Deep Thoughts about Blade Runner

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This could have been a less misogynist movie, still
grappled with the same things,if Rachel had given the tears in
the rain speech what othersmight deem stupid shit.
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
We're sisters, tracy and Emily,collectively known as the Guy

(00:22):
Girls.
Sisters Tracy and Emily,collectively known as the Guy
Girls.
Every week, we take turnsre-watching, researching and
reconsidering beloved media andsharing what we learn.
Come overthink with us and ifyou get value from the show,
please consider supporting us.
You can become a patron onPatreon or send us a one-time
tip through Ko-fi.
Both links are in the shownotes and thanks.

(00:44):
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts About
Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
Today, I'll be sharing my deepthoughts about the 1982 sci-fi
classic Blade Runner with mysister, emily Guy-Burken, and
with you, let's dive in, emilyGuy-Burken, and with you, let's
dive in.

(01:04):
Okay?
So when we wrapped up our lastepisode, we mentioned that Blade
Runner.
It was one of the ones that ourdad really appreciated.
So I know you're aware of thefilm, but what do you know?
What do you remember?
Have you seen it?
What's in your head about BladeRunner?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
So I know I saw it as a kid.
I remember watching it with dadwhen I was a kid.
What I took away was that larryof I'm larry and this is my
brother daryl, and this is myother brother, daryl, from the
bob newhart show, or fromnewhart, rather not the bob
newhart show from newhart had animportant role in the film.

(01:44):
I cannot remember that actor'sname, but he's someone who every
time I see him I'm like it'sLarry.
So yeah, that's in there.
I remember from seeing it as akid really being taken by that

(02:05):
character, the, the actor whoplays larry, and I cannot
remember that actor's name.
Um, that character's uhworkshop because he like made
like toys and things like that.
Um, so I remember thereplicants.
Um, I have seen the movie morerecently so my husband had never
seen it and so he and I watchedit sometime in the past five

(02:26):
years or so.
Um, and it hit different Um,although there was still quite a
lot in there that I reallyreally enjoyed.
Um, but the the um clearlyconsent was not a primary focus.

(02:47):
So that's in there.
Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty thatcharacter really stuck with me.
His Tears in the Rain speechreally stuck with me.
His Tears in the Rain speech.

(03:08):
It really like.
I was spent a lot of time whenI saw it again recently thinking
about, like the idea ofmortality and how that is kind
of what gives humanity meaningand so these replicants do, in a
lot of ways, have humanity, inpart because they are mortal and
um.
I know dad absolutely loved thefilm Um.

(03:34):
I know it is extremelyinfluential in both the look
like the.
There's the.
It's like noir, sci-fi, um, andyou know you can see it in like
the fifth element is clearlyinfluenced by by Blade Runner.
You can see it in in any numberof different genre and non

(03:56):
genre films merging of like thenoir, uh like crime story with
the futuristic idea of of umreplicants and uh, like sci-fi

(04:18):
stuff is is, I think, reallyreally fantastic.
And I I don't think that Ifantastic and I don't think that
I know I have read Do AndroidsDream of Electric Sheep in high
school, so it's been like 30years since I read it.
I don't really recall muchabout it.
But that's the story, thePhilip K Dick story that was the

(04:38):
seed that became Blade Runner.
So I'm not sure what is?
It's Ridley Scott, is thatcorrect?
Yes, what is Ridley Scott, whatis Philip K Dick?
And, like, what came aboutthrough the movie making process
, what came about from theactual story writing.
So I have some thoughts.

(05:01):
Also, watching it more recently, I remember when I saw it as a
kid everything looked like likesuper futuristic.
But watching it more recentlyand there's a an outfit that the
love interest is wearing whereshe's got this like high collar,
and I remember thinking itlooked so futuristic as a kid.
And watching it recently I wasjust like that is so 80s.

(05:23):
So those are my kind ofinchoate thoughts.
So tell me what's at stake here?
Why are we talking?

Speaker 1 (05:33):
about Blade Runner today.
Yeah, I think I put it on thelist because we're kind of on a
jag of movies that remind us ofdad, and I think I wanted to mix
it up because last week wetalked about City Slickers,
which is, you know, very sort ofreal world drama, and so I was

(05:53):
throwing in Blade Runner, whichis sort of the quintessential
sci-fi movie in my brain, andthose were sort of two sides of
dad's you know movie viewingthat you know, with us.
So I think that was really allthat was at stake on this, uh,
or why it got put on the list.
I should say, uh, what's atstake is that it was, you know,

(06:15):
like dad was a large driver ofmy cinematic education and this
was sort of the epitome ofscience fiction movies and, as I
received it from, him I mean,if he were still alive and I
asked him, maybe he would say no, no, it's not that it's
whatever the day, they werestill or something, but um, but

(06:37):
it was certainly in the pantheonof sci-fi movies.
So I think that's kind of what'sat stake, is like kind of like
our relationship with that andlike my relationship with the
genre.
Even so, that's kind of what'sat stake and we will get into it
.
I didn't have as much time todo the research as I often do

(07:01):
before we sit down, so I likesome of the questions about,
like, philip K Dick versusRidley Scott.
I'm not going to be able toanswer, but there's plenty to
fill our time even without that,so so I want to get into it
there.
There's a lot of conversationwe need to have about feminism
or the lack thereof in this film.

(07:21):
In fact, like it was, was I justwatched it today or finished
watching it today, and it wasthis, this I was much more
disturbed in re-watching thismovie than I anticipated.
Like I I was not anticipatingbeing disturbed in this way like
I was yelling at the screen atone point, yeah uh, where I was
like stop, she doesn't want it,stop it.

(07:43):
He's actually yelling at thescreen.
So uh, um.
Also, I should note there aremany versions of Blade Runner,
so Scott released like a uh,another version in the mid two
thousands.
It was like the final cut.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
That was like sort of his director's cut version
Cause, didn't the studio requirehim to have Deckard do a
voiceover?
Harrison Ford.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yes, there's a voiceover that Harrison Ford
does.
It's sort of like throwback tonoir, sort of a feeling.
That was not Scott's originalvision.
But the studio was afraid thatviewers wouldn't understand what
was happening.
And so in the mid-2000s it's it, you know it had been come,
become such a classic he wasable to do what he wanted, so he

(08:32):
re-released it.
He apparently resisted the, theresisted the temptation to like
re-edit and put in cgi, so hedid not fall into the trap that
George Lucas fell into.
We released it without thatvoiceover and there were other
changes, apparently, like alonger scene, the actual sex

(08:56):
scene, which isn't on screen,but the lead up to it there was
more of it.
There was more conversation atthe end as they go off into the
sunset.
I didn't watch that.
I'm not talking about that.
I did not watch Blade Runner2049, which is sort of the
reboot, so I'm just talkingabout the 1982 film.

(09:16):
So I just wanted to name thatfor listeners who maybe are big
aficionados, who've watched allof them, who know all of this.
So folks feel free to get intouch and tell me you know what
got fixed or what got changed orwhat got complicated by those
additional versions.
I'm just talking about theoriginal, uh release of the 1982
film.
So I want to talk aboutfeminism, I want to talk about

(09:37):
women, uh, in this movie.
I want to talk about you.
You named sort of humanity andmortality and and I want to talk
about that.
You named the influences thisfilm has had, so I want to talk
about that and sort of likedystopia in general, sort of a
future dystopia and what.
What doing that?
Like psychologically,sociologically, what we're doing

(10:00):
when we sort of have adystopian future in which we
tell a story.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
So I want to have that conversation a little bit.
I would also and this issomething that, like I think,
general media criticism can't do, but we can is, if we can get
into it talk about the fact thatour dad, who had two daughters
and was incredibly proud of us Idon't know that he would have

(10:26):
described himself as a feminist,I don't have any idea.
Yeah, I don't know either, butwas someone who was fiercely
protective of us in many, manyways, had no problem with us
seeing this film as childrenwhen the sexual politics and
dynamics are not in at allconsensual on the women's part

(10:53):
yeah, um yeah, it's not just asexual pot like the the gore
violence is also it's.
It's gendered violence, and Iknow so dad, when he would see
something in media that he wasconcerned was giving us the
wrong idea, would stop what wewere watching and talk to me
about it.
I know I can recall at leasttwo occasions where he did that.

(11:16):
This didn't happen with BladeRunner.
I think that it would beinteresting, when we talk about
gender and feminism in this film, what it means that it was so
normalized that our fiercelyprotective father didn't even
think to talk to us about.

(11:37):
And I'm not even talking aboutlike the.
The gendered violence is thesort of thing that I can
comprehend a little bit, justbeing like it's a violent film.
I waited until they were 12.
It's fine, but the Deckard andI cannot remember the, her name
is Rachel.
Okay, yes, so that scenebetween Deckard and Rachel which

(12:00):
blew my mind when I saw itrecently, because I was like how
did I not remember this?
This is not seduction, this isnot.
It was gross equals.
It was nasty and it was gross.
I mean, it was rape, yeah, andso the fact that our dad, who

(12:23):
was so protective of us and sofierce about our own bodily
autonomy, let us watch this, andI say kid, I was probably like
12.
I mean, I was not a littlelittle kid, but I was yeah.
Yeah, that's something that Ithink would be interesting when

(12:56):
we get to it, to talk about justwhat that means for how
acculturated we all are intoviolence against women.
That I didn't remember thatfrom watching it as a child.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
It didn't bother me as a child, right Me, neither.
I didn't remember dad.
All right, he's okay showing itto us.
All right, so let's get into it.
Let me, I'm.
I'm actually.
This is like again.
There's just so much and andit's, it was.
It's a finely crafted film.
There are pieces of the, thefinal product, that I quibble

(13:24):
with, but it's finally crafted.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Oh, it's very it's an amazing movie in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
I'm.
I'm going to actually read theWikipedia synopsis, or at least
use it as my starting point.
So it's November 2019.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
That far off future, distant day.

Speaker 1 (13:43):
It's November 2019.
Oh, the movie actually startswith like there's like a
preamble, like a prologue intext that explains that in the
early 21st century, aitechnology has gotten so good
that they've made these robotscalled replicants, that are
indistinguishable from humanbeings and they're used
basically as slave labor inoff-world sort of colonization

(14:08):
and they get uppity and are nowillegal on earth and there is a
whole force of cops whose job itis to kill.
On site.
These replicants are known asblade runners and we are
informed in this text prologuealso that that is not known as

(14:33):
killing, it's known as retiring.
So that's the prologue.
Then we see it's 2019, losangeles.
We meet former police officer rDeckard, who is Harrison Ford,

(14:58):
and he actually gets arrested byanother officer, gaff, who's
speaking in like this weird.
What we learn later is streettalk, which is a mashup of
Japanese, spanish, german andEnglish.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Anyway.
So this guy Gaff makes origamifigures.
Let's see him doing it.
Edward James Olmos, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
It is Edward James Olmos.
Yes, so Gaff takes Deckard toBryant, who's the former
supervisor, and basically Bryanttells Deckard, you're back,
we're pulling you out ofretirement, we need you to be
Blade Runner again.
He has no choice.
No choice, so he has to trackdown four replicants who have

(15:27):
come to earth from off world.
They stole a spaceship.
They come to earth Uh, we don'tquite know why.
So they end up watching thevideo of one of these replicants
, leon, who, uh, was beingadministered like this test,
like a Turing test kind of thing, isn't it?

(15:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
Explain Turing test.
So, oh, the Turing test, namedfor Alan Turing, who was the
computer programmer.
Basically, a Turing test issomething that is used to
determine whether the responderis human, and so there are
questions that one asks thatkind of help you understand

(16:16):
whether the responses are comingfrom organically, from a person
, or are like AI.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Thank you.
So this test in the film iscalled the Voight-Kampff test.
It, like, looks at eye iriswhat's the word?
Dilation, Thank you, Dilationand contraction and pays
attention to blush response,like almost like a lie detector
kind of a thing, and it asksquestions, that hypothetical
questions that put them foremotional responses.

(16:44):
So this guy Leon, thisreplicant Leon, we see him, he's
being administered the test andwhen he's asked about his
mother he says I'll tell youabout my mother and he shoots
the test giver in the groin.
So we see that footage over andover again, actually throughout
.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
And Leon is a replicant, and Leon is a
replicant.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Leon is a replicant.
He's one of the four who'veescaped or who have come to
Earth.
So Bryant sends Deckard, sendsHarrison Ford to meet with the
CEO of the company that createsreplicants.
The guy's name is Eldon,terrell or Tyrell, I'm not
exactly sure how to pronounce it.
Um, so the idea is that they'reasking Terrell if this test, if

(17:33):
this Voight-Kampff, this Turingtest, would work on this next
generation, which these fourreplicants are known as Nexus
six.
So Terrell is like well, I wantto see it fail before I tell
you if it's going to work.
So do it on, do it on a human.
And, um, harrison Ford is likeyou and he's like no, do it on
her.

(17:53):
There's this like assistantit's not clear what she does,
but a colleague of Terrell's,her name is Rachel, she's just
very 40s with this very 40shairstyle, like precise like
this woman, like bright red lips, like very 40s makeup, like big
shoulder pads which are crossedbetween 80s and 40s.

(18:14):
Anyway, they do the test on herand it's this weird sort of
like montage that takes a reallylong time and finally, uh,
decker lets her go and confrontsum Terrell and privately says
like she's a replicant, andTerrell's like how long does it
usually take for you to know.
And he's like I don't knowabout 30 or 40 questions and
Terrell goes that took a hundred, didn't it?

(18:35):
He's very proud that he's thatRachel.
Rachel is so very special andshe has.
We learned that she actually hasmemories.
They've they've implantedmemories into Rachel, so she
doesn't know that she is areplicant.
So Deckard goes to Leon's hotelroom, finds photographs which

(18:59):
he takes, and also like a scale,like like a fish scale or a
snake scale that's in the tub.
So he sort of bags that asevidence.
He goes home.
Rachel's there waiting for him.
She says I know what he told you, but it's not true.

(19:20):
Here I have something to showyou.
And she hands him a photographof purportedly herself and her
mother.
It's a little girl and a woman.
And then he names memories Doyou remember this?
Do you remember this?
These memories of things.
And she sort of finishes thememory and he says they're not
yours, they're Terrell's nieces.

(19:41):
He implanted them in you.
And she's like really upset andactually sheds a tear.
Well, stoically upset, but shesheds a tear.
He says it was a bad joke, I'msorry, let me get you a drink.
She runs out, okay.
So meanwhile, leon and anotherreplicant, replicant Roy, who is
played by Rutger Hauer in thissort of Billy Idol bleach,

(20:05):
blonde, look.
They investigate a replicanteye manufacturer and learn of JF
Sebastian, who is the guy.
Larry who's the actor's name isWilliam Sanderson.
He's a genetic designer whoworks closely with terrell and

(20:29):
he's there's something wrong.
He's 25, we'll get to it, okay,gotcha so the a photograph in
that he picked up from leon'shotel room plus the scale,
eventually lead deckard to astrip club where zora, who we
know is a replicant, works as astripper and she has like scales
, like glued to her body.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
that actress went on to play dolores in, who framed
roger rabbit.
Oh cool, so six degrees of deepthoughts about stupid shit

(21:24):
persona to try and get to getclose to her.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
She seems to kind of know what's going on.
They have like a quick fightand then he actually chases her
down the street and shoots herin the back as she's running
away in this like metal bikiniand clear raincoat it's very
slow-mo, crashing through glasslike soft soundtrack, almost
soft porn kind of a feel.

(21:46):
It's very disturbing.
And we first hear deckard sayin his voiceover uh, you know
the report what says likestandard retirement.
But that doesn't make me feelany better about shooting a
woman in the back.
And there are are my feelingsagain.
It's very weird.
Anyway, after the death of Zora,deckard sees Rachel kind of

(22:17):
watching him.
He loses her in the crowd andthen gets caught like Leon grabs
him and he and Leon arefighting and Leon is winning and
is about to gouge his eyes outwith his thumbs when he gets
shot in the head.
He, leon, rachel shot him.
Okay, leon gets shot in thehead, rachel shot Leon, saving

(22:38):
Deckard's life, saving Deckard'slife.
So she ends up following himback to his apartment.
They're talking.
She's like kind of grapplingwith the fact that she's a
replicant and she says somethinglike if I left, if I went up
North and like started over.

(22:58):
Would you track me down?
He says no, I wouldn't, butsomeone would, and he falls
asleep.
She sort of makes herself athome in his apartment.
She's looking at hisphotographs.
He has all these like old, likevery old photos, like spread
out on the sheet music, stand onhis piano.
She's playing piano.

(23:19):
She takes her very severe.
She's playing piano.
She takes her very severe.
Fancy forties hair do down andnow has sort of big curly hair
around her face.
He wakes up, sits with her atthe piano bench and they have a

(23:41):
little conversation and then helike kisses her neck and she
pulls away and then he tries tokiss her lips and she gets up
and starts and she moves to thedoor.
He chases her like roughly,closes the door and then
basically like restrains her andforces her to kiss him and like
forces her to say that shewants him to kiss her.

(24:03):
It's really, really gross.
This was the bit that I wasyelling at the screen yeah, this
.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
This was the part that blew my mind, because I'm
like how did I not remember this?

Speaker 1 (24:10):
because this is awful meanwhile, priss, who's the
fine daryl hannah, the final ofthe four replicants who escaped,
who we hadn't met yet, she umendears herself to jf, sebastian
, the william sanderson, the guy, the william sanderson

(24:33):
character, and gets herselfinvited into his apartment his
apartment, I guess it's meant tobe like an old hotel or
something.
It it's a giant building.
He lives there on his own.
He's this very gifted geneticscientist, so he has all of
these like androids, toys, thatthe animatronics they all move

(24:54):
like.
So he comes in the door andthese two little guys come and
greet him and say home again,home again.
Jiggity jig, welcome home JF.
Come and greet him and say homeagain, home again, jiggity jig,
welcome home jf.
It's uncanny and creepy.
I I was watching, I wasn'tcharmed, I was freaked.
But there's, there's a like, afriendship happening and we know
we as viewers know that she'sputting it on because we know

(25:17):
she is the replicant, but jfdoesn't yet.
So we learn that he is.
Has this genetic disordercalled like methuselah disorder
or something like that, wherehe's aging more prematurely,
aging like more quickly than heought, and that that keeps him

(25:38):
from going off world?

Speaker 2 (25:39):
that's the only reason he's still on earth
because he's like 25 and WilliamSanderson, he says he's 25.
William Sanderson, the actor,is probably in his mid to late
40s.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, or at least looked it, and they actually
well, they actually seem to haveput makeup on to make him look
even older, like to make hisskin age.
His skin Like it was kind oflike leathery.
I think that was enhanced withcosmetics.
Roy comes to Sebastian's houseand it's just like no real

(26:13):
preamble.
Pris just says hi, roy, andthen they start talking.
Sebastian realizes there if hehadn't already, he realizes that
they are both replicants andtalks about how he helped build
them.
There's peace of him in themand they really invite him to be
an ally.
They talk about Terrell and howit's hard to get to him and

(26:36):
maybe you.
That's happening.
We see sebastian and roy go toterrell's house.
Terrell's in this veryluxurious apartment with, like,
he's actually already in bed, uh, reading, and it's it's meant
to be this dystopian future.

(26:56):
So he's super rich and like hisapartment, is talking to him
and says, like you know, uh, jf,sebastian wants entry.
They're playing a chess game.
They come in.
Tyrell immediately recognizesroy.
He is not fooled from, he knowsexactly who he is.
They have a conversation aboutlike with very technical

(27:17):
scientific things, about thefact that they cannot extend
roy's life.
Part of the whole deal withreplicants is that they only
live for four years.
So and that was part that wasintentional, like built into the
programming to kind of protectus from rogue AI, I suppose.
Well, like anybody, roy wantsmore life, and so he's come to

(27:42):
his maker which is what he callshim to try and get more life.
And even the one curse word inthe whole film, roy says I want
more life.
Fucker, it's not possible,there is no way.
There's like science, science,science, science that says why I
didn't follow it doesn't matter.
So when he realizes he can'tget what he wants, roy, you

(28:07):
think for a moment he's sort ofaccepting it.
He puts his hands on eitherside of cheryl's face and
actually kisses him chastely, Imean like no tongue but like on
the lips, and then squeezes theman's skull and gouges out his
eyes to kill him.
Pf Sebastian's watching thiswhole thing, freaking out.

(28:28):
He starts to run.
We don't know what happens,though.
We hear we cut scene.
We see Deckard in his policecruiser, which flies by the way,
hearing over the police radiothat the body found with
terrell's body was that of j ofjf sebastian.
So roy's killed both of them.

(28:53):
Decker goes to sebastian'sapartment.
He's ambushed by priss, but hedoes manage to kill her.
She, her death is almost like abeetle, like, like on her back,
like twitching.
It's bizarre.
Um and Deckard and Roy get intothis extended hide and seek

(29:18):
chase scene where each onetrades being the hunter and the
hunted.
Uh, roy like punches throughthe wall and grabs Deckard's arm
and pulls it through and endsup like breaking two of his
fingers.
Um, roy is at the end of hisfour years and like his one of
his hands is starting to kind oflike like clench into a fist,

(29:41):
like it seems to be outside ofhis control.
He takes a old nail out of theI don't know, like an exposed
beam and like shoves it throughhis palm.
He chases Deckard up throughthe building, like up onto the
roof.
Deckard tries to get away fromhim and tries to like jump to

(30:03):
the adjacent building and likekind of doesn't quite make it
and he's like hanging from anI-beam with his broken fingers.
And whatever Roy does jumpholding a dove, inexplicably in
one hand and Deckard's about tofall, roy saves him and pulls

(30:24):
him up onto the roof and thengives this speech about things
that he's seen and how it'sabout to be lost.
This is the tears in the rainspeech that you referenced.
You know so that Ridley Scottlike just hits us over the head
with the fact that this guy hasa soul and the voiceover is I

(30:53):
don't know why he did it, youknow, I guess.
So we had this like momentwhere Harrison Ford's character
is kind of grappling with thehumanity of this replicant that
he was trying to kill.
So gaff, the other cop, the guywho does gore origami, played
by edward james olmos, says Iguess you got him, um, and then

(31:19):
says like they're kind ofyelling at a distance in the
rain, because it always rains inthe los angeles of 2019, of
ridley scott's dystopian future,always like not just drizzle
rain.
So in the rain he says I youknow too bad, too bad she's
gonna, but I guess we all do so.

(31:42):
Deckard like rushes home.
He finds the his apartment dooris like a little bit cracked,
so he pulls his gun and he'scoming in.
He's looking for Rachel.
He's calling her name.
He's really scared.
He finds her in bed like sheetcovering her.
He pulls, pulls the cover overher, off of her head and he kind
of rests his head against hercheek.
Uh, and you, you think, as aviewer, you think she's dead but

(32:05):
she's not.
And he kisses her.
He says do you love me?
She says I love you, she.
He says do you trust me?
She says I trust you.
So they get up, we see themleave the apartment.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
He sees like a gum wrapper in an origami unicorn
and he'd had so he knows thathe'd had a dream about a unicorn
, hadn't he when he fell asleep?
No, oh, maybe that's in the.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Uh the, that must be in the director's cut, Uncut the
director's cut.
There's no dream at all.
So he well, so he knows Gaffwas there and let her live.
So the final scene of the movieis them driving into the sunset
like beautiful, like outsidenow of the.
But he was wrong, becauseTerrell told me that Rachel was

(32:48):
special.
I don't know how long she's got, I guess none of us do.
And that's the end of thetheatrical release.

(33:09):
So this film does not pass theBechdel test.
There are more than one namedfemale characters.
There's at least three.
They're all replicants.
All three of them arereplicants.
That's it.
It's only those three, and theyare all replicants.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
And they never do not speak to each other, they never
even share a scene with eachother.
No, they do not share a scene,even though Pris and.
Zora are like comrades in arms.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Comp?
Not sure, even though pris andzora are like comrades in arms,
compatriots, comrades, yeah, butwe don't ever see them on
screen together.
So it doesn't pass the bat cell.
Because, though we have thethree named characters, they
don't talk to each other.
So therefore they don't talkabout something other than men
because they don't even talk toeach other.
And the, the women, all threewomen are manufactured, and they

(34:06):
are all either manufactured forsex in Pris' case, or
sexualized by the men aroundthem.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Zora was wasn't Zora also like a sex replicant?

Speaker 1 (34:21):
No, she was a combat replicant.
No, she was a combat replicant.
Oh, okay.
So about her?
Bryant, the supervisor cop saystalk about Beauty and the Beast
.
She's both.
She is a sex worker becauseshe's a stripper, but she was
not manufactured explicitly forthat.

(34:41):
Pris was manufacturedexplicitly to be a pleasure
model.
And then Rachel, who was notmanufactured for that purpose
and is sort of a businesswoman.
At least that's the way we'represented to her in the
beginning is raped and thenforced to flee with a rapist ask

(35:08):
for yeah I mean like, but therape itself, like the way that
he coerces her.
He says tell me to kiss, say thewords kiss me, like he forces
her to ask him and then, yeah,flees with her rapist, saying

(35:29):
that she loves him and trustshim.
So, like, and the, the beautyand the beast one, the zora, who
is the, the combat one, likeshe gives him the what for, like
she almost kills him actuallypriss almost kills him too.
She like squeezes him with herthighs, but in the end, you know

(35:54):
, he kills them both.
And like we're meant to havesome empathy or sympathy for
these two women, I think, asviewers.
And yet also it's so likeespecially I don't even want to
say especially for both of thosetwo.
Their deaths are likesexualized.

(36:17):
Yeah.
I found it deeply, deeplydisturbing and like I think,
like I was reading somecommentary and again I didn't do
quite as much research as Imight have liked because I just
ran out of time, but I read somethat like Scott was saying that
you know he was trying to makea statement about patriarchal

(36:39):
technology with these women, butlike, uh, I personally believe
he did that because otherwise,no one would remember him.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
So by saving Deckard at the very end and saying those
things, he guarantees some sortof continuance because this
person will remember him, sortof continuance because this
person will remember him.
So it's not empathy, it's notcompassion, it's still kind of
self-interest, but still veryhuman self-interest.

(37:32):
But one of the things that Ifind interesting on this rewatch
, you know, in the past fiveyears and then hearing you talk
about it, is that it's not clearto me that deckard is the
protagonist, necessarily in the,the, the sense of like the good

(37:52):
guy, because he is like.
He kills zora by shooting herin the back as she's running
away, and boy can we say a lotabout that in terms of

(38:22):
propaganda and the ways that youand I have really grappled with
what policing is in the realworld.
He straight up rapes Rachel.
It's not clear to me if hewould have done that if she were
a real woman.
And Roy Leon, zora and Pris arethe only I treat each other as
fully realized people, and JFSebastian is the only other

(38:47):
person we see who is human, whodoes so, who treats them as
fully realized people, and solike is this, is this supposed
to be?
Now noir is supposed to beabout morally ambiguous gray
characters.
That's the essence of noir.
So like it's perfectly withinin keeping with the the genre,
that like it's not clear who'sthe good guy.

(39:08):
The only truly good person wesee is jf sebastian, and he is
killed for his trouble by theonly other person who might be
considered the protagonist, roybatty.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, I mean I I actually think that he is the
pro.
I think that deckard is theprotagonist.
Roy Batty, yeah, I mean, Iactually think that he is the.
I think that Deckard is theprotagonist.
I think he's an anti-hero andin fact, there's fan theories
that I mean.
I say fan theories, I don'tmean to diminish them.
There are some analysis thatsuggests that Deckard himself is
a replicant.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Well, and that's in the director's cut, which I
guess, when he dreams about aunicorn.
And then it is meaningful thatEdward, james, james Olmos, Gaff
leaves, the origami that heleaves as a unicorn, which
suggests that that dream was notan organic dream.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah, also the photos , all of the photos, that that
dream was not an organic dream.
It was big, yeah.
Also the photos, all of thephotos.
But I still think he's theprotagonist and he is an
antihero for sure.
I mean, part of the exercisefeels like how much can we
forgive our protagonist?
Yeah, yes, the thing about thatend moment, like that.

(40:26):
You just named the tears in therain, the humanness of it.
One of the commentators that Iread and I will try to find this
and put it in the show notesbecause I think that I really
like this and I want to makesure I give credit to the person
whose idea it is that I'msharing here this could have
been a much more interesting.
Well, let me rephrase that Lessmisogynist.

(40:49):
This could have been a lessmisogynist movie, still grappled
with the same things.
If Rachel had given the tearsin the rain speech after
fighting off her rapist, ormaybe not fighting like at some
point, like in grappling withwho she is and the fact that

(41:11):
she's manufactured, the factthat she has been treated so
lightly by everyone, fromTerrell to Deckard, if she had
the same kind of so Deckard, ifshe had the same kind of arc
that we had from Roy, but it wasin Rachel, and even a similar
sort of fight scene and then shegave the tears in the rain

(41:34):
speech, I think it could havebeen a much less misogynist
movie and still grappled withthe questions that Ridley Scott
wanted to grapple with.
About what is the nature ofhumanity, about the role of
mortality in humanity.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
About.
What strikes me about this filmis that the only people who get
an arc are men.
Like, all of the active playersare men.
So we've got Deckard, we've gotRoy Batty, uh.
We've got Jeff Sebastian, we'vegot, uh, terrell, um, the the

(42:13):
the maker.
All of them get to be activeparticipants, even Leon, in
their lives.
Now, like Zora does, like Zoradoes, like Zora and Pris do make
, like, do have agency and maketheir own decisions, like in

(42:34):
befriending JF Sebastian onPris's part, on finding a place
to hide and giving Deck deckardwhat for, on, uh, zora's part.
But in terms of character arc,we don't see anything from
anyone other than the malecharacters.

(42:56):
So deckard goes from like it'smy job to kill replicants, to
running away with one.
And Roy Batty goes from likethis is my enemy, I'm going to
kill him to saving him, and Imean accepting his death in that
there is no other choice,although that is extremely human

(43:18):
as well, is extremely human aswell.
And even like we don't exactlysee a character arc from jeff
sebastian.
He seems to be basically thesame throughout, but we we still
.
It's more his story than it'sthe story of rachel, zora and

(43:39):
priss we we see more emotionalresponse from him.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
We do see a lot more emotional response from him.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
And so it's a problem that there are no human women
in this film.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, it's a problem that none of the women in this
film get to have a completestory in the way that Roy and
Deckard do, and it's, it'sinfuriating because it is such a
rich text that only giveshumanity to men and even male

(44:22):
replicants yeah, you know, it'sreally one of the commentators
like not, not, not even like afan that I just, in my quick
research, was saying like Ican't believe that this was made
by the same person that madealiens, which was so feminist
with ripley, and I remember whatyou told me about alien, which

(44:43):
was that that was actually likea last-minute casting decision
and that in fact, ripley hadbeen written as a man and they
put sigourney weaver in in thatcharacter, in that role, um, and
like that's really interestingand telling to me when, like I
saw that comment, I can'tbelieve this is the same person,
Ridley Scott, that did Alien,when this is so not feminist.

(45:06):
I mean this is an anti-feministmovie.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
It's actively misogynistic.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Not intentionally.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
I don't think, not intentionally.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
I don't think Ridley Scottott said and in fact I
suspect that he thought that hewas doing things to like lampoon
it, but I it, in my opinion,missed the mark.
But I think that that fancomment, like I can't believe
and what I learned from youabout the character of ripley
and alien as played by sigourneyweaver like it actually makes a

(45:34):
lot of sense.
Like I wonder what if we madethe exact same movie but cast
sigourney Weaver?
It actually makes a lot ofsense.
I wonder what if we made theexact same movie but cast
Sigourney Weaver instead ofHarrison Ford?
All of a sudden this is a verydifferent movie even with the
forced sex.
Even if Sigourney Weaver Deckardput the moves on and forced

(45:57):
Rachel to have sex with her inthat same exact way, it still is
a very, very different movie ifI have Sigourney Weaver as
Deckard.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And I think that's reallytelling about Ridley Scott and
his moment in time in the 70sand 80s, mm-hmm.

(46:21):
And even the accident of Ripleyin Alien, which we should
probably put on the list if it'snot already.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
That actually brings me to what I want to talk about
about our dad.
Like what I want to talk aboutabout our dad in that in a lot
of ways, even though I don'tknow that dad would ever have
like self-identified as afeminist, he overtly raised us
to be feminist in a lot of ways.
So, for instance, um, I proposedto my husband which we have

(46:52):
some friends who have had aproblem with that and the wife
of that couple said somethingabout like well, I just, you
know my dad would be sodisappointed that you know, like
he didn't ask for my hand inmarriage.
And they're like what wouldyour dad think?
And I was like, okay, so if wehad gone the more traditional

(47:14):
route and my spouse had gone todad before we got, before he
asked me to say may I haveemily's hand in marriage, I know
dad would have been like Ithink you should be talking to
her.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, totally he would have said like uh, I don't
want to marry you.
Yeah, like, why are you askingme why?
Are you talking to me?
Yeah, yeah, that is definitelyhow dad would have so if either
of our spouses had done that,yes, so that's I like.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
I wanted to like contextualize that in that way,
so like this is who our dad was.
And yet dad was still a productof, you know, mid mid century,
mid 20th century.
You know he was born in 1950.
And it did not occur to him, asI understand it, just how

(48:11):
riddled with misogyny thisfavorite film of his was, to the
point where he let us watch itand did not talk to us about it.
And I want to think about whatthat means for men in our
culture Well, everyone in ourculture, but men in our culture,
especially when you can watchthis film, film that is a tour

(48:42):
de force I mean, this is amasterpiece of filmmaking and
not recognize the lack ofhumanity of the female
characters when the entire filmis about what it means to be
human and so women are not humanscience fiction.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
It's also neo-noir and I'm not I'm not excusing it
like this doesn't make it okaythat noir science fiction and
dystopian, uh, dystopia,dystopian genre, like all all
have contributed to andparticipated in misogyny, but
they have they do for.

(49:33):
And so I wonder too of how muchof like, like the it's just
expected, because that's that'show noir goes, that's how
science fiction goes.
Now, thank god we have, youknow, new generations of science
fiction writers and that's nothow it always goes anymore.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
But in 1982, it was still pretty new to have science
fiction that had fully realizedfemale characters well, and
they had been written as menright, right, right, ripley yeah
, so well, and that's what'scoming up for me is how much we

(50:15):
just accept that this is howstories are and this is what
women are, because these arequestions that, even though I
have been someone who proudlydeclares myself a feminist from
like tiny hood, it did not occurto me that there was a problem
with women being sexualized.

(50:37):
You know, I saw that assomething to aim for because
that's what culture told me andit's.
You know.
I have a vested interest inchallenging that, because I am a
woman, whereas men don't.

(50:58):
It's very easy to just let itpour over you.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Yeah, I do want to just quickly nuance.
There isn't a problem withwomen being sexualized
inherently, as long as that'snot.
We are sexual creatures.
The problem is when that is thesum total of their existence.
I just wanted to name thatexplicitly because sexualization
is not in and of itselfproblematic.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
In particular in this film, the way that In this film
it is problematic, absolutelybecause that's all they are.
Yes, well, I'm reminded of whenyou were talking about the
sexualization of Zora's death.
Do you know the author ofZora's death?
So are you?
Do you know the author?
Jim Butcher?
No, I cannot remember the nameof his stories, but he writes

(51:45):
basically noir fantasy.
So like very noir.
Main character is like agrizzled, hard-boiled detective,
but in a world where magicexists.
And so I started reading thefirst one, and the first case
that he's on like big case thathe's on is the death of a woman.

(52:06):
Who is the woman is naked andthey sexualize this dead body
and I was like I can't read this.
I cannot read this.
Why, why are we getting likethese loving descriptions of her
breasts?
she's dead yeah, that was what Iwas reminded of when you were
talking about that, and it'sbecause I read it in the last

(52:27):
few years, because if I'd readit in my 20s, I would have just
tripped halfway along by yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Yeah, I would like to .
Actually, I want to move onbecause we're running short of
time and I really want yourbrain on this case.
So we've talked before.
Like when we talk about horror,we talk about the ways in which
, like, we kind of insert thethings that we're afraid of into

(52:54):
horror.
I want to talk about dystopianfuturescapes and what is
happening sociologically inthese dystopian futurescapes,
because I think that there'ssomething akin to horror, kind
of peeling back zeitgeist layersIn the classic example that you

(53:17):
often give, emily, is that whena conservative or Republican
president is in office, we tendto see zombie films, and when a
Democrat or liberal president isin office, we tend to see
vampire films and sort of what,the fears of that kind of style
of leadership is is kind ofplaying itself out in our horror

(53:37):
films.
What are these dystopian futuresdoing?
Like this, like gritty, dark,dirty, rainy, very lonely, very
isolated dystopian future whereand this is one thing that feels
kind of prescient I think like,like ridley scott got some

(53:58):
things wrong, like everybodysmokes in his 2019 later, like
everybody smokes and in fact wesee status is like like just
regular people smoke cigarettesand like super rich people smoke
cigarettes on these, like longfilters or like long opium pipe
style pipes, but but everybodysmokes, so there's smoke

(54:20):
everywhere.
He got that wrong.
But what he got right was thatit's not actually government
actors, it's corporation actors,right like terrell.
Who's this super powerful, likegod-like figure runs a business
, doesn't he like?

Speaker 2 (54:35):
live in a pyramid too .

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Yes, so like that, I think you know he got right in a
in a weird sort of prescient,scary way, but but I'd love to
like kind of unpack like why wedo this as humans, that we write
these stories about thesedystopian futures which in this
case was only 37 years in thefuture and maybe it was 40 when

(55:00):
he wrote it and like thewholesale change in society that
he was envisioning in less than40 years, like with like
language changes and like notjust like the technological but
also the social changes that hewas envisioning Like.
I feel like that must be somefears manifesting, right.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
So I've got two thoughts on that, please.
So the first is both do Android, stream of electric sheep and
Blade Runner are about a fear ofloss of humanity, like we're
losing ourselves, losinghumanity, and I think that's a
common dystopian fear, like ifyou look at the hunger games,

(55:47):
it's a fear of loss of humanity,loss of compassion.
I think it's interesting andtelling that this film was made
during the Reagan years, becausethe loss of humanity comes
about in part because of thehaves versus have-nots and in a

(56:08):
lot of ways, replicants are theultimate have-nots and the fact
that Terrell is this godlikefigure because he is so wealthy
and, if I remember correctly,aren't there like billboards
everywhere in the film and andthere's, there's, there's a,
there's a, very much a blendingof cultures in this dystopian

(56:39):
future that he so like there's,there's, um, the billboards have
, like, I believe, chinese women, but but the but the street
language is Japanese.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
There's just this sort of mish mash of cultures,
not, I don't.
I don't know how to describe it, if it's a salad or if it's a
melting pot but, it's definitelyall mixed up together and there
is a sense of hierarchy because, Deckard says of course I knew

(57:10):
the street language.
He calls the Asian man who'sserving him noodles to come over
and translate what Gaff issaying for him and we hear in
the voiceover.
He didn't actually need atranslator, he just didn't want
to give him any like, give himthe satisfaction of being
understood, or something likethat.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Well and right there.
I mean, that's such clearxenophobia.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
I mean, like, the dystopia as described in 1982 is
a taco truck in every corneryeah, and a sushi and a sushi
truck on the on the other corner, yeah, and so like yeah so
there's, there's like thatxenophobia built into it.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
This is not a benefit that there is, like more
cultural competency and andsharing among cultures.
This is horrifying.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
You know, it's interesting too, though, because
, at least in the voiceover,when we first meet Bryant, who
is the supervisor at the policestation, in the voiceover and
this is in the first few minutesDeckert tells us, the viewer,
that Bryant is the kind of copwho would who in the past would
have used the N word about blackpeople.

(58:20):
He says it out and, like, likethat's meant to tell us that
this guy is like A bigot, yeah,and and we're meant to sort of

(58:49):
like then, therefore, judgeBryant.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
But there's also this , yeah, like baked into the
dystopia is this bigotry?
It's really.
There's a lot of layers and Ihave zero doubt that Ridley
Scott wanted to have some sortof parallel between slavery and
the replicants.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Oh no, that's made explicit.
Yeah, yeah, that's madeexplicit.
They name themselves as slaves.
They name themselves as slaves.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
And you know, I think what it's probable that he's
saying is that or was trying tosay is that as long as there's
someone we can feel superior to,we will always do that.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
But I don't.
That's what I thought when yousaid, when you actually
articulated it as the replicants, as the ultimate have nots.
Yes, that's where I went.
Yes, but what's interesting?

Speaker 2 (59:33):
is like is Ridley Scott aware of the xenophobia
built into the dystopia that hecreated here?
I don't know.
Is this just?
Like you know, globalizationhas been the big boogeyman for I
don't even know how long.
Yeah, I think that this is afilm of its time, in part in the

(59:58):
ways that we're talking about,like 80s, looks like the way.
It is beautiful and well doneand is not dated in the way that
other 80s movies are.
But it's clearly of its time inthe fears of the Reagan years,
the fears of losing our humanityto greed and you know, this

(01:00:23):
constant forward momentum oftechnology, which you know was
also like really gearing up inthe eighties, but also the fears
of like oh, my goodness, theChinese and Japanese are going
to take over.
And I remember, even when I sawit the first time, with dad

(01:00:48):
asking about, like, what's withthe Japanese and all of that,
and dad talking about, well, youknow, there's some concern
among some people that like,because China is such a big
country and Japan has such ahandle on technology that you
know they may be the superpowersin the future, and I remember

(01:01:09):
being like, oh okay, all right,but that's something that it's
clear that it's a bad thing inthis film yeah yeah, okay, well,
with our little tech glitch,I'm not 100 sure how long we've

(01:01:30):
been talking, but pretty sureit's been a minute.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Um, the one last sort of thing that I want to say
we've we've named how visuallybeautiful this film is and there
there's a lot of symbolism init that I didn't even begin to
touch, sort of visual symbolismlike.
Eyes are extremely important inthis film.
They show up again and againand I don't know how he did it,

(01:01:56):
but he manages to sort of showus that, like the replicants,
eyes, like kind of the irises,flash like a light color, almost
like, um, someone who's hadcataract surgery, but they stay
that way and we see it in likethere's a replicant owl whose
eye does that and we see it inum, both priss and roy's eyes do

(01:02:17):
that.
The person who puts them onto uh, jf sebastian, that he's the
guy who can get them to charelleis an eye maker and made their
eyes and they they're likevisual gags, where they like, at
one point, like roy holds upthese two like glass eyes over
his eyes and he looks reallysilly and it's it's like a
repeated visual imagery thatshows up again and again.

(01:02:41):
That you know, I think thatalone probably could have been a
whole episode to sort of talkabout, like what does that mean
and how is that?

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
deal with, like what's real and what's not real,
and what we see in ourperception and I'm also thinking
, the visual of the pyramid thatTerrell lives in and the idea
of a pyramid with an eye on top,which is on money the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Masonic thing and the fact that the way that Roy
kills his maker is to gouge outhis eyes.
There's a lot in there,visually.
What I named about Scott'sprescience, about the role of
corporations and the role ofadvertising throughout, like

(01:03:22):
just everywhere, thecinematography, the sets, the
lighting I mean the lighting, Ithink is probably multiple
theses about you knowcinematography and lighting and
storytelling.
This film is very intentional.
You know, like there are moviesthat you watch and you're like

(01:03:45):
they were paying attention tothe story and it's a good story,
but like stuff around theperiphery, like maybe just
happened the way it fell out,this is not one of those films
Like every single moment, everysingle shot, every single choice
was a choice.
It wasn't just like whatever ithappened to default to.
So I think that's really.
I just wanted to like reiteratethat that comes across and I

(01:04:08):
think that's part of why it wasso influential.
You named some of the moviesthat it influenced in our very
beginning and I think that youknow I'm sure there are lots and
lots of others, like the lookof the flying cars and cabs and
things very much.
Fifth Element Took like wholecloth, just like lifted the
scenes out.

(01:04:28):
So you know all of these thingsand even like some of the
actors right Like Ford did thislike between two of the star
wars films, I think you know.
So we've got this like superyoung paris and ford like really
just giving a believableperformance.
And I say believable because,like I was deeply disturbed.

(01:04:51):
I wasn't reading it as an actor.
Like you, you know there aremoments where sometimes you're
like pulled out of it and you'relike these are two people who
are reading lines.
Uh-uh.
No, I was right there and I waslike mad at him.
So I just like wanted to namethat like the immersive
experience of this film isreally powerful.
So that's the last likeoriginal point that I want to

(01:05:15):
Anything else that you want toshare before I see if I can
highlight back some of thethings that we said.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
This is one of those films that is in some ways, hard
to talk about because it isboth so good and so bad.
Because it is so well-made, itis such a tight story, it offers
so much food for thought, andyet it is swimming in this

(01:05:43):
misogyny that is unintentionaland it's hard to talk about this
because it feels like okay, socross that off our list.
You don't want to watch that.
It feels like okay, so you know, or cross that off our list,
you don't want to watch that.
Like that's not what we want tosay.

(01:06:04):
We really want to like engagewith why Ridley Scott made these
decisions and why he wascompletely unaware of the fact
that he was making thesedecisions.
But it's also like it can beparticularly like you and me,
where we haven't seen it sincewe were young.
Watching it again now, in our40s and recognizing misogyny is
like a shock, and so it makesyou reevaluate the film in a way

(01:06:28):
that, if you know we're aregular rewatch every year, it
might be harder to do.
You watch every year, it mightbe harder to do, and so I just
kind of wanted to highlight that.
How difficult it can be to havethese deeper conversations
about beloved media.

(01:06:50):
I kind of learned how to do thiswhen I was getting my master's
degree in English education.
I had to take someprerequisites, some
undergraduate prerequisites thatI just hadn't happened to take
while I was getting mybachelor's.
One of them was a film class.
The only class that would fitin my schedule was not a 101.
It was a more advanced filmclass, it was a James Bond film
class and I I almost said nope,I'm not taking this, and

(01:07:16):
canceled it, even though Ididn't know where else I was
going to get a film classbecause I was like James Bond
misogyny no.
But I took it anyway.
And my professor was fantasticor seven years old, was a James
Bond film and he loved the filmseries uncritically as a child.

(01:07:39):
But he grew up to become aliterature professor and was
able to criticize this franchisethat he loved uncritically and
so just kind of wanted to.
To like talk about the fact thatfiguring out how to love media

(01:08:00):
that has such deep misogyny orother like I mean uses the N
word or racism or anything likethat, figuring out the balance
between recognizing the gloryand the greatness that is this
film while also underlining theways in which it falls short is

(01:08:23):
just a very tough needle tothread.
I am very thankful for thatJames Bond film class.
That gave me kind of aframework for that.
But I just kind of wanted to,because this film is so beloved
for excellent reason.
I just kind of wanted tobecause this film is so beloved,
um, for excellent reason.
I just kind of wanted to likeput a pin in that yeah, all

(01:08:45):
right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
So this, so this particular beloved film, the
highlights of our, of ourconversation, include the fact
that, you know, the overallmessage that we receive is
disheartening because it is somisogynistic.
This is a film that asks reallyimportant and interesting

(01:09:08):
questions about what it means tobe human while simultaneously
denying humanity to people whoare female or female presenting,
because they're not human.
None of them, they arereplicants, they are machines,

(01:09:28):
and even the machines that aremale are given greater agency
and humanity than the threewomen that we get in this film,
which is disheartening, and inthe 80s it wasn't surprising at

(01:09:49):
all.
Not only was it just sort ofpar for the course in the
culture, it was alsoparticularly for the genres in
which this film was situated,namely neo-noir and science
fiction and sort of a dystopian,specifically dystopian future.

(01:10:10):
So those are some importantthings to note and that
manifested in such a way thatour dad who, regardless of the
label that he might have chosenfor himself, where he's still
alive, he certainly raised us tohave full agency and autonomy

(01:10:31):
and yet loved this film, as faras we can tell, uncritically,
and allowed us to watch it aspretty young people.
So you're thinking you weremaybe 12, which would have made
me 15.
I don't remember specificallyhow old we were, but that sounds
about right.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
And showed it to us without commentary.
Without commentary becausethey're, they're um.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Specifically, when we watched blazing saddles, he
talked to us about the fact thatthe n-word is used in that film
yeah, although we also watchedpoltergeist, uh, and we scared
the bejesus out of us and he wasinvested and made us keep
watching.
So you know stellar parenting.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
Father of the year.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Father of the year I brought up specifically the
question of sort of this in themeta question of of, of why it
is that we humans make dystopianstories, and I hypothesize that
it's similar to horror, whereit's a way for us to kind of

(01:11:40):
work through fears.
You noted that this film wasmade in the Reagan years where
sort of the idea of a loss ofhumanity was kind of at the
forefront, as was a sort ofunderlying xenophobia that
Ridley Scott, I think, wasprobably trying to lampoon while
simultaneously baking it intohis dystopian fears.

(01:12:03):
We didn't say this explicitlybut we did kind of walk around
race in this film.
There are no black actors inthe sort of primary roles, but
the film, I think, explicitlywas looking to draw some

(01:12:27):
insights or lessons aboutenslavement with the use of the
replicants.
And we do have this moment inthe very beginning, at least in
the voiceover version, whereDeckard uses implied racism to
sort of paint or not impliedracism, but he uses racism as a

(01:12:53):
way to sort of paint the pictureof his boss as unsavory.
Mm-hmm.
I named and we actually talkedat some.
We talked at a little bit ofairtime about the sexualization
of these female characters.
Not that sexualization in andof itself is a problem, but the

(01:13:16):
fact that these women aremanufactured and sexualized and
that's pretty much the extent oftheir reason for being, and
even at least one, zora's death,is sexualized is reductive, and
that's the piece that thatmakes it problematic and

(01:13:38):
misogynist, rather than just,rather than sort of a piece of a
fully formed human, which issexuality.
I feel like I am probablyforgetting something.
What am I forgetting?

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
forgetting something.
What am I forgetting?
Well, we talked a little bitabout, like, the beauty of roy
batty's final moments, the thetears in the rain speech and the
like, the overt symbolism ofthe dove, and I talked about my
interpretation of that as beinglike.
This was not compassion on hispart, but it was another very
human impulse which is wantingto be remembered, wanting some

(01:14:20):
part of him to live on after heis gone, which I actually I feel
like that is part of what ourdad, what resonated with our dad
about this film.
Um, yeah, and that's one of thethings like people name that
they love.
That doesn't make make sense.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
And then I named the not my original idea, but I love
it.
What an interesting thoughtexperiment that if Rachel had
given that speech instead of Roy, if Rachel had fought back
against her exploitation andended up giving the speech
instead of Roy, and how thatchanges the overall message, at

(01:14:58):
least around gender within thisfilm being cast as Sigourney
Weaver is what if we recastDeckard with Sigourney Weaver
instead of Harrison Ford, andhow does that change what we

(01:15:20):
think about this film?
And what, what messages comethrough in this film?
Which.
I'm that thought experiment islighten up my brain right now.
I gotta be honest.

Speaker 2 (01:15:31):
It's.
It's really fascinating justthinking through how different
our assumptions are, and that'sone of the reasons we've talked
before about the differencebetween writing a new story that
centers a woman, dolores, andwho Framed Roger Rabbit another

(01:15:52):
noir film, and just keepingeverything the same but just
making a different castingchoice, and how how those can
make very different films, inpart because of the assumptions
that are just baked in, when wealready decide that we're using
she, her pronouns.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
Yeah, yeah, Cool.
Well, um, thanks for going onthis ride with me.
It was I did not expect to be.
I don't even know what the wordis.
I had difficulty watching thismovie.
It was troubling for me towatch it.
I did and I was notanticipating that.

(01:16:30):
I was not anticipating that.
So, listeners, I'm sure wemissed something, cause this,
this one's.
This is a really rich text, soplease share your deep thoughts
about our deep thoughts.
What did we miss?
What do we need to nuance orchange?
Uh, what did we say thatsurprised you or excited you?
Love to hear from you.
You can get in touch with usthrough the text us button

(01:16:54):
that's on your if you'relistening on one of the
streaming services, or you cancomment on it if you're one of
our patrons and thank you forbeing a patron, or you can send
us an email atguygirlsmediaatgmailcom.
Emily, it's your turn.
Next it is what are we?
what deep thoughts are youbringing me next week?

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
Uh, I am going to bring you my deep thoughts about
Beetlejuice.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Oh, how timely yes.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Do you remember our Finches Beetlejuice and?

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
Joe, yes, but Beetlejuice was named after the
star, not that it was before themovie, it was before the movie.
Yeah, you named Beetlejuice theFinch I did, and Joe was named
after a doctor companion yep,yep, and I think joe died first
she did, she did, yeah and uh,yeah, I was a doctor who fan,

(01:17:45):
even, even back then, which islike was the one with the scarf,
tom baker.
Yeah yeah, all right.
Well, I look forward to hearingyour deep thoughts about
Beetlejuice.
Until then.
Until then, do you likestickers?
Sure, we all do.
If you head over toguygirlsmediacom slash, sign up

(01:18:08):
and share your address with us,we'll send you a sticker.
It really is that easy.
But don't wait, there's alimited quantity.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and

(01:18:30):
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

Therapy Gecko

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Deep Thoughts about Blade Runner