Niall Martins

Lit-101-057
Dr. Andrew Scahill
March 2, 2014
Research Proposal
Splicing Gender Standards

In Splice (2009), two rebellious scientists, Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa

Kast (Sarah Polley), are told by their employers to halt groundbreaking work that has

seen them create new creatures with medical benefits by splicing together multiple

organisms’ DNA. However, the two decide to continue their work secretly, and end up

creating a female human hybrid they name Dren (Delphine Chanéac). Clive and Elsa

raise Dren as their child as she grows at an accelerated pace, but a series of unnerving

events lead them to the decision of ending Dren’s life, and thus, their experiment. Though

assumed to be deceased, Dren comes back to life, now a male, killing Clive and raping

Elsa before meeting her ultimate demise. Elsa, who has been impregnated by Dren,

decides not to abort the child in the pursuit of potential medical advancement.

Traditionally, the genre of science-fiction horror draws upon the audience’s

collective fear of the unnatural or the unknown. While Splice certainly falls under this

genre of film, it interestingly turns this classic idea on its head. While the creation of

Dren is regarded and examined as unnatural, it is Elsa’s rejection, or fear, of her own

maternal body, pitted against the ever increasing role of male dominance, that is

portrayed as the driving unnatural force in this film. This idea is emphasized through the

use of the constant phallic imagery, an obsession with both natural and unnatural birth,

and most intriguingly, how nearly every important character is, or eventually becomes, a

male organism with the exception of Elsa. These two opposing forces leave the audience

at a crossroads of identification. They are not able to fully identify with any of the human
characters, and are therefore forced them to identify with Dren – the only character who

is in pursuit of her own human identity. The true discomfort Splice induces in its

audience is compelling them to relate with the unnatural being of Dren, more so than the

natural beings of Elsa and Clive.

As most science-fiction horror films do, Splice examines the potential dangers of

modern science. The basic story of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein heavily influences the

main story arc of Splice, however the striking difference between the two stories is the

gender of the creator of life. While Frankenstein features a paternal relationship between

creator and creature, Splice examines a maternal relationship between creator and

creature. However, this difference in relationship still yields the same end result with the

creature essentially being the downfall of the creator. Vincenzo Natali, the director of

Splice, is no doubt making a social commentary on the stereotypical roles of men and

women. He seems to suggest that while these stereotypes still exist today, they are

becoming more and more of a moot point. In addition to his idea, one of the main players

of the film is the big pharmaceutical company. Natali offers a wonderfully subtle

commentary on the creativity and “research for the sake of research” that capitalism

seems to reject.

What is the role of the masculinity in every human, and is Natali proposing that

this inherent masculinity is what makes us human? Is it this deep-rooted masculinity that

causes Elsa to reject her maternal body? Is Natali suggesting that Capitalism is a flawed

system for developmental research?