A POSTHUMANIST EXPLORATION OF DISABILITY, INCLUSION, AND
TRANSFORMATION IN SPLICE AND THE LURE FILMS THROUGH DELEUZIAN
BECOMING AND ABJECTION THEORIES
Introduction: Posthumanism, Disability, and the Cinematic Body
Posthumanism imagines an end to that paradigm of humanism, which is an end to a
subjectivity of the human in a paradigmatic sense; an end to a human identity deemed stable,
fixed, outside of, and different from all other forms of being. As Murray (2023) points out,
conventional perspectives assume that the able-bodied human is the judge of what would be
philosophical and cultural thought, a position that, as a result, supports the presupposition that
disability is an inaccessible disability. This lens has affected a social model wherein difference
in bodies is more frequently regarded as a question of treatment than as phenomena in its own
right. Posthumanism challenges these assumptions by rejecting prescriptive divisions between
ability and impairment. Bodies; both natural and technologically modified, often grafted to slabs
of moving metal, are suddenly becoming something else. This perspective allows us to see
disability in broader, human terms, moving beyond medical frameworks of disability, and
towards the view that difference is normal and healthy. More importantly, Dolezal (2017)
explains how Aimee Mullins, an athlete and model who has prosthetic legs, contests the idea
that prostheses merely substitute for what is lost in terms of function. Instead, they extend a
body’s potential, creating new modes of motion and identity. This contradicts the idea that
technology merely restores, but does not alter possibility. Film is the only way to engage with
this conversation, because it is the medium that makes bodies that do not fit the traditional norms
visible. Congenitally disabled characters’ challenge typical narratives, as do those with hybrid or
augmented bodies, particularly when they make the leap from page to screen, where they can
trouble the paradigms that frame disability as a struggle for middle-class normal. These avatars
do not just threaten human identity; they rearrange it wholesale. The posthuman body is
dynamic, protein fluid, something slippery that does not lend itself to easy, neat categories.
Bodily transformation has served cinema for decades as a way to reflect on concepts of
identity, power and exclusion. Duncan and Molloy (2023) note that speculative films tend to
challenge the distinction between human and nonhuman in such a way that disability emerges as
a key signifier in these stories. Hybrid bodies uncover the false assumption of one ideal way of
being. This is most evident in stories in which prosthetics, genetic changes or other
modifications are irrevocably incorporated into a character’s identity rather than something to
overcome. And these films create a space where disability is not the absence of something (a
defect or weakness) but part of a broader process of transformation. Body is not given; it is
differentiated depending on what we look through. Posthumanism leans in to this instability by
arguing that identity comes into being through interaction with technology, the environment, and
social structures. According to Murray (2017) Hollywood stories often serve to preserve the
narrative that memory loss and physical remaking can be used for redemption. But it subverts
this logic and invites us to consider transformation not necessarily as a return to the lost home.
Instead, change is what constitutes existence. When a body undergoes transformation, either
through disability or enhancement, it does not necessarily become something lesser. As stated by
Murray (2017), it becomes something new as it presses against deep-seated fears about bodily
difference and tests audiences’ assumptions around identity. The posthuman body does not
conform to tidy classifications in film, and that is precisely what makes it so compelling. It
transcends the thresholds of the human, opening up new horizons for the self.
Beyond the Human: Theorizing Posthuman Disability in Film
The concept that ability is a fixed and measurable entity has long influenced disability
pragmatics. Traditional views of humanity assume a body that must work in some particular
way to count as fully human. This mindset informs how society understands disability, and Saur
and Sidorkin (2018) argue that it limits how we may conceive of it, rooted in the belief that
specific bodies can be corrected or normalized. This postulating human identity inscribes it in a
strict premise of physical or cognitive ability and as such posthumanism goes against it. Rather
than framing disability in relation to ability, this view recognizes all bodies as adaptable and
fluid. Liddiard et al. (2019) offer a broader context for this by arguing that young disabled people
with life-limiting conditions challenge the assumption that a valuable life is about independence.
Posthumanist thought rejects the measure of existence as productivity or self-sufficiency and
acknowledges interdependence as a fundamental aspect of being. It is clear taht this movie
inspires a more inclusive conception of embodiment, one that does not cast accommodation or
adaptation as weakness. As Boucher (2022) asserts, the notion of an able body is constructed in
cultural and historical contexts rather than due to some biologic reality. What is taken to be
normal today could be seen as a restriction in another context. Posthumanism generates new
frameworks for being by inquiring into these definitions. This does not deny disability, but
opens space in which to be concerned less with fixing bodies than with what to do with them.
Disability is frequently seen as a barrier, but posthumanism posits another view. In its
place of viewing impairment as a restriction, it offers the body something that can change.
Contemporary fiction is playing its role (Hortle,2017), changing these perceptions with the lives
of characters, whose bodies do not fit traditional expectation. These narratives force us to
question the assumption that certain physical forms are better than others. In other words, as
Molloy, Dunn and Henry (2023) argue, speculative film extends this potential exploration into
the limits of what a body can do by pushing the action available to a body through radical use of
technology, mutation or hybridity. This new attitude implies much more than novel medical
technologies or assistive devices. It is about unlearning the idea that there is one right way to be
operable. Hettinga (2016) studies the representation of the body in film and the discomfort of
encoding bodies that deviate from the norm. This response reveals a thick cultural bias that
equates normalcy with value. A body that looks different or moves in strange ways is often
regarded as something to be feared or pitied. Posthumanism resists this by proposing that
difference is not insufficiency. Stories that frame disability as an evolution, rather than a loss,
challenge outdated beliefs, in powerful ways. These narratives do not ignore the challenges that
accompany impairment, but they invite audiences to ask themselves why those challenges exist.
Are they created by the body itself, or by a world built for only one kind of body?
Speculative fiction and horror offer an alternative space to interrogate strange bodies.
These genres build worlds in which transformation is a given and human identity is a fluid
category. Horror tends to confront audiences with their fears around bodily difference, as
McCormack (2022) notes, and pushes viewers to ask themselves why they feel such strong
emotional responses to unfamiliar forms. In these narratives, changing bodies are often couched
in monstrous terms, but this framing speaks more to social anxieties than to the characters
themselves. That fear of losing control over the body has a deeper discomfort with change.
When films represent characters whose physical forms transcend conventional definitions of
human, they reveal how tenuous those definitions are (Hettinga, 2016). That makes audiences
question their assumptions about normalcy. Molloy, Duncan, and Henry (2023) indicate how the
ontology of posthumanist cinema tends to blur the boundary between enhancement and
impairment, rendering bodies as neither solely able de facto or disabled but in a continuum of
corporeality. These films lead us into a future where difference does not need to be erased but
embraced. They do not just exercise with plastic surgery replacing one ideal body with another,
their bodies act as a critique of whether an ideal body even exists. This outlook leads to a re-
examination of disability representation; how we can stop stories about disability from becoming
stories about limitation and start telling stories about the potential of the body. Horror and
speculative fiction take these ideas to their extremes, making them unavoidable. By compelling
viewers to sit with their discomfort, these films carve out new room to think about ability-
inclusion-transformation.
The Unstable Body: Deleuzian Becoming in Splice and The Lure
The notion that identity is a single, stable form begins to fall apart when the body will
not comply. Starr (2017) claims that becoming-animal is a force that threatens the idea human
identity needs to remain distinct from other forms of life. The figures in these films push back
against that assumption, their status occupying an in-between state. They are not fully one
person or another, but neither entirely different on their own, which makes it difficult to
categorize them clearly. Dren, for instance, is not the subject of a failed human experiment, nor
an animal meant for observation. She is something else entirely, the unpredictable. Her being
defies clear biological classification, a reflection of Deleuze’s observation that identity is not a
matter of resemblance but of transformation. According to Dooley, who wrote her doctorate
thesis on abject cinema (2015), cinema frequently deploys experiences that appeal to the senses
to accentuate this kind of instability, whereby the body itself becomes the locus of discomfort,
the mermaids, shifting from one shape to another, are also fluid. They fluctuate between alluring
and terrifying, refusing to occupy one state. This opacity requires a rethinking of what identity
means. It is not something that can be pinned down, it is something that is in motion. The
queasiness that they induce is not due to their unnaturalness but to their enacting the fragility of
human categories. The impulse to define, control and contain them reflects a receding but still
potent cultural anxiety. These stories do not simply introduce transformation as a theme; they
render it an inescapable reality.
Change is not an event; it is a process. Deleuze (2019) describes becoming as a never
ending transition, a shift that continues forever, with no-lines to cross. This thought is most clear
in how these characters develop. Their bodies never come to rest, their identity unmoored. But
film uniquely makes this sort of transformation visible, and Peters (2016) points out that film
allows us to watch bodies that do not settle into stability. Dren does not evolve in a linear
fashion, nor do the mermaids. Transmutations happen here in unpredictable fits, straddling order
and disorder. Science fiction often messes with these ideas, Cox (2017) writes, using bodies that
change to ask what the limits of selfhood are. The reason these stories are so unnerving has to do
with the not only the physical transformation but what this signals about identity itself. The
notion that someone has to be either one or the other starts to crumble. These films imply that
identity is something much less fixed than is usually assumed to be the case. Rather than
claiming that transformation is a transitory state, they embrace its permanence. There is no end
of the body, no conclusion of identity. This undermines the assumption that stability is the same
as normalcy. These are not characters whittled down to fixed boundaries, and it is that refusal to
conform that makes them powerful.
Hierarchies have long been deployed to decide which bodies are worthy. Such
anthropocentric narratives place the human at the apex of being at the top of a hierarchy that
subordinates everything else beneath it. According to Thain (2017), cinema challenges these
hierarchies, because it shows bodies that do not adhere to them. The characters in these films
seem to lie out with the anticipated regime, so conventional categorizations cannot be put into
place. Dren’s being stands in direct contradiction to scientific and ethical notions of what life is
and deserves, while the mermaids exist as a kind of agency that cannot be domesticated. These
narratives challenge the traditional understanding of power, especially when transformation
becomes a resistance strategy (Starr 2017). Thus, their great potential for change, their capacity
to move between these two states, makes them uncontrollable. Dooley (2015) says the depiction
of identity in flux is often uncomfortable for an audience, which finds itself at odds with the
demand that identity be a fixed and permanent thing. What is unsettling about these characters, I
think, is not just their physical difference, but their refusal to be categorized. Just by existing,
they compromise the notion that some bodies need to fit in shoebox definitional terms. So the
question is, is stability a metric strength, or is the ability to change a type of power? These films
lean toward the latter, pushing back on antiquated systems of hierarchy and control.
The struggle is not just a battle of physical form, perception itself is in flux. Deleuze
(2019) states that becoming does not concern a change in the shape of one's body but rather a
change in the way one is perceived. These gentlemen walk a fine line between appearances,
where reality is perpetually mediated, and their value is contested, predicated on projections of
truth, not truth itself. As with the mermaids, whose behavior is influenced by where they are,
Dren’s medical care is fully context-dependent. Science fiction, Cox (2017) suggests, muses on
this very notion, using characters with fluid forms to emphasize how identity is produced by
externalities. These movies show that fear of bodily instability is a response to cultural anxieties,
not a natural reaction to physical change. This tension, enshrined in film, illuminates the
dissonance that emerges when identity rebuffs compartmentalization; what Thain (2017) refers
to as a crisis of faith in consensus realities. As bodies resist rigid categorization, the presumption
that individuals have to adhere to a one-size-fits-all definition starts to peel away. These stories
celebrate change not as an exception but as a fundamental part of life. The discomfort they
induce does not come from their characters being unnatural, it comes from their capacity to
disrupt the idea of the fluidity of identity itself.
There is no single “right” way to be, and these movies are unequivocal about that.
According to Peters, (2016), new modes of identity formation can be given space through
cinema, allowing bodies that do not conform to the normative, the "convention," to create their
own horizons of meaning with cinema. The characters in these stories are not fixed in one state,
nor do they fight to fit in. Dren’s astonishing evolution baffles attempts at containment, and that
the mermaids slip between roles all the while never truly belonging anywhere. According to
Starr (2017), narratives such as these turn the audience’s attention back on themselves and
compel them to reconsider what they believe is normal or different. What is disturbing about
these bodies is not that they are changing, but that they will not be defined. Dooley (2015)
explains how these transformations are amplified via the corporeality of the bodies involved,
immersing the spectator in the encounter of bodily instability. These films do more than show
transformation as a possibility; they render it a necessity. Identity is never reached, it is always
flowing. By leaning into this fluidity, these stories reject the notion of a right way to be. They
serve as a vision of identity that is open, fluid and unrestrained by stale hierarchies.
The Horror of the Hybrid: Abjection and the Revolt Against the Normative Body
Horror has always excelled at making bodies feel strange, turning them into something
disquieting. Abjection is that insecurity of the body, the essence of the skin that slips in and out
of the boundaries defined by society, the in-between of the genitals, the mixed conversations
happening prior to taste and preference (Lungu, 2022). It is this notion of unease that
underwrites the fear of corporeal transformation, especially one where a body is situated in the
liminal space between human and something else. The characters in these works occupy that
gray area. Evidently, they do not quite fit any category, and that is what is unsettling. Not only
because they look different, but because they make the boundaries of identity appear tenuous.
Body horror indulges in this discomfort, exposing the fragility of the flesh and forcing the
audience to confront changes they cannot control (Aldana & Reyes 2020). The shifts in these
stories are not just physical, but highly symbolic. They question the notion that identity ought to
be fixed, that the human body ought to be fungible. Aldana and Reyes (2020) says they are not
rejected for being dangerous, but rather for making others question what it means to be human.
And their existence makes it impossible to ignore how society interprets normalcy.
It is often associated with being afraid of losing control. Monstrosity is thus not just how
someone looks, but how they disrupt order (Giuliani 2016) Anxieties crop up when a body does
not act within expected parameters. This reaction is explicit in the way these remade figures are
received. Their ever-mutating forms defy definition, and that instability is understood as a threat.
As their bodies evolve, so do the perceptions of them. They may be the stuff of fascination at
one moment and the stuff of fear at the next. For example, the monstrosity of certain bodies in
literature can be symbolic of cultural anxieties, such as how difference is routinely countered
with exclusion (Krishnan, 2023). The characters in these films feel that rejection first hand. Their
ability to shift from one form to another makes them a challenge to the rigid ways in which
people conceptualize identity. They do not conform to the existing categories and that makes
them a problem. The horror derives not only from their transformations, but from what those
transformations suggest about human fear of difference. These tales underline how swiftly
admiration can give way to rejection when a body ceases to act the way other people want it to.
A body that will not conform is something grotesque. Hybrid and reptilian figures in
fiction represent larger anxieties about whatever exists outside the normal, Deb (2023) argues.
When a body is not only one thing or another, it is a sight of disquiet. This reaction is not
merely about skin deep, but about category failure. When a figure defies a neat categorization,
people do not know how to act. Rejection of these characters is not tied to any specific harm but
rather just to the fact of becoming something, anything, undefined. As Lynch (2022) explains,
horror often stems from complexities this type of indigent can generate which includes nameless
bodies, bodies that defy categorization, horror-generating bodies that hint at cultural anxieties
around race, gender and ability. These films exhibit that tendency, revealing how a fear of
bodily difference breeds exclusion. The issue is not about the altered body, but with what
society does with it. With an evidence-based focus, the instinct to dismiss things that are too
unclassifiable says more about cultural prejudices than the figures themselves. These stories
compel viewers to wonder why differences in bodies are considered frightening. If identity is
fluid, the structures built on stable categories start crumbling. This breaking down is precisely
what horror makes visible, laying bare the frail foundation of the systems that produce normalcy.
When identity is no longer solidified, fear reigns supreme. As Lungu (2022) notes,
abjection is not simply disgust, it is also a much deeper fear of a loss of control of meaning. A
figure that oscillates between its articulations and its possibilities refuses to offer a kind of
definition at all. The figures in these films make that unsustainability impossible to overlook.
Aldana Reyes (2020) suggests that body horror is effective because it challenges audiences to
confront the notion that the corporeal form is not as fixed as one might like to believe. These
stories do not frame transformation as something provisional. Instead they insist that change is
constant and the more we fight it, the more fear we create. Their mutations never somehow
resolve into a final state and that is what makes them so unsettling. The discomfort they provoke
does not arise from what they do but from how they upend expectation. According to Krishnan
(2023), when monstrous bodies enter stories, they mark the boundaries of cultural acceptability.
These films do just that, making bodily difference inescapable. The discomfort they cause has
nothing to do with physical change in and of itself, and everything to do with what that change
implies. If that body can move so easily, then identity is never as fixed as people would like to
think. These stories require their audience to linger there, creating horror out of the shattering of
certainty.
Monstrosity or Liberation? The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion
Hybridity complicates the notion of belonging and makes inclusion an uncertain process.
The figures in these films dwell at the borders of human and non-human worlds, never fully
accepted by either. They undermine social certainties because they bring into question
distinctions on which cultures depend to structure their lives. Thus, rocks are both with and
beyond the human while occupying the territory but disassembling its classifications (Verlinden,
2023). They are thus claimed to be liminal features that indicate that the boundaries humans set
are not quite stable. The struggle of these characters is not just one of physical otherness, but of
how society responds to what it cannot concisely define. Their presence pushes a confrontation
with the limits of inclusion, making it apparent that acceptance is often conditional. Some
figures strive for integration; others oppose the lines which exclude them. According to
Malatino (2019), they highlight the tension that exists between the desire to belong and the fear
of being reshaped to fit into existing norms. According to the in the 2019 article these hybrid
bodies in literature exposes the cultural anxieties about identity from Bearden (2019), observing
that difference tends to be a figure of speech, whose place it is to be controlled or erased. The
conflict these characters’ experience is rooted in real-world struggles for recognition. They are
not simply fighting for their lives, but for the freedom to live without pressure to fall in line.
Inclusion sounds simple, but these films have demonstrated that it nearly always comes at a
price. Some characters will sacrifice part of themselves to fit in, while others refuse to
compromise. And when this acceptance comes in the form of control, that is what makes them so
dangerous as a species, for it challenges society to reckon with the fact that inclusion does not
always feel good; in fact, it can be a weapon used against the people in the greater world
surrounding them.
The abjection of hybrid bodies is rooted in the fear of contagion, the policing of
difference that must be curbed or erased. Boundaries are created by societies which then create
rules and structures to develop what is familiar vs unfamiliar. These figures do not, by their
nature, play by those rules. Byatt (2015) states that monstrousness is one of the second order
threats, identified as something that might cause a breakdown of social order, and therefore, to
be feared. This fear is not anything explained by logic but rather a fear of the unknown. These
figures are not dangerous for what they do, but for what they say about what is normal and what
is cut away. The fear of them is intimately connected to the need for control. Unpredictability
contributes to their threatening nature as they can shift between states (Walcott 2015). It is also
indicated that they are not rejected only for their physical guise, but for the messiness that they
bring into a rigid system. According to Creed (2022), most of the Feminist horror movies
embrace change, especially the grotesque type as a form of retaliation against conformity. These
films chart that process and make visible how such characters disrupt and rearrange temporal
structures. This makes one have a feeling that one’s identity is not concrete as the society wants
one to perceive it to be. It is in resisting being typed, that these characters’ rebel against the
structures that decide where one fits in. It will forever stay as a rebellious organization, which
shows that people’s intolerance to other’s peculiarities is in fact intolerance of losing power.
From all the films, this one tells of the fact that change is inevitable and it is the people that who
resist change that are the ones that are usually most scared of it.
Monstrosity is not always an indicator of exclusion; it is also a possibility of freedom.
Those outside the norm often finds new methods to describe themselves, wielding their
difference as a source of power. These figures, despite being cast out, find their own worlds,
ones that do not require their approval. From Verlinden (2023) monstrous figures are often those
that open up second existences beyond borders, those that cannot be shaped or bent into societal
codes. They are uninterested in approval, resisting existing frameworks. Instead, they welcome
the instability that frightens others. The characters in these tales do not just want to fit in; they
create spaces in which they do not need to conform. Their difference, which others regard as a
weakness, becomes a kind of power. Their refusal to be defined frees them from the constraints
that are imposed on other bodies (Malatino 2019). Then is inclusion essential to survival or does
remaining separate provide strength? Narratives of bodily transformation can be seen as critiques
of rigid social structures that produce narrowly-defined forms of who does and does not belong
(Bearden 2019). Similarly, these films make hybridity a site of resistance. Rather than fitting
themselves into a societal mold, these figures mold the world around them. Their exclusion is
not a blemish; it liberates them. Eventually, their existence upends the notion that belonging is
the ultimate prize.
Control and exclusion are the ingredients that go together in relation to hybrid bodies,
and these films point to the connection between the two. Societies try to police difference, trying
to fit bodies into boxes that make them easier to govern. When a body does not fit, we tend to
reject or contain it. As Byatt (2015) explains, such figures, who defy categories, can come to
signify instability, to hold a mirror up to societies and compel them to face down their own
phobias. These characters are not accepted, because they render impossible the refusal to
acknowledge the fluidity of identity. The structures built to contain them depend on the
assumption that normalcy is absolute but these figures show it is not. Just existing in the world
undermines the ideology that bodies belong to rigid bodies (Walcott 2015). You do not react to
them because of what they do, but because of what they show. Monstrous femininity in horror is
a challenge to patriarchal definitions of the body, Creed (2022) notes, revealing how power can
be upheld through exclusion. The same logic obtains with these films; whose hybridity becomes
them a challenge to manage. Even the attempts to stifle them only add to their relevance,
rendering them unable to be ever dismissed. The more society attempts to make them invisible,
the more visible they are. Their persistence demands a confrontation with the discomfort they
elicit, and it demonstrates that exclusion does not erase difference, it amplifies it.
Hybridity is not a defect, but a new state of being, and these stories underscore that fact.
Traditional concepts of identity depend on stability, but these films assert that change is equally
legitimate. For these narrators, difference is not the problem to be solved. As Verlinden (2023)
argues, monstrosity could be an alternative identity-building system that does not require
approval from a system already in place. The protagonists in these films possess power in their
exceptionalism, reminding that inclusion is not the only way forward. They do not ask to be
accepted on someone else’s terms; they reconstitute the terms of existence for themselves. The
failure they face is then opened up as a space of being with no limits (Malatino 2019). This
makes monstrosity something other than exclusion, it becomes a form of self-determination.
Narratives of bodily transformation illuminate how both social categories and biological ones are
poor captures of the complexity of identity (Bearden 2019). The movies extend that concept by
making hybridity a force of resistance to simplified narratives. They difference is not a defect
but a declaration. Instead of asking to live, they create new spaces in which they do not have to
ask. Rather, their strength comes from not being erased.
The dichotomy of rejection and self-acceptance is a conflict that occurs in these films,
with hybridity serving as the underlying premise. These figures do not ask permission, nor do
they apologize for being, however, they unveil the limitations of societal acceptance, where
belonging is conditional. As Byatt (2015) suggests, monstrous bodies reveal the limits of
cultural acceptability where inclusion ends and exclusion begins. The efforts to redefine them, or
scrub them from the lexicon altogether, expose just how tenuous the notion of belonging
actually is. If identity is contingent, then acceptance is never assured. The characters as
portrayed in these films do not allow others to define them (Walcott 2015). Their existence
makes society examine its own hypocrisy. Creed (2022) states that monstrous femininity
interrupts conventional narratives of identity, providing us with an image of power that is not
reliant upon an audience. The same goes for these hybrid figures, who question the premise that
inclusion is always the intent. Shunning imposed definitions, they are free from external
expectations, of who they should be and how they should behave. The stories make one thing
clear, belonging is not the only measure of existence. The refusal to conform is sometimes the
greatest act of power.
Memory, Trauma, and the Posthuman Psyche
Memories form identity, but for coupled beings, those memories feel different. Their
transformed bodies do not erase their past but rather weave it into their very beings. As Baelo-
Allué (2022) explains, posthumanism reshapes trauma by revealing how bodies record past
suffering. This means trauma is not just in the head, but is something that literally changes the
body. The transformations that happen to these characters do not liberate them from their pasts;
rather, they render those pasts visible. These figures have memories not only in their heads but
in the very structures of their being. They are treated as products of things out of their control,
incapable of disentangling who they are from what they are been through. Their physical
transformations reflect the psychological weight they bear, rendering their trauma inescapable.
The struggle for self-definition is complicated by memories that are not easily shed. The body
becomes a living archive, carrying tales of unhealable injuries (Phelan 2022). These movies
argue that transformation does not leave pain behind; it magnifies it, renders it inescapable and
they are not just fresh lives; they are reminders of what they used to be. Amidst those changes,
their distorted bodies reverberate their histories, compelling them to face what has been lost.
Even as they try to move forward, their trauma haunts them. It asks the audience whether
surviving getting past the suffering, or learning to live with it. Such stories offer no easy
resolutions, but compel a reckoning with trauma’s enduring trace. As much as they change, the
past is in their DNA, informing how they experience the world.
Inherited memory adds a complication to the notion of transformation, rendering identity
something that transcends the individual experience. These characters do not merely live with
their own pasts, they bear the logs of the people who made them. As Ibrisim (2020) remarks,
posthumanism debunks the idea that the memory is formed by the individual, proposing instead
that such a concept was collective and inevitable. This implies that identity is never completely
self-formed, for it is also influenced by elements that one does not control. The echoes of those
who have come before endure shaping the present as these people move forward. They do not
exist in a vacuum, but bring with them the emotional and historical baggage of others. Their
bodies are more than flesh; they are vessels for past lives, past pains. This inheritance makes it
hard for them to define themselves. Each shift in their form is a reminder of where they came
from and who raised them (Larsen 2023). Their transformations are more than just evolution;
they are a means of remembering. The films imply that transformation is not freedom from the
past, but an engagement with it. Their bodies change, as do their understandings of who they
are and what they have suffered. The issue will be if change lets them rewrite their stories or
only reopens old wounds. Memory persists in disturbing ways, as it holds them back when they
attempt to get the wanders of life. Even as they try to create a new identity, they are still
connected to pasts that cannot be forgotten. The burden of history cannot be so easily thrown
off, and these movies indicate that even the most radical transformation does not excise its grip.
Their battle is not just for survival, but for meaning in something they cannot take with them.
They inhabit a liminal space between past and future, between remembering and reinventing
themselves.
Survival does not happen in just the body; it takes place in the mind, as well.
Transformation is not a cure-all that cures psychological fragmentation, and these films
underscore that. Inspired by LaCapra (2016), we understand that trauma leaves traces of the
past, traces that shape the sense of identity and compel us to act in a world that no longer sees us
as we were before. It speaks to the degree that trauma changes our vision of self, how these two
people cannot seem to freeze time long enough for some of them to catch up. Transformation
does not erase past wounds; it complicates them. These figures are stuck in between who they
were in the past and who they are become, and they seem to have a hard time navigating both.
Their erratic bodies reveal a metaphysical unrest, a state of impermanence that cuts deeper than
flesh. Adaptation becomes a question of life, but not without penalty (Baelo-Allué 2022).
Psychological resilience is challenged in ways that are often invisible yet intensely felt. The
movies portray resilience but also the fissures that resilience brings. By stealthing us, the body is
compelled to change, but this is a painful change. These transformations, equivalent to granting
new possibilities, bring with them new burdens as well. No rest in the end, just the drama of past
and present. They hold up not only by being strong but also by learning to live with uncertainty.
And while they survive, they must grapple with the scars of their former selves. Memory,
trauma and transformation coalesce to produce identities that never become fixed. Phelan (2022)
says their stories do not close with healing; they end with a continuing struggle to make sense of
themselves. Also, they are not whole but they are also not broken, they are in between. Their
survival is not merely about overcoming pain; it is about learning to live inside it.
These films challenge escape narratives that insist transformation provides an escape,
instead offering transformation as a continual negotiation with memory. The identity does not
disappear but is rewritten, time and again. Phelan (2022) advances this narrative in arguing that
posthuman narratives subvert linearity to represent trauma in cyclicality, returning in erred
timelines. Even as characters’ change, this means, they never really shake off their pasts. As
much as they adapt, traces of their former selves still rise to the surface. Things change, but they
are still attached to memories that inform their current existence. The tension between who they
were and who they are becoming never quite resolves. Survival is not forgetting; it is holding
those memories in a different way (Larsen 2023). These films present transformation as a
process that does not cancel suffering out but makes characters alter how they live with it. There
is a paradox, catching a life of evolution and a life of histories they cannot escape. The notion of
getting beyond the ache proves illusory, supplanted by an awareness of trauma’s unvanquished
presence. COVID-19 is not something they just go back to ignoring tomorrow. These films
imply that resilience is not so much about transcending trauma as it is about learning to dwell
within it. The films demonstrate that identity is never a static condition but rather a thing that
continually adjusts to the accumulation of time and their struggle is not one of erasure but of
adaptation. They do not escape the past, but they will not be devoured by it. And finally,
memory does not grow dim. It looms, molding them in ways they may not yet understand. The
past is never truly past, and their survival is not about escaping it, it is about learning how to live
with it.
Conclusion: Embracing the Posthuman Future
These movies subvert common representations of human beings whose narratives in the
films do not fit the mainstream concepts of disability, transformation, and the body. Thus,
according to Escobar (2016), posthumanism restructure identity in a way that disrupts category
constancy and proclaims that bodies are inconstant. These figures are still more characters in as
much as the contexts of these stories place they exist in is an uncertain zone between human and
animal. It puts the biological differences into question and unwraps the fact that exclusion is not
about menace but prejudice. It is not a loss or deviation that the experiences they captured are a
testament to the (lack thereof) of coherent humanist narratives. The bodies in these films are
those that cannot be managed such that their presence is virtually unavoidable. This refusal to not
conform requires viewers to ask why difference is always presented as such that comes across as
awkward (Bugajska 2021). When change is inevitable, what is required is to delay the fixing of
definition to the term human in order to accommodate for the expansion of identity. These films
suggest that the plural future has no place for a single, harmonious form or model. If such
composite categories like the best-selling publishers, the banana peel-throwing critics, and
dispassionate scholars are to be included and they should be, then the issue is not whether they
should be included, but rather why, at some point, they were left out. What they fight for is not
proving their worth, it is for making others reconsider what it is to exist. And so it can be
concluded that they do not want to be affirmed; instead, they demand new borders to the concept
of identity.
The challenge of posthumanism is not technological (it is not a new kind of technology)
but ethical. It is not in envisioning a universe in which change is possible, but in learning how to
embrace bodies that do not conform. Transhuman and posthuman beings shake the foundation of
religious and philosophical truths that challenge deep-rooted beliefs about what constitutes
human nature, implying the need to rethink how we perceive existence (Mercer, 2020). Packed
with creatures that make the viewer question what is moral, who is an actor, and who has worth,
these movies give truth to the fact that identity is not set in stone. They unmask the worries that
emerge at this stage and show that most of the time, fear disguises itself under ethical
consideration. If resisting transformation is not about protecting humanity but rather about
protecting power structures that determine who gets to belong. Hughes (2019) suggests that
posthumanism can provide a route to this mutual understanding, one that refuses to be driven by
fear and toward connection. If hybridity is, no longer, deemed unnatural, then it follows that
difference itself can no longer be deployed as a rationale for exclusion. These films do not offer
easy answers, but they are hard on one thing, that change is not something to be afraid of. The
posthuman future does not abolish humanity, it enhances it. If Darwinism teaches us that
survival is based on adaptation, the power to change does not represent weakness; it is, in fact, a
strength. The matter of modality, however, is no longer debatable, the only thing that remains to
be seen is whether society is ready to move on from the prototypically archaic belief system in
which human bodies are evaluated based on anachronistic standards.
