This qualitative critical textual analysis investigates how science fiction (SF) films’ representation of invasive technologies interacting with disability reflects changing cultural attitudes toward artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and brain-computer interfaces. Such research helps anticipate the social impacts of advanced technology by identifying the hopes, fears, and inequalities it may provoke. These trends may also inform how future media scholars understand changing portrayals of disability. Analyzing these shifts can deepen our understanding of whether society views disability as something to be adapted to or overcome with technology.
I selected six films featuring explicit disability representation, themes of technology impacting disability, and consistent engagement between the two. I identified key themes, filmmaking techniques, narrative developments, and audiovisual cues. My notes were inductively analyzed to compare how each film presents disability through character viewpoints, morality, technological invasion, and physicality. Initial analysis suggests American science fiction has long expressed anxiety about technological change and bodily invasion. However, more recent films increasingly depict invasive technologies as hopeful, but still risky, solutions to disability. As a result, disability in science fiction shifts from a source of pity or fear to an obstacle that technology can fix and erase. This work contributes to disability and media studies by examining how SF reflects shifting cultural perceptions of disability and the body.