Digital Reincarnation: The Mediated Bodies and Multiple Lives of The Mummy

ABSTRACT:This article mobilizes the motif of digital reincarnation to examine the regenerating bodies and the multiple lives of the mummy in The Mummy franchise. I read the body of the mummy as a cyborg hybrid because it features enhanced powers of rejuvenation that are indicative of malleable, porous, and networked bodies of our digital era. This updated version of a computer-generated mummy infuses digital aesthetics and logic into the mummy complex of cinema. Assembled in the virtual production pipeline of global Hollywood, this contemporary mummy is a heterogeneous amalgam of media forms: organic flesh, synthetic prosthetics, and digital bytes.