A Nonhuman Too Human: Posthuman Embodiment in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013)

Abstract

In cinematic characterisation, the human body has traditionally been conceived as a biological constant – the primary locus of identity and the key distinction between human and nonhuman entities – reflecting a long-standing anthropocentric belief. However, under the growing influence of posthumanism challenging anthropocentrism, contemporary cinema has begun to articulate forms of posthuman embodiment that destabilise historically constructed boundaries between human and nonhuman by depicting hybrid modes of being. Nevertheless, the persistence of anthropocentric paradigms, alongside the fundamentally human-driven nature of filmmaking, imposes structural limitations on such posthumanist inquiries in cinema, rendering them inescapably “too human”. Accordingly, this article uses Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013) as a case study to examine its effective depiction of posthuman embodiment within a posthumanist framework. In particular, it focuses on the film’s deployment of the metaphor of “skin” and “unskin” to visualise a nonhuman entity inhabiting and leaving a human body, thereby challenging conventional anthropocentric models of embodiment. This article also offers a critical view of the film’s limitations, arguing that its cinematic articulation of posthuman embodiment remains constrained by an over-reliance on existing humanistic frameworks. Both its visual emphasis on sexualised femininity and its conceptual reinforcement of gender binaries reveal a persistent tendency to remain “too human”.