Modernity and the masturbator: The non-human economy, excess and non-gendered consciousness in The Cell

This article considers Tarsem Singh's serial-killer thriller The Cell within the context of desire and excess, gender distinctions and concerns about abnormality and monstrosity. These critical preoccupations are explored in relation to Foucault's and Latour's notions of modernity and its divisive practices which usefully articulate the creation of non-human categories. I argue that The Cell presents a case study for the problems created by non-human categories and posits what I refer to as the non-human economy. Furthermore, The Cell offers a solution to these problems by presenting a vision of a non-gendered consciousness that gestures toward the collapse of the modern order.