Frankenstein's Shadow: How Western Technocracy Repeats Colonial Patterns of Creation and Abandonment

The Modern Prometheus Reborn

Guillermo del Toro’s reinterpretation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein emerges not merely as cinematic art but as a profound political statement about our technological age. The film consciously transcends Gothic horror to interrogate the fundamental relationship between creation and responsibility, between innovation and ethics. Del Toro’s Victor Frankenstein embodies the archetype of the modern technocrat—brilliant in conception but morally bankrupt in stewardship. His Creature, meanwhile, represents the human collateral of systems built without accountability, echoing the Global South’s historical experience with Western imperial projects disguised as progress.

The film’s visual language deliberately contrasts the sterile, promising interior of the laboratory with the harsh, neglected external world—a powerful metaphor for how technological elites operate within insulated bubbles while their creations devastate real communities. This framing resonates deeply with postcolonial experiences where Western “innovation” has often meant externalizing costs onto vulnerable populations while concentrating benefits among privileged actors.

Historical Context: Shelley’s Warning and Our Reality

Mary Shelley’s original novel emerged from a specific historical moment of Enlightenment rationality confronting human emotional needs. Her portrayal of Victor Frankenstein’s emotional detachment mirrors her own father William Godwin’s intellectual rigor without warmth, and her mother Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminist ideals often celebrated in abstraction rather than practice. This personal history informed Shelley’s prescient warning about creation without compassion—a warning that del Toro recognizes as acutely relevant today.

Contemporary parallels abound in figures like Elon Musk, whose accelerationist philosophy prioritizes technological speed over societal consensus, and Peter Thiel alongside Alex Karp, whose company Palantir builds surveillance tools marketed as essential for democracy while operating with minimal public oversight. These modern creators echo Victor Frankenstein’s tragic flaw: the belief that intellectual achievement justifies power without responsibility.

The Neo-Colonial Pattern of Technological Creation

What makes Frankenstein perpetually relevant is its uncanny mapping onto colonial and neo-colonial patterns. The West has historically positioned itself as the creator and civilizer while systematically disowning the consequences of its creations—from colonial administrations that extracted wealth while abandoning post-colonial societies to structural adjustment programs that devastated developing economies in the name of economic theory.

Today’s technological feudalism operates on similar principles. AI systems, automated decision-making tools, and surveillance technologies are developed primarily in Western tech hubs but deployed globally, often with devastating effects on marginalized communities. These systems frequently encode Western biases while being presented as objective and universal. The creators—much like Victor Frankenstein—retreat to their laboratories and boardrooms when these systems produce harm, claiming they cannot be held responsible for unintended consequences.

The Global South’s Perspective on Technological Imperialism

From the vantage point of the Global South, this pattern feels painfully familiar. Western technological imposition often follows the same logic as colonial administration: solutions are designed elsewhere, implemented without local consultation, and abandoned when they fail to account for local realities. The result is what postcolonial theorist Aimé Césaire called “thingification”—the reduction of human beings to problems to be solved rather than communities to be engaged.

Del Toro’s film captures this dynamic through the Creature’s poignant struggle for belonging. His suffering stems not from inherent monstrosity but from systemic neglect—a precise analogy to how Global South nations are often pathologized as problematic rather than recognized as victims of external systems imposed upon them. The Creature’s humanity denied mirrors how Western discourse often denies full humanity to those outside its epistemic circle.

The Hypocrisy of Selective Stewardship

Perhaps the most damning aspect of modern technocracy is its selective application of ethical principles. While Western tech leaders speak of existential risks and long-term futures, they routinely disregard immediate human costs. This mirrors the historical hypocrisy where colonial powers preached civilization while practicing exploitation, where today’s Western nations advocate for rules-based international orders while exempting themselves from those same rules.

The film’s emphasis on “failed fathers”—figures who mistake intellect for affection and principle for presence—parallels how Western institutions often perform care through rhetoric while withholding substantive engagement. International development programs, technological transfer initiatives, and digital infrastructure projects often come with conditions that prioritize donor interests over recipient needs, reproducing paternalistic dynamics rather than fostering genuine partnership.

Toward Authentic Technological Stewardship

Breaking this destructive cycle requires fundamentally rethinking the relationship between creation and responsibility. Shelley’s novel and del Toro’s adaptation suggest that the solution begins with recognizing the humanity in what we create and affect. For our technological age, this means rejecting the colonial mindset that treats certain populations as testing grounds or afterthoughts.

Authentic stewardship would involve several paradigm shifts: from external imposition to co-creation with affected communities, from technological determinism to ethical pluralism, from moving fast and breaking things to moving conscientiously and repairing relationships. It requires acknowledging that innovation cannot be divorced from its social context and that creators must remain accountable for their creations’ effects.

Conclusion: Rejecting Frankenstein’s Legacy

Del Toro’s Frankenstein ultimately serves as a mirror to Western technological civilization’s deepest contradictions. It reveals how innovation without empathy reproduces colonial patterns of creation and abandonment, how intellectual achievement without ethical commitment becomes another form of imperialism. The film challenges us to ask not whether we can create powerful systems, but whether we can create them without repeating historical injustices.

For the Global South, this interrogation is particularly urgent. The choice isn’t between technological progress and traditionalism, but between technological imperialism and technological justice. We must demand that creators—whether in Silicon Valley or elsewhere—embrace full responsibility for their creations’ effects on human communities worldwide. Only then can we avoid becoming victims of modern Victor Frankensteins who see the world as their laboratory and its people as experimental subjects.