Le mythe de Frankenstein : appropriation, réécriture et féminisation à l’ère de l’Intelligence Artificielle dans les séries Hemlock Grove et Westworld

Abstract

This article focuses on the appropriation of the fiction imagined by Mary Shelley and its rewriting in two TV series, Hemlock Grove (Netflix, 2013-2015) and Westworld (HBO, 2016-), following two orientations: the first transposes and renews the topic of a created being and its creator, whose monstrosity and humanity are being questioned in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The second gives us an account of the Creature’s feminization through Shelley Godfrey’s characters in Hemlock Grove and (especially) Dolores and Maeve in Westworld. If the quotations and references to Frankenstein have a formal and narrative importance to attract the audience, who enjoys recognizing them, this study is also concerned with the interdependence of a thematic exchange (brought by these two series to the myth and vice versa), the foregrounding of Mary Shelley—Hemlock’s Creature’s name is Shelley; in Westworld, the mad scientist is turned into an author-scriptwriter who writes his Creature’s fiction—and the importance of the serial format of two hybrid productions that evolve from tradition to innovation-modernity, past and future, tribute, detachment and post-modern resuscitation of the myth.