hit enter to search
Dead Ringers
2025

Speed Art Museum Louisville, KY

with

Lauren Freeman

Professor of Philosophy at University of Louisville; Director of the M.A. in Applied Philosophy

Dead Ringers— Bioethical body horror: The philosophical underpinnings of Cronenberg's 'Dead Ringers'

Through a discussion of some of the history, concepts, and principles of bioethics, Professor Freeman will guide the audience in viewing Dead Ringers with a feminist and bioethical lens. Predictably, director David Cronenberg violates all four principles of the practice—respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice—throughout this classic of body horror. Using theoreticians like Roxane Gay and Friedrich Nietzsche, Dr. Freeman will go on to consider why we still enjoy art that is so full of violations, and what we can get out of it.

Speed Art Museum Louisville, KY

Film Synopsis

Twin gynecologists take full advantage of the fact that nobody can tell them apart, until their relationship begins to deteriorate over a woman.

    Elliot (Jeremy Irons), a successful gynecologist, works at the same practice as his identical twin, Beverly (also Irons). Elliot is attracted to many of his patients and has affairs with them. When he inevitably loses interest, he will give the woman over to Beverly, the meeker of the two, without the woman knowing the difference. Beverly falls hard for one of the patients, Claire (Geneviève Bujold), but when she inadvertently deceives him, he slips into a state of madness.

    Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

    About the Speaker

    Lauren Freeman is a Professor of Philosophy at University of Louisville, Director of the M.A. in Applied Philosophy, and an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She conducts impact driven, interdisciplinary research that aims to understand how members of marginalized groups are oppressed in both obvious and subtle ways within the context of science, medicine, health, and healthcare. Her work has appeared in "Nature" and has been chosen as the feature article in high impact health sciences, philosophy, and policy journals. She has written "Microaggressions in Medicine" (OUP 2024), co-edited "Microaggressions and Philosophy" (Routledge, 2020), and was editor of The American Philosophical Association’s journal "Studies in Feminism and Philosophy" (2019-2022).