Girls, geisha, cyborgs: sexy robot women in Blade Runner and beyond
I love Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. It’s the kind of movie you could never be ashamed at listing in your top five – it’s a film buffs’ film, the kind of iconic picture that comes along rarely and then lingers in the canon, setting the bar for pretty much everything that comes next. Style (the 40s-meets-80s neo-noir), music (Vangelis’ sweeping electronica), detail (the columns Scott demanded be turned upside down to show the design, much to the annoyance of the set dressers); Blade Runner is at once derivative and original, to brilliant effect. That, and it’s a thrilling story that raises a host of questions about the nature of human (and not human) existence.
But Blade Runner is also a problematic fave. The lazy use of Asian culture to create a hostile and unfamiliar ‘LA’ atmosphere is one thing. Then you have the women. Blade Runner, like many sci-fi movies (like many movies full stop) has a serious issue with its representation of females. I say females, because there are no significant human women in this story. Let that sink in. One of the most iconic movies ever made has no human women in the narrative. Where females appear, their roles are highly sexualised and suggest that the female future is both limited and bleak.
Blade Runner is not alone in this, and not the greatest offender. In fact, the original movie, read in a feminist light, offers much food for thought, despite its ultimate inability to truly challenge the oppressive capitalist patriarchy it establishes. But its influence is undeniable, and begs the question: why is our culture so unimaginative when it comes to the future female?
Catherine Queen 