Technology at the border: Anxiety of progress and the ethics of connection in Sleep Dealer

Abstract

The dystopian movie Sleep Dealer (2008, Dir. Alex Rivera) ponders upon the effects of technology in the social fabric of Mexican and US societies. This topic, frequent in science fiction movies, is addressed in Sleep Dealer in particular ways, both in the choice of space (the border between Mexico and the United States) and main theme (labor relations). I will analyze the movie’s speculation of a possible future by focusing on four basic “conflict/contact zones”. The multiple connections in the movie (with technology, with alternative worlds, with the global economy, with other beings) may be viewed as “border crossings” and point to what in other works I have termed an “anxiety of progress” that questions pre-conceived notions of national and personal identity and the very idea of the human.