Soooo I just watched Blade Runner 2049 for the first time and I am conflicted.
The movie is nothing short of magnificent, the story is compelling and in my personal opinion better than the original, the atmosphere draws you in immediately, the acting is top notch and visually it’s one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen. And yet, I have some conflicting emotions about the portrayal of its female characters that I need to express. I use the word “conflicting” very literally here, because I am genuinely torn.
In this futuristic world women seem to only exist as bodies. Firstly, we have “Joi” a holographic VR AI sex toy which was purchased by the male character and which was programmed exclusively for the happiness and comfort of her male owner. She is programmed to love K and has therefore no real agency. She is comforting, sweet, speaks softly, and her only purpose is to satisfy him. The streets are also filled with enormous holographic images of women often partially naked or being otherwise sexualised and objectified, including a version of Joi we see later on the side of a skyscraper, naked with huge breasts and pointed nipples. There are also the two gigantic statues of arched naked women in stilettos we see near Deckard’s hiding place.
I understand that Villeneuve intended this as a critique of the treatment of the female body. Women have been entirely reduced into products for male consumption and Joi is the epitome of this. She fulfills all of K’s needs including sexual ones, she never talks back, can’t argue and is endlessly supportive, and best of all you can turn her on and off whenever you want! The perfect male fantasy.
I see this intention present and somewhat reflected, but there is something stopping it from fully satisfying me. For me, I think my main issue stems from a lack of balance, in which all the female characters of the story receive unsatisfying or unresolved arcs while the men are given a much larger space. Joi could have been a genuinely interesting portrayal of what it means to be human that parallels K’s journey, instead what we get is a freaky hologram threesome Joi plans because she wants to please him, and a bit later she is “murdered” and never thought of again, her last words “I love you” tragic when seen in the context of her being programmed simply for the purpose of loving the man who purchased her. This on its own I would have accepted as clever commentary, but then there are the other female characters (or rather bodies) in the story.
The most glaringly obvious, and the one I’m having the most difficult time grappling with is the looming presence of Rachel. The movie begins when the remains of a female replicant (Rachel) are found, and it is revealed that she was pregnant, something which was previously thought of as impossible. This poses a threat, because it classifies replicants as being “alive” in a way they weren’t before. Rachel is soon discarded by saying she died in childbirth, a thing which is only used to further Deckard’s story and to portray his grief… though this child was the result of him literally raping Rachel in the original movie. I am unsure of whether Villeneuve expects us to see this Deckard as a grief-stricken victim when it is Rachel who believed she was human, was then stripped of this and forced to confront the fact that her memories and life are false, was raped by an officer meant to kill her, became pregnant as a result of the assault and then died in child-birth. The existence of this child is what gains Rachel the dangerous label of “human” back because obviously the only worthy sign of her personhood is her ability to carry children. All for us to get this emotional end to the film of Deckard finally meeting his daughter who he thought he’d lost forever… FUCK THAT!!!! I would be fine and even moved by this if Deckard, the rapist, wasn’t the one getting this happy second-chance ending while Rachel was used as a womb and then discarded to move the plot forward. I am aware that Deckard is most probably a replicant as well (though this is up to interpretation), but that does not change this for me. However, this has much to do with the original blade runner which Villeneuve has obviously no power over so I gladly give him the benefit of the doubt in his portrayal of Deckard. It is however, something that sadly didn’t allow me to enjoy/value the ending in the way that I would have liked. Plus, sadly, it added to my general uneasiness about the female characters, but given my understanding that this was out of Villeneuve's reach it only influenced my feelings and not my rating of the film itself.
Women, and specifically female replicants being used as wombs continues with Wallace’s mission of replicating models like Rachel - capable of childbirth - in order to expand interstellar colonisation. The scene in which one of these replicants is “born” is one of the most chilling in the whole movie. The replicant is clearly afraid and confused and has the demeanor of a scared child while having the body of a grown woman. The camera lingers on her breasts, and Wallace touches her all around before slashing open her womb, letting her bleed to death. Wallace’s female replicant assistant Luv watches him gut her with tears streaming down her face - an obvious sign of her “human” emotions. She could have made for an extremely interesting character but she remains subservient to Wallace the entire film and dies a violent death (drowned by K).
This is where my conflicting feelings arise again: women being used as wombs, and even worse than that, having their wombs be utilised as a tool for colonisation is unfortunately realistic. I see the extremely powerful potential of this commentary, and I would even consider it insightful of Villeneuve to consider this, but it was simply not developed enough for me to be truly comfortable with it. It does not lead anywhere with Luv as I was hoping it would, nor is it ever touched upon again. In short the spectacle made of the woman’s bleeding womb does not equate with the importance this brutality was given in the film - that is where my uneasiness stems from. I am seeing women being sexually exploited and violently gutted on my screen only for their storylines to have close to no impact other than to further the story of the male characters or be left entirely unresolved. That is where the attempt at commentary loses some of its value for me, because the replicant man gets to explore grief, loneliness, the search for meaning, identity and personhood and receives emotional scenes, while women remain sex objects and receive extremely violent deaths.
In summary, I see the commentary the film was making, and I don’t think it entirely fails but I was not entirely satisfied either. I simply do not think male filmmakers or men in general really understand what it truly feels like for female fantasy and sci-fi fans to continuously be presented with versions of the future, none of which seem to treat women with more respect than the present.
Can we really not envision a future in which women aren’t treated as objects? Can we really imagine flying ships, entire ecosystems, implanted memories, magical technology, blade runners, and not the notion of a world in which women are seen as human beings? Hell this entire movie deals with the idea of what it means to be human, and somehow male replicants are still treated as more human than “real” human women. This last part is not a criticism of the movie itself, but it is an expression of my frustration as a fantasy and sci-fi nerd. It is genuinely mentally and emotionally draining having to sit through blatant sexualisation of women film after film after film, and I realise that each time I am less and less patient with how it is treated which is why I might seem so harsh in my criticisms now. I am at the point where if I have to deal with this on screen as well as off screen, I expect it to be treated with the utmost respect and bring genuine impact and value to the story, and unfortunately I do think it could have been treated with more gentleness here.
But all in all, I have many more praises than criticisms to give for this movie, and I do think I need to watch it once more to really consolidate my feelings on it. Did anyone feel similar on this topic? Any kind of discussion is appreciated!
