores and Maeve. More specifically, the essay consists in a dialectical examination of the series’ narrative ambiguities, so its argument is twofold. On the one hand, it is argued that Westworld is clearly and self-consciously constructed as a critical allegory and that, as such, its SF worlds stage real social struggles (chiefly those between genders) in order to subsequently narrate their (attempted) overthrow. On the other hand, against this critical-allegorical interpretation but supplementing it, it is also argued that Westworldis not an unequivocally critical narrative and that, if we are to examine its allegorical potentials, we ought to consider too how their realisation can be obstructed and/or contradicted by certain narrative ambiguities.