Blade Runner 2049 *Does Not* Have 'A Woman Problem'
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
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Thanks for watching guys! Next video is probably going to be on ‘Beyond the Black Rainbow’ and then superhero movies as a response to 9/11 after that - feel free to make any other suggestions! On the horizon after that will likely be Alien and Dracula.
Chapter Times
02:00 - Opening Sequence
07:04 - Joi & Joshi
14:34 - Luv
19:25 - Mariette
21:36 - Ana Stelline
24:12 - Sex Scene
29:21 - Joi Close Reading
34:42 - Luv & Joshi
37:23 - Ruins of Vegas
39:25 - Closing Scenes
Link to Displate gallery:
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Resources:
Behlmer, George. Grave Doubts: Victorian Medicine, Moral Panic and the Signs of Death.
www.jstor.org/...
Blade Runner Script
www.scriptslug...
Kuhl, Sarah. The Angel in the House and Fallen Women.
open.conted.ox...
Markale, Jean. The Great Goddess.
www.amazon.co....
Patmore, Coventry. The Angel In The House.
www.bl.uk/coll...
Shelley, Percy B. Ozymandias.
www.poetryfoun...
Showalter, Elaine. Killing the Angel in the House.
www.jstor.org/...
Smith, Anna. Is Blade Runner 2049 sexist - or a fair depiction of a dystopian future.
www.theguardia...
Stoker, Bram. Dracula.
www.amazon.co....
Womack, Ytasha. Afrofuturism.
www.amazon.co....
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Stumbled across this video and wow, it is so thought out, you deserve so many more views! It sucks to see how few views this has with all the clear effort in it
Thank you so much for the kind words Alexandria! It really means a lot. And yeah, it sucks but they're going up slowly! Hopefully the more videos I put out the more people will see them. Thanks again for watching!
@Caitlyn Carvalho Exactly Kaitlin!
I agree with your interpretation of JOI’s desire to be real is not due to programming. But only because i want their love to be real. ❤❤ However, I think the desire to be real wouldn’t be a bug. Maybe one’s JOI starts as a chat bot. Then you upgrade to a hone hologram. Clearly going transportable was an expensive upgrade. Perhaps buying a replicant with one’s own JOI downloaded inside of it is the next upgrade that a Joe would pay a lot of money to have. Having the JOI programmed to persuade the Joe to upgrade is clever marketing. Even in that cynical capitalistic viewpoint we can say that the film says that K’s JOI has real memories of K and is therefore as real as anything. Maybe a JOI’s desire to be portable or physical is equivalent or driven by her desire to make more memories with the client/Joe.
Infinitely better video and sound ! Great job, again lol.
Thank you so much Jonny!
Dear Novum, I am begging you to please get your Dracula characters right.
The married, "final girl-esque", modern-ish woman in Dracula (Jonathan's wife) is Mina Harker.
The initially angelic, innocent, aristocratic Angel in the House concept who turns into a lustful "whore" and child devourer is LUCY WESTENRA.
They are not, at all, sisters, but rather good friends.
I do love and greatly appreciate your videos, but it is like the third one wherein you've clearly confused the characters.
What do you think of the idea that joi and mariett fusing as an attempt to join the opposing archetypes of women to make a whole woman
Fantastic video. It's not the 'organs' or the bodies of the women that makes them transcendent - it's their love. Love is what matters, not biology. Neander can make a woman's body but he can't make a woman's soul, that comes from within.
What a lovely way of putting it dude, I couldn't agree more. Thanks for checking out my stuff, I promise the production quality improves in more recent vids!
@@Novum_YT Oh I came here from the Heretidary video which is fucking *astounding* :)
this is weird sounding
womens soul yuck
stop drooling over the saintliness of my soul
oh if im not divinely soulful im not a woman blow me
Really great video. This is incredible analysis as always. The plot of this movie and scenes are a masterpiece
I’m sorry, I loved your analyses of Alien, but you completely missed the mark here. Your “proofs” that the movie doesn’t have a woman problem are even more problematic. The Divine Feminine is extremely sexist and patriarchal. You’re basically pointing out that women are only important for reproductive purposes. And the problem with the Domestic Angel vs. the Whore has nothing to do with women wanting to be housewives or prostitutes, but that, traditionally, female characters have only have those traits, nothing else.
And the way you describe Washi. She’s not a failure, because she’s not motherly. A woman does NOT have to be motherly to be respected. She should be respected because she’s a HUMAN. Luv killing her by stabbing her in the uterus is NOT stabbing her womanhood, because no woman is defined by her uterus, like no man is defined by his penis, nor is this some feminists win. If anything is a loss, because it’s a woman killing another woman, because she doesn’t abide to patriarchal wishes.
I actually liked this movie. Now I hate it!
Came here to say this !
I appreciated the analysis but for a video defending the way the movie treats its female character, it seems to lack in feminist theory knowledge...
How is the divine feminine sexist?
The importance of reproduction is pointed out because in the context of the movie, it was the barrier between being slaves or escape from bondage.
Washi was only considered a failure by Neander because he was trying to crack the reproduction code. Where in the video does the narrator say a woman has to be motherly to be respected?
@@reasonableskeptic5703 the essentialisation of womanhood completly ignores how "woman" is predefined by society. the film doesnt do this, but Novum did. I think this is a huge flaw in his analysis
you are incredibly smart and dedicated. love❤
Brilliant. It gave me a new depth of understanding of the themes in the movie beyond the amazing depth that was already apparent 👍👍
Love your videos!
Thanks so much!
100% agreed. All the comments here critiquing you for not recognizing the "explanation of women" in this film simply don't understand that the film itself is critiquing exploitation in its basic form.
Some people are just too literal and/or obtuse.
Please don't let those narrow-minded comments deter you from creating the excellent content you are producing.
Just loved it my friend.
Ughhhh. A huge amount of this analysis is "it can't be a women problem because the whole thing is about motherhood!" while completely missing the fact that woman = mother is a HUGE woman problem.
Women are not just wombs. The ability to 'create life' is not a woman's only function or purpose. The continued fetishisation of the fertility, birth and motherhood in the "divine feminine" is just as problematic as the whore, the angel of the home and other tropes.
The very fact that Rachel is sacrificed for her child once again reinforces this idea that the woman herself is less important than the production of a child. She has fulfilled her 'purpose' and so now superfluous. This idea that a 'good' woman will put her child above her own well being in all situations is incredibly damaging.
THANK YOU SO MUCH, YOU ARE SO RIGHT. like the glorifying a form of womanhood that denigrates and their purpose and the only thing good and divine about them is the fact that they can give birth is damaging while discouraging freedom sexuality and and autonomy over their own bodies(given on the historical example the video gave ) with it prime when discouraging woman who are sexually active and woman who does not serve the role a mother archetype by being a portrayed as a woman with the same authoritative tone and presence as to be bad and actively vilified, which centers around the whole messaging of the movie which is that the only good way to be a woman is to be a non-authoritative, non-sexual, non-disobedient motherly house wife who only does what her slave master tells her to do.
10:34 that bit about her considering to use him for sex seems out of nowhere?
It is a little out of left-field considering their relationship doesn’t go in that direction, but I think it is there in her performance. Not because she’s some caricature of me-too, but because she sees Android life as something to be used for function. I actually think there is one line of dialogue that suggests she’s thinking of broaching it to K but I’m on a train right now and don’t have access to it - once I’m home with free time I’ll check it out and get back to you! Thanks for watching and hail Satan!
Thanks for the video.
Pretty good, but please back up the assertion that Lilith was "edited out of" the Bible. This would require evidence of a singular being called "Lilith" referred to prior to the first Bibles, as opposed to the word "lilitu" which refers to a class of beings.
“But I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior - women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?” -Ursula K Le Guin
I don't mean this offensively, but I think you have been exposed primarily to trans exclusive radical feminist criticism, which is a highly contentious school of thought and is not representative of feminist scholarship as a whole. It's quite frankly extremely regressive, and I would recommend looking into intersectional feminism for any future forays into feminist criticism. The ideas that you're referencing--"the divine feminine" and such-- are used to underpin a bioessentialist and traditionally western view of patriarchal gender in modern feminist terminology. As you referenced yourself in your video on the lighthouse, there are many different forms of homosexuality that vary across cultures. This is also true of gender. It is quite frankly impossible to assert that the global cultural conception of the gender "woman" has been intrinsically linked to birth and life across human history when the meaning of "woman" changes over time, across cultural groups, and in reaction to other gender paradigms with more than two genders. There are many gender paradigms worldwide with 3+ genders. It is extremely common for humans with wombs to be associated with birth and life, but it is not universal, and the cultural expectations that went along with giving birth varied widely from culture to culture.
To make things as simple as possible, feminism is the fight against sexism and gender discrimination. In general, it includes a fight against gender based assumptions. The assertion that women are intrinsically Better or more suited to "creating life" (raising a child) is a sexist and regressive assertion. It does not stop being a sexist and regressive assertion when dressed up in magical bioessentialist terminology. It is still at its root the idea that women are caretakers and nurturers, which is not an innate truth of humanity. Women are not socially or politically liberated by reaffirming the idea they're magically and innately better caretakers. The idea that women are magically better caretakers is a myth introduced by patriarchy. It reinforces the idea that women belong in the home, not at work or dedicated to intellectual endeavors. These ideas only became attractive when trans exclusive radical feminists were searching for justifications that trans women are not "real women." The only thing they could fall back on were patriarchal ideas of magical womanhood that just Knows how to nuture and raise children with no skill building. This is blatantly untrue. Women are associated with nurturing traits because they are taught to be nurturing. Nurturing is a skill. Conversely, young boys are not taught the skill of nurturing. They are not taught to mirror emotions and offer comfort, they are taught to suppress their emotions (which is emotional abuse). Men are not naturally less emotional and less capable of care for children, they are routinely emotionally abused and punished for the unavoidable presence of human emotion. Men are equally as capable of warmth and "feminine behaviors" as women because we teach children how to behave. Subjecting boys to widespread and extremely normalized emotional abuse while praising girls for mirroring emotions is not the obvious and 100% natural Way Humans Are Meant To Work. It is a self fulfilling prophecy and the entirely expected result of these choices. Routinely emotionally abusing one gender will result in the majority of its members being emotionally stunted. Routinely forcing the other to hyperempathize and manage the emotional status of the room will result in a higher emotional intelligence in the majority of its members. We are humans with sentience who make choices on purpose. It's not magic, it's not biology, it's not innate to humanity. It's just a gendered difference in what skills children are taught and allowed to attain proficiency in. This understanding is vital to the vast majority of feminist criticism, but it is for some reason mutually exclusive with concepts of the divine feminine. I wonder why.
[being very salty after this point.] To update your essay, the operative perspective of the film fears a women's liberation dissociated from their traditional role of motherhood and sees their removal from that traditional role as a sign of social degradation. This is a clear reaffirmation of patriarchal womanhood. The film asserts that it is good and natural for women to stay in their traditional role. They have the "divine feminine" and "sacred womanhood" after all. woman blood probably has magic baby love juice. clearly, that's why someone assigned male at birth can never be a woman. they don't have the magic baby caring woman quality because the ability to love and care for children is obviously contained in the womb. no womb, no "divine feminine," no ability to nuture. the wombless are incapable of raising a human child and have nothing to do with human reproduction. it doesn't matter that we're one of the LEAST sexually dimorphic species on the entire planet who possess sentience and make choices about what we teach our children. nope. fake. truly GOTTA BE womb magic that makes you better at loving your children.
Okay, couple of things before we get to the core of it:
1. I love Ursula Le Guin, I love tLHoD
2. I think you mean trans EXCLUSIONARY radical feminism as this is something that excludes them rather than 'is exclusive to them', I'm sure that was just a typo but wanted to make clear.
3. Your assertion that I have been 'exposed' to TERF understandings of feminism is entirely false. Obviously I'm aware of it, but I studied feminist literature, history and current discourse, for many, many years, long before it became a buzzword. That includes Ursula Le Guin but also Sylvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, Carol Clover, Woolstonecraft, I could go on and on for a very long time. (Generally in academic discussions it's quite impolite to assume what people have and haven't researched, this isn't Good Will Hunting) And you're right, just like homosexuality, feminism isn't a monolithic concept. Women do not agree on what a woman is, nor should they have to.
4. I'm very aware of intersectionality, in Blade Runner I'd suggest poverty and transhumanism are those intersections, they're just presented via worldbuilding rather than a clear and forthright discussion.
5. You say that these ideas only became attractive once people were trying to smack down new ideas with notions of 'real womanhood' but this is untrue. I can point to literally hundreds of sources from before that was ever a conversation and I know that certainly, when I was studying it, that wasn't remotely involved in the discussion. (There were certainly discussions of how it harmed and hampered discussions of what a woman can do with her life, see: 'angel int he house' etc.) Same with your assertion that we can't link motherhood to global concepts of womanhood throughout history. Yes we can, even if there are outlying examples we know what the history of womanhood is in 99.9999% of cases. Was it fair or preferable that they be treated like babyvessels for the almost majority of human history? No. But it's the truth and really both of these points demonstrate a willingness to adapt history to suit the argument.
6. You say you 'wonder why' there's this dissonance/inability to reconcile between feminism's understanding of women as multi-faceted independent beings and concepts of the divine feminine. It's the same reason men are told they don't need to be tough but are also given soldiers and superheroes to play with. And you can rage against it, you can call it an injustice, but it's an injustice happening everywhere, to damn near everyone. And really it's rooted in the idea that these concepts aren't monolithic. There may be emotional men out there, there may be women that do not want to give birth, but they don't represent the majority. So we can't say 'well we know better, this is how people should be, they're only like that because they've been culturally abused!', we have to respect that for the vast majority of people around the world, they are seeking the traditional roles society assigned to them. Otherwise it just becomes exclusionary in the other direction.
Now I don't want to go on and on, point by point, because I think there's a very clear overarching response here. Which is that you're only viewing it in the context of a current societal mirror and not something driven by the anxieties of the future. The fear of Blade Runner is the end of the natural, the full vault into transhumanism where being a human at all is something so difficult to delineate it requires special exams and detectives. And in that world, a world where we can't even be certain how many humans still exist, suddenly 'the natural' becomes something very different. Something sought after and whispered about. So I understand right now it may be an offensive concept to suggest that women have this magical primary role of lifegiver, but we're talking about a future where the very meaning of that has been called into question (in multiple directions) and so we see a world where that divinity is very highly regarded. Where concepts of natural reproduction begin to feel magical once more because humanity has become so detached from them.
And keep in mind Rachel achieves 'humanity' by doing something miraculous, a literal divine conception that shouldn't be able to happen. If you want to stick rigidly to this being a discussion about trans people then I'd argue there's a route there for a different kind of divine conception. A world where trans people are included to the point where everyone is indistinguishable from the next and technology has allowed them to be capable of conception. Again we see this divine beauty in that some way, some how, we've managed to entirely reimagine the biological roles of womanhood to allow a trans woman to be medically indistinguishable from a born woman. Now I don't think the film is specifically discussing trans people, but I also think we can apply the same message to transwomen without excluding them. Rachel was not born a woman, not born at all in fact, and yet she is capable of conception. Quite a beautiful thought where ultimately our reality aligns with our bodily aspirations.
So, to your last paragraph where you quite boldly assume to update my work for me:
It's not a clear affirmation of patriarchal womanhood, it's a demonstration of post-woman womanhood in a post-biological society where trans people are simply people because the concept of bodily autonomy has become fully realized. The goal of the film is not to demonstrate women as subservient babyvessels but to show a world where that very simple biological function has become a newfound symbol of power. If replicants can replicate are they really replicants? To me that points to the dawning of a world where both women, and in this discussion at least, trans people are going to be the engine of our next future. Perhaps not ours at all depending on how you feel about replicants in universe, but for me the dawning of a new branch of humanity that has rediscovered natural divinity on the brink of it's collapse/the birth of it's next state.
Again, I think you're very much thinking in the 'now' and how this can be read given current discourse. But the film is actively asking you to imagine a world far beyond that and making a point about what it means to be human.
@@Novum_YT Okay. I have a snarky tone, so it's fair you were snarky back.
The male characters in the movie are valued for their choices and skills. They are brave, they are courageous, they are willing to search for the truth, etc. For example, K is a good fighter, which is a practical skill that is valued by their society. The men make choices that impact *why* they are valued as a person. Their choices to behave in certain ways or gain certain skills impact what other characters might ask of them. Their value and social role is determined by their autonomy, by what they choose to cultivate in themselves. Joi is valued because she possesses the capability to reproduce. Her body is an object that contains value to a social goal the movie considers worthwhile. She has done nothing to cultivate this. She's better and a miracle because she isn't infertile. That's not feminism. That's regressive.
Her value is not related to her choices or her personhood or anything other than that she can give birth, which is still an incredibly dangerous and potentially fatal process. What happens if she doesn't want to? What happens if her personality gets in the way and she doesn't want to risk her life to go through the incredibly painful process of birth that permanently alters your body? Is she still valuable as a person in this narrative? Does she have skills or human value outside of the ability to give birth? or has she abandoned the "divine feminine" and "rejected a miracle" before "refusing to uphold her duty."
It is not feminist or liberatory to associate womanhood with birth or claim that womanhood's value lies in birth. Infertile women are still valuable and full people. It is a flaw in their society that the replicants are not considered human because they can't give birth and that they are granted "humanity" for their ability to give birth. The inability to recognize their humanity due to infertility is a recognizable human rights abuse. it's not a hopeful future that now they can give birth wahoo they cleared the bar and get to be treated like humans. They should have been treated as human before. There's nothing magical about birth that makes you more human and nothing inherently inhuman about infertility. Their world using that as justification for slavery is dystopic. Joi having no choices but to be a miracle birth giver is dystopic.
Women are not liberated by valuing us for our bodies, and the feminist politics of 2017 are applicable to a movie released in 2017. but i believe in you. divine feminine your way into the future. girls love basing their value on how functional their reproductive anatomy is
@@faithwalker3255 I have a firm rule to always mirror the energy of a comment when replying, I assure you there's zero animosity and I do enjoy the discussion.
There's a pretty major confusion running through your reply and I'm not sure where that's stemming from but you're either misunderstanding me, or the film, or both. JOI is not a physical entity, she is not a replicant. She is a hologram, all software, no hardware. She will never give birth, she cannot have sex let alone conceive. So as we can see Rachel transgressing her station as replicant into new-tier of biological being through her ability to reproduce, the question being asked between K and JOI is, 'is her/their love legitimate?'. Joi may not be capable of anything physical but she still (potentially) transgresses her role as lines of code by becoming something capable of love.
As for your assessment of the male v female characters, it's not really in keeping with the movie either. Obviously we're in a world where the commodification of women for sex work is entirely literal. And in terms of the modern day, that is the commentary being made by the BF franchise in general. It's why their billboards are so hypersexual, why JOI exists, potentially even why replicants exist (actually labour but sex work is labour so hey ho). That being said, JOI has a male counterpart called BOI, there are male sex worker replicants and most crucially K is ordered around by his androgynous, but female superior that sees him both as a hammer and as a sextoy. K is flat out shown to be part of the same system of disrespect and consumption because he is a replicant. The human female has power over him in every sense. It's really crucial you see the difference between Human/Replicant/Hologram and not just Man/Woman.
Your penultimate paragraph I find a little bit silly, no one is suggesting infertile women aren't women but that doesn't mean birth isn't a ubiquitous, natural biological marker of womanhood. I have a friend who lost a testicle skiing. It's ridiculous to think anyone would see him as 'less of a man', but he certainly sees his manhood as having taken a hit and if we were to poll people on the street: 'are testicles part of manhood' I think we know what the answer is going to be. And beyond that, again, we are not talking about human beings, we're just not. The subtext here isn't 'what about infertile women?' it's 'what are the fringes of being human and what will it look like once they've been transgressed?'. We have robots now IRL, we're not "not recognizing their human rights" because they can't procreate, we're not recognizing them because by definition they aren't human. Go look at Boston Dynamics website and tell me you're certain they should be treated like they're human. It's just not that simple a question and the entire point of the franchise is problematizing and discussing that insanely abstract concept as we move into a future capable of realizing it.
"There's nothing magical about birth"
There is if you're a robot. And yes the film is dystopic, yes the treatment of replicants is dystopic, but that's not how the film ends. The films ends with the hope of a new dawn for the replicants, signaled by Rachel's essentially divine conception.
The sign off at the end there isn't the gotcha you think it is. Although lessening, the majority of women around the world do still see motherhood as a key part of life, relationships and family and those are things we determine our value from. I'm not saying they should, I'm not saying I do, I'm not saying their independent cultures don't push them towards it, but what I am saying is that it's a basic part of human functionality that for the vast majority of people throughout history has been seen as a vital and invaluable thing. To women in the third world especially it does because poor living conditions make it necessity, to transwomen who still feel less than despite every possible surgery I'm sure it does (and have heard multiple testimonies to just that) - AND TO A NEW SPECIES OF ROBOT that couldn't previously procreate, couldn't be in charge of their own future and dispersion/proliferation it does represent something divine and something magical. And for me that's the power of the film, by showing us those without, it let's us see the divinity within. It teaches us to hate our humanity a little bit less and see everyday things as very special.
In terms of modern critique I'd say it demonstrates a future where trans/human people can be anything they want, and it rages against the hypersexualization and commodification, the reification of people, by showing a world replete with it. So now we're at a point where the criticism has to be 'women aren't babyvessels' and I couldn't agree more. In fact every female character we see in the film either cannot or will not reproduce. That's why Rachel's giving birth off screen is the crux of the film. it's why it's so important. You're saying this shouldn't be the desired/assigned/championed/lone role of womanhood, and I agree. But that has very little bearing on the immaculate conception of one character who isn't even one of the women we see on screen (brief CGI rach not withstanding). For the most part the Blade Runner universe is exactly what you are describing, women have been supplicated in the reproduction process and, as you say, it's dystopic. I don't think we have to draw conclusions either way, but the danger is acting like that conclusion is already made, going into the future with a closeminded bigotry of not requiring the discussion. Because that's what this film is, a discussion on what does and doesn't make us human. I'd say that by the end we come to realize that the replicants have achieved humanity (via natural reproduction) and that 'humanity' may no longer be the best descriptor.
@@Novum_YT I find this topic incredibly frustrating, actually. Not you personally, the topic and this school of “feminist” thought. For an extreme example, you know how the Nazis called themselves socialists but they were obviously always fascists? And now it’s incredibly difficult to have a conversation about what socialism actually is? It’s that. People will intentionally mislabel themselves to get you to take their ideas more seriously, and it is important to critically engage with the idea itself and how it squares with the central tenants of feminism before corroborating that it is in fact feminist. The divine feminine is literally just repackaged complementarianism, the fundamentalist belief that genders are immutable under god and created that way in a perfect balance between authority and love (men providing the aggression, women providing the love).
So as a hopefully final clarification. I am a woman in this exact far future sci-fi. I am sterile, which means I have no human rights. This is apparently not a feminist issue; ignore it. Time passes. Oh! Wait! I CAN have babies! Now I get to have human rights, and if I am an incredibly good baby-maker, I can even give human rights to others in my community.
That’s not feminism. That’s not women’s rights. That’s forced birth. I am not happy with that situation. I do not want my value to my community based on my ability to pop out babies. I don’t want my community’s human rights to rely on my ability to pop out babies.
How the person is made is irrelevant to the fact that they are people. The narrative hinges on the fact that replicants are people. People get human rights with no qualifiers. Requiring the development of fertility as a qualifier for human rights instead of a political struggle where they fight and attain them with no qualifiers is not a utopia or feminist future. It’s using forced birth to solve a different and unrelated human rights issue.
And finally, they can make babies without birth. Birth is dangerous. Birth permanently changes a woman’s body. One of the most common lasting effects of birth is permanent incontinence, or the inability to control your pee. They have the medical technology to make people without that medical risk to women. And the narrative still ties human rights to birth and fertility instead of going “hey! nobody has to give birth! We can just say no more almost dying and permanently suffering from a damaged body unless you actually seriously want to! Which is now a REAL choice because medical advancements! baby with no pain or lifelong pelvic damage wahoo!” That would be an AWESOME feminist future. Women can still CHOOSE to go through pregnancy if they want to, but the pain and danger isn’t required anymore. but no. instead, it abandons the medical technology and reinforces the idea that natural birth is really somehow integral to a person’s humanity. The fundamentalists had this same argument about "test tube babies" (IVF). it’s like. soooooooooo awesome to watch it repackaged onto babies who gestate in an incubator.
@@faithwalker3255 It's okay, I don't mind a bit of frustration and the ideas are here to be interrogated. I know exactly what you mean, and as a tangent I feel like the solution to the fascism issue there is that simply left and right are a circle. The far left and the far right are indistinguishable from one another in all but methodology. Really the tying of the knot is nationalism. But I do understand how that argument is used to shut down conversation at a base level and I understand the extrapolation you're making (though I fear we may have unintentionally trodden on 'Godwin's Law'). But as to your statement here: "The divine feminine is literally just repackaged complementarianism". I will go as far to say that OF COURSE there are examples of this, of course there are people that have applied this in patronising or otherwise damaging ways. But to suggest it is "literally just that" is a complete misnomer, and a very modern, and very white/western understanding of the entire spectrum of womanhood. From where and why the term was incepted, to depictions through art history, to the defining of the feminine earth spirit and feminist spirituality in general, afrofuturism, mythology, even religion though I don't ascribe to it. There's so many examples of why this is untrue that I can't think which to quote first, and while some may be problematic there are just as many that are empowering. Let's take afrofuturism because I think it's the perfect example, especially given your desire to have this conversation within the context of intersectionality. Do you believe black women reclaiming or defining their 'sacred mother' role and this idea of a spiritualist, naturalist empowerment moving into the future is "literally just repackaged complementarianism?" For someone that (rightly) doesn't think feminism is monolithic you're being very broad in your applications. And while we're being broad, remember that the divine feminine isn't just confined to women, many people see it as an alternative to overt, or destructive masculine energy and would suggest it's something anyone, even men, can practice and harness within themselves. That it's a practicing of allowing emotional nurture and feeling into your being, adopting so called 'feminine' aspects into yourself. And believe me, I find that worrisome too, I don't think women should be DEFINED by their softness while men are prided on strength. HOWEVER, I also don't think that softness should be rejected, talked down, or treated as though it's weakness. Again, this isn't monolithic. So once we remove the all encompassing nature of your statement, the question becomes, is *Blade Runner* showing something offensive, "repackaged complementarianism", or something legitimate, something the creators believed had true divinity? And I think the answer to that is obvious, it's throughout the movie, the sacred and the profane. Ad this is most definitely shown to be sacred, just like the future human societies treatment of replicant womanhood is profane. This represents their way out from that bodily/sexual oppression.
Your final clarification is a strawman. Here's why: "I am a woman in this exact far future sci-fi. I am sterile, which means I have no human rights." Human rights in the Blade Runner universe isn't based on fertility, it's based on literal humanity. If you are a woman you have human rights. If you are a female replicant you do not have the full range of human rights (although truthfully we don't know to what extent you don't, replicants clearly have some level of autonomy). This is something you've done in every comment, you're kind of refusing to see this is a discussion on human vs android not man vs woman. Man vs woman might come into it, but only through the lens of human vs android. So even though your point is built on a fallacy, to correct you "if I am an incredibly good [android]" (and by 'good' here we literally mean capable of immaculate conception) "I can even give human rights to others in my community" and yes, if by others you mean your children. Yes you can. Because you've literally mothered a new progenitor that clearly doesn't fall within the category of replicant as it's not factory made. I'd say to the people of that new species being created would ostensibly be a "good" thing. And also, it's clearly not a case of 'they now have human rights'. Rachel's daughter is being kept in secrecy because she would almost certainly be killed.
No one is forcing birth on people at any point in the film other than potentially factory 'born' adult replicants. You shouldn't value your community on your ability to pop out babies. But you should value it on your freedom to. See: repeal of Roe v Wade, China's 1 (now 2) child policy, forced abortion, slavery, Sparta, the list goes on and on and it's never good. The point is bodily autonomy. No one is forcing them to give birth, no one is valuing or devaluing them because they can't. This came out of nowhere, no one knows how or why it happened, it's literally immaculate conception. The point is that through this (literally) divine intervention the replicants possibly have a way of controlling their own future, their own bodies, their own reproduction and proliferation. Literally one replicant has managed somehow to get pregnant, potentially freeing their entire species from slavery and giving them autonomy over their future, and you're saying 'women shouldn't just be seen as birthing vessels'. It's not oppression, it's emancipation, you're just refusing to accept that the replicants are replicants and attacking a strawman from there.
"Requiring the development of fertility as a qualifier for human rights..." I'm sure I've covered this ad nauseum by this point but just to be clear: Fertility doesn't get them human rights, they hide it from the humans specifically because it would lead to their slaughter. They are not human, they do not have human rights, and to your further point there is an allusion towards full rebellion in the last act of the film. Development of fertility provides them with autonomy they've never had and RAISES THE QUESTION 'does this mean they're human/something new/etc'.
I don't want to get into pelvic damage and incontinence because again this is built on a fallacy. "They can make babies without birth". They could make replicant babies that would stay replicant babies, we've never seen evidence of them building androids as babies that then grow into adults (and why would they given that they're intended for various forms of labour). Rachel is the lone example of a baby being born to a replicant, not only can humans not achieve that, no one knows how it has been achieved. It is divine/immaculate. The only thing they know is that Rachel's daughter will likely be capable of it too, hence a new dawn for replicants. Humans can't just have replicant babies instead of the birth process, and even if they could one would imagine most humans would still want an organic/natural birth that's built from a complex sharing of DNA, not 'a robot'. And beyond that there is absolutely evidence of injuries in the franchise that people cannot simply 'magic future medicine' away. We see older character(s?) limping in this movie, for example.
Honestly I think this is a classic case of you having a point, which fundamentally I agree with, but attacking the wrong thing with it. Which is exactly why I made the video in the first place. For some reason a certain sect of feminist criticism wants this movie to have an evil, anti-woman point when it simply doesn't. And I'm pretty sure that stems from how willing the franchise is to show you the profane, to show you the hypersexuality and make it part of proceedings. The assumption then becomes the film must have an immature or offensive point on the flip side of that too, and again, it just doesn't. It's making the point of how powerful bodily autonomy is to those that don't have it, something that I think has become even more crucial to discuss in the intervening years.
Another fantastic analysis.
Late to seeing this but I just wanted to say as someone who’s a writer/director and currently in graduate school for film your analysis, research and insights on film is second to none.
I came across your channel a couple days ago and have watched and rewatched all of your deeper analysis on film
It’s a shame that there’s other content creators who have larger audiences in what people would call “film analysis” have nothing of value to add to cinema discourse
I think you have much loftier goals than doing content on CZcams but I hope you continue to keep making videos
Absolutely superb
Thanks so much!
Fantastic, well researched, well thought out study. Now please change the video transitions lol
Thanks so much Mike!
Well Done.
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
7:53 that's not the classic image of a nineteen fifties house wife. Looks more like a waitress.
Sorry Time Traveler here.
Although I think your examination is excellent and illustrates the writers and directors intended feelings towards women, your complete dismissal of critiques of Blade Runner 2049 as having problematic depictions of women, is problematic in itself.
This movie does depict problematic expressions of women (which I believe were unintended and more prevalent of current day attitudes towards women). It (much like the tv show Altered carbon), shows a lack of imagination of the future of sexuality and the future of the sexual exploitation of women. Blade Runner 2049 is guilty of projecting the “ideal” woman of today onto the imaginings of a future world.
An example of this is how all the women in this movie have the same body type. All the women in this movie, human born, replicant born and virtual, have the exact same body type. (Not to mention all are white and conform to modern standards of idealized western beauty). The thin female archetype is mostly performative to women, informing them of how society wants them to look. Would not a future world, that can genetically engineer and create any female body, want to have diversity in that body? Or an “ideal” female body that is different from our own? Would societal views of women not shift over 120 years? If we can imagine a future with genetically developed humans and true ai, why can’t we imagine a different “ideal” female body?
Also, if this lack of imagination was intended, and this movie was a critique on modern day female “ideals”, then why were none of the female sex objects in this movie modeled after current day sex robots? if they truly wanted to critique our modern objectification of women, why didn’t Mariette or Joy have a sexualized body intended for the male gaze? Why didn’t the statues in Las Vegas have giant titties? Wide hips? Big bums!
Just some food for thought. I enjoyed your video and this movie (it’s excellent!). But it upset me that it could be so imaginative about some things and not with others.
@Pink Harlequin INCCEEELLLLLLLLLL
Hi dude, there's no "complete dismissal" at all - that's what the entire video is about, disproving that theory.
Your points in order:
1. I do not think the film is guilty of projecting an "ideal woman" in any way.
2. Further to that it's not a homogenized view of women it's a *commercialized* understanding of women as product. Joi even has customizable sliders for her body so your point about diversity in body types as being further to this does already exist within the film.
3. I would argue that in the film the human female characters have moved far more towards androgyny than current standards, see K's commanding officer and my section on the video about her demonstrating traditionally masculine behaviours.
4. Men look essentially the same as they do now in the film too, but we're not worrying about the exact shape of their bums now are we?
5. If you think Joi and Mariette, two products created entirely for sex work should have unsexualized bodies that don't appeal to the male gaze then I dare say you don't have a future in marketing and you may have missed the point of the video.
@@Novum_YTman your entirely disingenuous either shape of mens bums shit
fuck outta here with this transphobic uk bullshit
Ridley Scott's _Alien_ was the 'return of the repressed' for hippie sexual indiscretions, infanticide, dodging Nam; AIDS was entering the picture and the futurist hopes of the Greatest & Silent Generations' Space Race miscarried indefinitely. _BR 2049_ picks up where it left off. Robin Wright's character propositioning young buck K as though he himself were a _BOI_ was great exposition (she took it as a narcissistic injury). Jenny from _Forest Gump_ in a new guise, but even more sterile. Ford turned troglodyte living in a cargo cult of Silent Gen. Sin City luxury is the other end of the generational critique.
The eye at 2:45 is the all seeing eye.
Line up for the brainwash.
Don’t touch Mandy it was perfect as is this one.lov joy officer k and decard would be proud
This is well done and a proper, well thought-out and well-formulated response to some of what I have only recently come across by way of very "paint-by-numbers" ostensibly feminist critiques of BR 2049.
Through your video, I learned of a few more of the many lovely linguistic clues in the screenplay (e.g. the meaning of the name Yoshi and the exact meaning of the acronym JOI) and of its wonderful narrative elements (esp. the juxtaposition of Wallace's comment on the link between pain felt and the reality of the joy (JOI?) it reveals in the case of both Deckert and K) and for this I am grateful.
I would, however, add one small reservation. I personally revel in ambiguity and was most taken by recurring feelings of wonder at my ability to read many of BR 2049's scenes in multiple ways. I am not at all sure that Villeneuve and his team had a singular "correct" or dominant message to impart through the work. My viewing of most of his films now has left me convinced that his art is typically that of assembling a complex multidimensional picture that is actually intended to be seen differently through the eyes of different viewers, and to provoke thought and discussion. There were, to my ears, a few too many "paint-by-numbers"-like passages in your own analysis (especially the recurring editorial condemnations of consumption over creation - ironic, since we are discussing our own consumption of a very artistic piece of cinema) that themselves resemble the unfair "feminist" critiques decried by this YT video.
In short, my plea is for us all NOT to steal the poet's thunder but to stand back, walk around the work and to look at it through different perspectives and only then to make up our minds as to which (if any) of those perspectives we favour.
Wow dude! Loved reading that thank you so much for commenting. To address your main concern regarding this not being singular in meaning - I couldn't agree more. If you look at my more all encompassing videos (The Lighthouse and most specifically the Alien video that is coming in a couple of days!) you'll see that I do exactly what you're discussing and come at it from different angles and frameworks to provide as extensive and far-reaching a response as possible. As you've already identified this video is a singular reading, it's a response to specific criticisms and gendered readings of the film so that is where I focused.
But, if I look back at this video I would identify the same failing that you did. I wish I had fully gone for unpacking the movie as a whole and left this as a section, or through-line, to the video. It's a lesson learned I guess, this was only the second video I made so it's a little rigid in it's structure.
Thanks so much for watching, and for commenting my dude! Spot on!
@Caitlyn Carvalho Well like we see she can map herself onto a physical body as a virtual replacement for sex but other than that they really can't! That's the most genius thing about her character and her and K's relationship. And bear in mind K's an android, so he's one level of connection less, one level of contact less (or so he thinks) and to him this is the closest he can get to love and companionship - something he values far more than sex. And this is all delivered in JOI's name (As in the 'Jerk off instruction' trend in pornography), she's an allegory for sex work in pornography rather than traditional sex work like Mariette is. And just like with irl JOI all K can really do (to answer your original question) is with himself while he watches her. It's just showing the growing disconnection of humanity in a way that we can already see the beginnings of now. Hope that helps!
Interesting video, though you misunderstand the history of the Lilith myth. The Lilith myth emerges in Jewish folklore well after the time of the Christ, coming out of mesopotamian traditions of a certain kind of female demon associated with crib death. These two videos go into a lot more detail on the topic: czcams.com/video/n1EKccz4fS0/video.html & czcams.com/video/U-jIScgb7Nc/video.html.
The online Info i got from this Clip is that women are good for reproduktion. Are there still women Falling for that shit? I lied the movie but man the Charakter of that holo woman was meh. Karen kusamas portraial of motherhood in "destroyer" was more memorable than this Take on the topic.
I wouldn't say the takeaway is that 'women are only good for reproduction'. If you have to apply such reductivism to it I'd go more with 'reproduction, motherhood and nature are essential to what makes us human and should not be abandoned in the pursuit of technology and industrialisation'
Yes it does.
Strong rebuttal sir!
@@Novum_YTin that it has women in it, and that is a problem, you see
@@Novum_YThuge respect for your work but there are plenty of well thought out rebuttals in the comments which you refuse to reply to but you do reply to the easy ones.
@@sbraypayntWhat are some of the rebuttals you speak of?
9:17 lmfao joi's name fits her well hahaha.
and I agree that the feminists' criticisms were mainly a surface level take. cyberpunk dystopias are inherently sex crazed as a commentary on how far down our own current society can fall.
16:29 technically Boi could be for gay men and considering your incredible eye for analysis I'm rather surprised that's not considered, however both Joi and Boi I'm sure would have plenty of both male and female, both and neither gender identifying customers.
People think of sex bots as a strictly male desire but it most definitely is not now and absolutely would not be in the future/universe where it would be available, your comment on the point being "the *comodification* of relationships" is spit on. Capitalism is distopia
love this movie, it is beautiful and thought provoking. However, showing a cold, grotesque, brutal murder of a woman is problematic. Period. I will hesitate to watch it again because those scenes are so disturbing. You can say “the movie really means something else” and I would even agree but it won’t erase how disturbing those scenes are to me. It is akin to an anti-war movie with exciting action scenes.
Only a minute in to your video & really enjoyed your Alien analysis but have to give my take on the female thing as I think 2049 is the greatest film ever made. I find the feminist critique angle on this film laughable. It's as if they weren't paying attention to anything that actually happened. The character who receives by far and away the worst treatment in the film is K. He is treated like absolute dirt by society. The world they live in is dark and tough on everyone. Portraying this in a film is not by default an approval of it.
I completely disagree with you. The misogyny of this film made my skin crawl and I really hate the film because of it.
Honestly, I can't wrap my head around how a man who seems somewhat knowledgable on feminist theory can have the gall to make some of the statements you did throughout. Especially in regards to the absolutely horrifying sex scene. This film has an enormous woman problem, simply taking in the visual language is enough to discern that. Women, or female objects, are constantly naked and on display where men aren't. The use of prostituted women (objects, in this film) is some of the worst I've seen in a movie as critically acclaimed as this one. How dare you decide that the "whore archetype" has been less degrading and harmful to women than another archetype? Do you not know about the Madonna-Whore-complex? Do you not know how the Pure Wife and Filthy Whore "contradictions" are not contradictory at all, rather a feature of patriarchal societies meant to keep women subjugated? Do you know what the sex industry is like? The mere idea of a hologram transcending through love for a man... that in itself is sexist. She exists for him. He bought her. Their "love being real" is such a disgusting idea. The movie culminates with an extremely violent, drawn out scene of the main character strangling a woman - the way in which most women die by the hand of men especially intimate partners, and a way in which men are not often killed on screen - which just compounds the male violence against women in the language and text of the film. The sex industry is violence against women. The reduction of women to objects for male consumption drives violence and dehumanization against women.
I bet if you were to try and make a movie about all this stuff you talk about, it would probably be a dragged out 3 hours of superficial nonsense with no real point, no hidden meanings, no metaphors. It sounds like you only see things at surface level and never even try to listen to what other people have to say. You just have your beliefs, and there are no other ways that people should be viewing the world, other than the same way you see it. Now, you’re allowed to disagree, by all means, but it’s like you watched this whole video with such a closed minded approach, you didn’t even listen to what he said, for 40+ minutes. I’d actually be surprised to hear you actually watched the whole thing, but if you did, you were probably red hot with anger the whole time, for whatever reason. Rather than simply listening mindfully and trying to see if there was anything viable to his take on this movie. It’s not like some of the things you said in your comment aren’t factual, but they still don’t really have much to do with what he’s saying here, beyond the surface level of being simple facts of life in the world we live in. Try watching it again, but instead of watching mindlessly, watch it mindFULLY, and without bias.
Based on your logic, are films like Ex Machina and Her also sexist?
Could you provide examples of films that you do not consider sexist?
It seems to me that you will always be offended by movies that don’t perfectly align with your idea of feminism, which is a shame. Films are a great vehicle for exploring ideas that may not be easily discussed and reflecting on our current society by looking at it through a different lens.
Just because the film is depicting women as “commodities” in a dystopian, cyberpunk setting doesn’t mean that the film is insinuating that this is the correct way our society should be. If that’s the case, then Barbie implies society should be matriarchal, Green Inferno says indigenous cultures are all cannibalistic degenerates, and John Wick’s solution to all of life’s problems is to kill whoever transgresses against you. All of these are oversimplifications that throw all nuance in films to the wayside, or simply ascribe meaning to something that was never meant to have any in the first place.
You failed to neglect how men can be equally commodified within the film, as is shown between J’s dynamic with his human superior. It’s not overtly shown to be the same with men via nudity (or their offscreen deaths?) because it doesn’t need to. By that logic, any time there is not a 50/50 split between scenes that “empower” men and women or “degrade” them, then the film is sexist?
@atlaskat7980 Jesus christ you seem insufferable
The movie shows degradation and objectification of women, but it shows them as being the cause of the end of the world, of humanity. It’s like you watched a movie about slavery causing the end of humanity and your takeaway was, this movie shows it, so it must be championing and approving of it. But I guess it’s fair to say a lot of people miss the point of movies. After all, many people see antiheroes as just heroes.
Great job. I needed this after watching some fucking male feminist's opinion on the movie
Gave me a chuckle, thanks for watching bro!
@@Novum_YT Laughing at the concept of a male feminist or their opinion on this film really does highlight what a sexist cretin you are.
Women problem? Id never heard that about the movie. Ive even seen some call it woke. Anyways, great vid, this, the green knight and lighthouse vids have made revisiting them a priority
Who the fuck would call this woke?
It’s not alt right but it’s seems like a prevailing centrist world view movie so how could it be woke?
(Not that anything being woke is a bad thing)