The Girl Who Was Plugged In
Encyclopedia
"The Girl Who Was Plugged In" is a science fiction
novella
by James Tiptree, Jr., a pen name used by writer Alice Sheldon. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella
in 1974.
interests. Despite advertising being illegal ("ad" is, in fact, a dirty word), corporations control consumers through the celebrities they set up, and product placement
. The protagonist
, seventeen-year-old Philadelphia Burke (known as P. Burke throughout the story), is enlisted to become one of these celebrities. She is a cruelly deformed victim of pituitary dystrophy. A suicide attempt lands her in a hospital where she comes to the attention of corporate scouts and is chosen to become a "Remote". A series of modifications and electronic implants allow her to use a sophisticated computer to control another body by remote control. This beautiful girl body, known as Delphi, was grown without a functioning brain from a modified embryo
in an artificial womb. It is controlled through a satellite link by P. Burke's brain
, which is still physically located in her original body.
After months of training, Delphi is strategically placed on the location of a minor documentary film, and becomes a media sensation overnight. Nominally an actress in a soap opera, her real job is to be a celebrity, seen traveling all over the world buying and using products, making sure they are seen by the masses. Remote people are used for these promotional jobs because ordinary media stars are too unpredictable and may make their own choices of what to buy that can ruin a company, while a Remote can be controlled -- a Remote's speech circuits are monitored and can be censored if she doesn't follow orders.
P. Burke loves being Delphi, and her starry-eyed personality makes Delphi a sensation. Paul, the rich, rebel son of a network executive, notices Delphi and falls in love with her. P. Burke falls in love with him too, but of course can't tell him the truth about Delphi. Paul finds out that Delphi is being remotely controlled by electronic implants, and is shocked and incensed. But he misunderstands, believing that Delphi is a normal girl who is being enslaved by pain implants, not realizing that "Delphi" has no mind of her own. He uses his contacts with the network to break into their laboratories, and storms into the control room where P. Burke is, ordering the techs to take their implants out of Delphi. Here he finds a flabby, ugly, deformed woman wired to a console, apparently exerting some kind of coercion over his girlfriend. As P. Burke cries out, "Paul, I love you!" he rips the wires out of her, killing her. Delphi, the body, without the complex computer links which keep it functioning, dies too.
The story is told by someone from the future, speaking to a modern person. The narrator cynically addresses the reader as "zombie" and "dead daddy", presuming that the reader does not know what's going on behind the scenes and accepts everything at face value. The book ends with "better believe it zombie, it's a great future out there". This device is intended to make the reader think about the ways one is controlled by what one buys, and how one views celebrities as role model
s.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
by James Tiptree, Jr., a pen name used by writer Alice Sheldon. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella
Hugo Award for Best Novella
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
in 1974.
Plot summary
The story takes place in the future, where almost everything is controlled by corporateCorporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
interests. Despite advertising being illegal ("ad" is, in fact, a dirty word), corporations control consumers through the celebrities they set up, and product placement
Product placement
Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...
. The protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, seventeen-year-old Philadelphia Burke (known as P. Burke throughout the story), is enlisted to become one of these celebrities. She is a cruelly deformed victim of pituitary dystrophy. A suicide attempt lands her in a hospital where she comes to the attention of corporate scouts and is chosen to become a "Remote". A series of modifications and electronic implants allow her to use a sophisticated computer to control another body by remote control. This beautiful girl body, known as Delphi, was grown without a functioning brain from a modified embryo
Embryo
An embryo is a multicellular diploid eukaryote in its earliest stage of development, from the time of first cell division until birth, hatching, or germination...
in an artificial womb. It is controlled through a satellite link by P. Burke's brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...
, which is still physically located in her original body.
After months of training, Delphi is strategically placed on the location of a minor documentary film, and becomes a media sensation overnight. Nominally an actress in a soap opera, her real job is to be a celebrity, seen traveling all over the world buying and using products, making sure they are seen by the masses. Remote people are used for these promotional jobs because ordinary media stars are too unpredictable and may make their own choices of what to buy that can ruin a company, while a Remote can be controlled -- a Remote's speech circuits are monitored and can be censored if she doesn't follow orders.
P. Burke loves being Delphi, and her starry-eyed personality makes Delphi a sensation. Paul, the rich, rebel son of a network executive, notices Delphi and falls in love with her. P. Burke falls in love with him too, but of course can't tell him the truth about Delphi. Paul finds out that Delphi is being remotely controlled by electronic implants, and is shocked and incensed. But he misunderstands, believing that Delphi is a normal girl who is being enslaved by pain implants, not realizing that "Delphi" has no mind of her own. He uses his contacts with the network to break into their laboratories, and storms into the control room where P. Burke is, ordering the techs to take their implants out of Delphi. Here he finds a flabby, ugly, deformed woman wired to a console, apparently exerting some kind of coercion over his girlfriend. As P. Burke cries out, "Paul, I love you!" he rips the wires out of her, killing her. Delphi, the body, without the complex computer links which keep it functioning, dies too.
The story is told by someone from the future, speaking to a modern person. The narrator cynically addresses the reader as "zombie" and "dead daddy", presuming that the reader does not know what's going on behind the scenes and accepts everything at face value. The book ends with "better believe it zombie, it's a great future out there". This device is intended to make the reader think about the ways one is controlled by what one buys, and how one views celebrities as role model
Role model
The term role model generally means any "person who serves as an example, whose behaviour is emulated by others".The term first appeared in Robert K. Merton's socialization research of medical students...
s.
Where Found
- New Dimensions 3, ed. by Robert Silverberg. Doubleday, 1974. This volume in the New Dimensions series also includes Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le GuinUrsula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
's The Ones Who Walk Away From OmelasThe Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a 1973 short story by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is a philosophical parable with a sparse plot featuring bare and abstract descriptions of characters; the city of Omelas is the primary focus of the narrative."The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" was nominated for...
. - Warm Worlds and OtherwiseWarm Worlds and OtherwiseWarm Worlds and Otherwise is a short story collection by Alice Sheldon that, under her pen name James Tiptree, Jr., was first published in 1975...
, collection of stories by James Tiptree, Jr. Ballantine, 1975. - Her Smoke Rose Up ForeverHer Smoke Rose Up ForeverHer Smoke Rose Up Forever is a collection of Science fiction and fantasy stories by author James Tiptree, Jr.. It was released in 1990 by Arkham House...
, anthology of stories by James Tiptree, Jr. Tachyon, 2004. - The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3 edited by Karen Joy FowlerKaren Joy FowlerKaren Joy Fowler is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Her work often centers on the nineteenth century, the lives of women, and alienation....
, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith. Tachyon, 2007. - Tor Double #7: Screwtop (by Vonda N. McIntyre) and The Girl Who Was Plugged In (by James Tiptree, Jr.). Tor, 1989. ISBN 0-812-54554-0.
Other media
- The story was adapted as a television film in 1998, for the Sci Fi ChannelSyfySyfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
series Welcome to ParadoxWelcome to Paradox (TV series)Welcome to Paradox is a science fiction television series aired on the Sci Fi Channel. Despite being filmed in Canada, the series was only broadcast on Sci Fi Channel affiliates in the United States. It first aired on August 17, 1998, and ran for one season, ending on November 9, 1998...
.
- The story was adapted as a stage musicalMusical theatreMusical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
in 1992, as the first act of "Weird Romance: Two One-Act Musicals of Speculative Fiction". Music was by Alan MenkenAlan MenkenAlan Menken is an American musical theatre and film composer and pianist.Menken is best known for his numerous scores for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. His scores for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas have each won him two Academy Awards...
, Lyrics by David Spencer, Book by Alan BrennertAlan BrennertAlan Brennert is a United States television producer and screenwriter.Brennert has lived in Southern California since 1973 and completed graduate work in screenwriting at the University of California Los Angeles....
and David Spencer. It starred Ellen GreeneEllen GreeneEllen Greene is an American singer and actress. Greene has had a long and varied career as a singer, particularly in cabaret, as an actor and singer in numerous stage productions, particularly musical theatre, as well as having performed in many films – notably Little Shop of Horrors...
in its Off-BroadwayOff-BroadwayOff-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
premiere and the cast recordingCast recordingA cast recording is a recording of a musical that is intended to document the songs as they were performed in the show and experienced by the audience. An original cast recording, as the name implies, features the voices of the show's original cast...
.