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Sexual Fetishism in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner

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Sexual Fetishism in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner Bondage, Bestiality, and Bionics: Sexual Fetishism in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner BY KYLE J. NOVAK The Ridley Scott film adaptation of Phillip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is nothing less than a subtextual goldmine for film and literary critics alike. A favorite of the common movie buff and the crutch of every academic seeking to fully document its meaning, Blade Runner has been dissected, gutted, and had its components scrutinized more than any other science fiction film of its generation. Books are devoted to its deconstruction. Papers have been proposing new ways to look at the piece for decades, and indeed, this essay is no different. The sheer abundance of analytic material, though, poses a difficult question. Does Blade Runner simply act as a mirror to the critic's expectations or is it truly a source of infinitely complex themes and meanings? After all, to assume that every essayist's conclusions are true and, therefore, present in the film on the basis of a calculated decision by the filmmakers is quite spectacular. Ultimately, whatever the filmmakers didn't do deliberately, they did subconsciously, and the subconscious additions are of more scholarly value than what was sketched out on paper. Among these subconsciously included themes is the subject of the following quote: “More than any other American film genre . science fiction denies human eroticism and libido a traditional narrative representation and expression.”1 Sex in a science fiction film is not unique, but neither is it prominent. For the most part, popular culture agrees with this notion, considering how fans of the genre are often lampooned as socially-inept asexuals or sheltered life-long virgins. Producers and casting directors are privy to the stereotype too. Some of the most acclaimed science fiction films seem to lack significant female characters altogether—featuring much less alluring women. In this genre, elements of sex are usually reduced to formula, only present as tongue-in-cheek dialogue or unabashed eye candy; who can forget Princess Leia's gold bikini and its effect on pre-adolescent 1 Vivian Sobchack, “The Virginity of Astronauts: Sex and the Science Fiction Film,” in Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Annette Kuhn (New York: Verso, 1990), 103. Valley Humanities Review Spring 2010 1 boys across the globe? What makes Blade Runner different, however, is its ability to portray sex in a way akin to Sobchack's claim (non-traditional expression), and yet have that eroticism be complimentary to both the plot and themes of the film. Blade Runner is a film seeping with representations of repressed sexuality. Every scene, sequence, and image is imbued with, commenting on, or directly a result of sexual frustration and need. Within the scope of the story, this need is embodied in the form of several paraphilic fetishisms. Eroticism is not purely thrown in to advance a love story, but rather, it is ubiquitous, constantly denying itself "traditional narrative representation" by only existing in the form of “the fetish.” In turn, these fetishisms aid in the development of the film’s questions on mortality and human desire for self-actualization—both in and outside the bedroom. The following close analysis of the film will provide metaphorical and literal examples of repressed sexuality, through manifestations of bestiality, voyeurism, incest, sadomasochistic domination/submission, and role-play. In the Los Angeles of 2019, owning a real animal grants the individual not only a social status, but also a sort of self-perceived “psychological nirvana.” Throughout the film, these feelings for animals walk the line between adoration and erotic fixation. From this, one can derive the fetish of zoophilia, more colloquially known as bestiality, the paraphilic but not necessarily copulatory interest in animals. Bestiality is present minutes into the film’s running time. In the Tyrell corporation headquarters, Holden tests Leon to determine his “replicancy” or “nonhumanness.” The vast majority of questions have animals as part of their subjects, including: a tortoise, a wasp, a butterfly, an oyster, a bear, and a dog. Many revolve around animal cruelty, like Leon’s question regarding a turtle flipped on its shell, unable to right itself, or Rachel’s question about the propriety of eating a raw oyster over a boiled dog. Even when Rachel is prodded with the “jealousy test question” about her hypothetical husband hanging a photo of a nude woman in their hypothetical home, the minor detail of the woman being on a bearskin rug is gingerly included. This would suggest that the mere addition of having this woman lie prostrate on the hide of a slain and skinned bear could make the photograph more 2 alluring. Despite the Voight-Kampff test beckoning replicants to answer humanely, so much focus on animal cruelty conjures up images of sadism. Notably, the first words uttered by Rachel when Deckard visits Tyrell are: “You like our owl?” Deckard asks if it’s artificial, and Rachel scoffs, “Of course it is.”2 It becomes clear: real animals are rare, and hence held sacred, spoken about with a reverence usually left for deities. Incidentally, in the first draft of the David Peoples and Hampton Fancher screenplay, as well as in the novel itself, Deckard works as a blade runner solely for the finances to buy a real, live animal; in this case, a sheep to replace his electric sheep. This gives a dual meaning to Dick’s title. One interpretation of the title asks: what does it take to be considered human? Is dreaming, aspiration, and hope “unreplicable” in robotic creation? Is it possible to manufacture something so lifelike that it would need to rely on the emotional solace of “sheep jumping over a fence” in order to fall asleep? The second interpretation asks if it is a distinctly and exclusively human attribute to feel compassion and love for fellow creatures in a modern, mechanized, and cold society. It would appear that the answer the film gives to this question is no, for even the replicants themselves see animals as being representative of humanity, and prove it by their efforts to slowly transform into them. In Sebastian’s apartment, Pris becomes a “spider- woman.”3 She changes from a meek innocent girl into a pouncing tentacled sexual beast. Similarly, Zhora runs her stripper-act as the snake-woman Salome, a mythic reference not belied by her onstage performance. Even Batty, who after discovering the mauled body of Pris, reacts with “lupine howls of anguish” and morphs into a half-naked lycanthrope, playing a cat- and-mouse game with Deckard.4 When these characters revert to their animal states, they become sexual, erotic, ravenously heated, and only further substantiate a zoophilic passion. 2 Blade Runner, DVD, directed by Ridley Scott (1982; Hollywood, California: Warner Home Video, 1997) 3 Simon H. Scott, “Is Blade Runner a Misogynist Text?” Scribble.com, http://www.scribble.com/uwi/br/brtv.html (accessed May 25, 2009). 4 Andrew Stiller, “The Music in Blade Runner,” in Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 2nd ed., ed. Judith B. Kerman (Bowling Green State University: Popular Press 3, 1997), 199. 3 In one scene of The Director’s Cut, Deckard dreams of an ethereal garden, where a dashing, muscular, and elegant unicorn, photographed in heavenly soft focus, gallops around in sexy mane-waving slow motion. The bizarre sensuality of the dream makes it reminiscent of Peter Scaffer’s play Equus and the not-so-subtle theme of an unhinged sexually-charged beatification of something projected to be holy. In Blade Runner, this godhead, rather than a horse, is a unicorn, a creature that is, in the realm of fiction, the rarest of animals. Comparable to another animal of this classification, the dragon—whose reality is shrouded in the mysticism on which some ancient cultures bestowed a worshipful adulation—the unicorn in Blade Runner— dancing in what could easily be interpreted as Eden—acts as the ultimate “Holy Grail” to Deckard. Is there a hierarchy mapping certain animals to higher emotional and psychological rewards? Should we believe that Deckard’s aspirations run higher than attaining an organic sheep? Is possessing a unicorn the way Deckard envisions finally becoming self-actualized? From all this, it would appear that owning a real animal is this culture’s symbol of finally achieving what Americans today would call their “pursuit of happiness.” Voyeurism can be interpreted as an act caused by a sexual need or want that is not being traditionally expressed or fulfilled. Society in Blade Runner allows man to delve into voyeuristic activity using the social stratification of its cities and the advanced technology of its times. Indeed, Deckard’s own lines substantiate voyeurism as part of the norm when he searches a dressing room for “little dirty holes they drill in the walls so they can watch a lady undress.”5 Due to the social hierarchy of Los Angeles in 2019, rich white men afford the ability to spy on peasantish inferiors from the top of their metaphorical “high towers” (or in Tyrell’s literal case, a ziggurat). Even when a layer of pollution-trigged fog separates the upper class from having a perfect view of the proles, police-cars compensate, perpetually hovering over the floor-level, slicing their searchlights through the smoky underworld. They now behave like the anonymous eye from above, and by doing so, maintain a constant record of the plebeian activities. Surveillance abounds, and attempts at privacy are persistently thwarted by the structure of the 5 Blade Runner, DVD, directed by Ridley Scott (1982).
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