Stardom and sf: A symposium on the sf films of Scarlett Johansson

Since 2013, American actor Scarlett Johansson has appeared in a sudden spate of sf films. First there was Her (Jonze US 2013), the story of a lonely man who falls in love with an artificial intelligence which runs his operating system (OS), an entity known as Samantha and voiced by Johansson. Then from the international festival circuit emerged Under the Skin (Glazer UK 2013), a loose adaptation of Michel Faber's sf novel of the same name, in which Johansson plays an unnamed entity who lures men to a gruesome fate. The action blockbuster Lucy (Besson France 2014) was released the following year; Johansson plays a student who accidentally absorbs vast quantities of a nootropic drug, becoming superhuman and ultimately transcending her physical form. Finally, the live-action version of the manga Ghost in the Shell (Sanders US 2017) was released in 2017; Johansson plays the Major, a cyborg special operative living in twenty-first century Japan. This recent series of sf films make for a notable turn in the actress's career. Although Johansson had previously performed in the sf film The Island (Bay US 2005), her breakout and high-profile roles – for instance in Lost in Translation (Coppola US 2003), Match Point (Allen US 2005) and Iron Man 2 (Favreau US 2010) – chiefly positioned her as a wandering ingénue, romantic lead and action heroine. Rather than continuing to play such characters, however, Johansson has instead turned to cyborgs, aliens and sentient software.

Johansson's trajectory provides a thought-provoking study of a contemporary celebrity's development from indie starlet to Hollywood A-lister; however, her turn to sf in particular raises a provocative question that the contributors to this symposium address: how does the phenomenon of contemporary film stardom influence the remit of sf cinema? Johansson closely fits the definition of a film star – rather than simply actor or performer – insofar as she possesses renown, fame and an identity or 'image' that circulates beyond the films in which she appears, for instance, in celebrity magazines or promotional television programmes. (As Richard Dyer remarks, stars are characterised by celebrity, being 'well-known for her/his well-knownness' (13)). Commercially, Johansson is also extraordinarily successful in her stardom; Forbes named her the highest-grossing actor of 2016 (Robehmed). She has also achieved renown as a superlatively beautiful and desirable individual, a feature that has been a central part of her star image for over a decade. Since 2005, Johansson has frequently appeared in 'sexiest woman alive' polls in men's magazines such as Maxim, Esquire, GQ, Playboy, FHM and Men's Health. Desired, celebrated and sought-after – what influence, if any, does such a recognisable and famous star like Johansson have upon the sf films in which she appears? What does her image activate, signify and enable within speculative worlds onscreen?

In asking these questions, it is necessary to observe that Johansson is not the first major celebrity to be closely associated with sf film and television genres. Arnold Schwarzenegger's appearance as the T-800 cyborg in The Terminator (Cameron US 1984), for example, initiated a run of appearances in other sf blockbusters – such as the sequels Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Cameron US 1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Mostow US 2003) and Terminator Genisys (Taylor US 2015) – as well as The Running Man (Glaser US 1987), Total Recall (Verhoeven US 1990) and The 6th Day (Spottiswoode US 2000). Other celebrities are also associated with sf via particular franchises, such as Sigourney Weaver for the Alien films (1979–) and Patrick Stewart in the Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–2002) and X-Men (2000–) properties. Some stars make notable one-off appearances in the genre, a paradigmatic case being David Bowie's appearance in The Man Who Fell to Earth (Roeg US 1976). In his critique of the film, Adam Roberts observes Bowie's celebrity persona is central to the film's storytelling technique, with his glamour and strangeness conveying alien otherness. Moreover, Roberts argues that Bowie's appearance as an alien...