We have seen a rapid increase in technological advancements throughout the 21st century. Steve Jobs created the iPad and iPhone, Peter Thiel platformed Google, and Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook. These devices and applications have made our lives more colorful, exposing us to new ideas and connecting us with people we might not otherwise have met. But these developments have come with side effects and new burdens. The concept of privacy has been destroyed, creativity has been stifled, and quantity is more important than quality.
Hollywood has attempted to demonstrate the absurdity of this era with acclaimed comedies and dramas such as Silicon Valley, Black Mirror, Betas, and Mr. Robot. Most of these series, however, imitate the female-exclusionary atmosphere of the tech industry with storylines dominated by male protagonists.
In April 2021, a dark comedy called “Made For Love“, which is an adaptation of Alissa Nutting’s eponymous book, premiered on HBO Max. Unlike the aforementioned shows, “Made For Love” finally portrays technology through a gendered lens, particularly highlighting the role gender and technology play in romantic relationships. This eight episode saga demonstrates how using technology to facilitate the ideal relationship does a disservice to the partner with lesser power.
Hazel Green-Gogol (Cristin Miloti) has been married to a tech mogul named Byron Gogol (Billy Magnussen) for ten years. Both of them reside in “the hub,” a technological marvel, which gives them everything they need. Here, Byron works on his app “Made For Love” which is an attempt to remove all of what he sees as obstacles to romantic relationships, such as miscommunication, to make partners more compatible. While the hub was created for Byron to escape the distractions of everyday life, it functions as a prison for Hazel. Byron sees no reason for why Hazel would be motivated to venture into the outside world. Despite living a life of luxury, Hazel finally musters up the courage to leave the hub and file for a divorce from Byron.
A cycle of abuse is narrated through the relationship of Hazel and Byron. In order to build “Made For Love”, Byron makes Hazel his muse and infantilizes her as part of his project. Basic human needs like the right to privacy and community are wrangled out of Hazel’s grasp for the sake of Byron’s observation and data collection. Byron is adamant about maintaining his focus while creating this app. Therefore, Hazel and Byron do not have sex ten years. Instead, Hazel’s orgasms derived from self-pleasure are filmed in the hub then reviewed with one of Byron Gogol’s assistants, most notably Bennett (Caleb Foote). Byron uses her orgasms to inform a function on the app that communicates to the partner how they can do better during sex. Ironically, communication is lost between Byron and Hazel and she becomes a data farm for his project. She is forced to share the most intimate parts of herself for Byron to use as a commodity.
To make matters worse, Byron and his team members install a chip in Hazel’s brain without her consent in order for him to merge with her thoughts. He believes that installing a chip in Hazel’s brain will allow them to overcome the obstacles normal couples encounter. Byron’s ambitions blind him from understanding that one of the most important parts of a relationship is independence. By inserting a chip in Hazel’s brain, Bryon seems to eliminate the remainder of Hazel’s autonomy and therefore, the remainder of a balanced partnership. While in technology, there is a clear boundary between right and wrong, good and bad, that binary is not transferable into human relationships. Arguments and disagreements allow partners to grow and improve their relationship. Byron’s hope for a perfect relationship erroneously simplifies human emotion and conflict.
Though Hazel’s life is in disarray, she is still able to resist Fiffany (Noma Dumezweni), a researcher, and Herringbone (Dan Bakkedahl), Byron’s assistant, from removing the chip implanted in her brain. While some may say it’s advisable for her to accept the offer, for ten years, Hazel has had her decisions made for her. Hazel instead insists that she leaves Byron on her own terms, and not at the whims of Fiffany and Herringbone who have not had her best interests in mind, to reclaim the agency that she lost.
Towards the end of the series, it feels like Hazel will finally be free of Byron. Hazel manages to humiliate Byron in a diner on the outskirts of Los Angeles while he signs the divorce papers. Just as she leaves him, Byron uses Hazel’s father’s (Ray Romano) cancer diagnosis as a way to emotionally blackmail her into staying with him. Though Hazel wants to move on with her life, she cannot in good conscience leave her father to die when Byron has the resources to allow her father to live. Rejecting this proposal seems like an act of selfishness rather than one of freedom.
There’s no doubt that technology has made our lives more bearable. However, when the goal is to make something that is meant to be imperfect, perfect, things become fatal. Byron Gogol is a narcissistic billionaire tech mogul who treated his relationship with Hazel as a science experiment. Though a fictitious exaggeration of reality, “Made For Love” truthfully highlights the dangerous consequences of technology that is designed with only one person’s interest in mind.
