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Blade Runner Consumerism

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Blade Runner Consumerism
Blade Runner
Blade Runner illustrates the hunger of mankind to defy the boundaries of humane principle and concepts of the natural environment. The film ironically depicts the genetically engineered replicants with more humanity and emotions than biological humans themselves. Blade Runner filmed in 1982 at a time of consumerism, flux of migration and global de-stabilisation, discontent and mutiny was a prime problem in society. Scott further ellaborates this idea of a sociocultural world, whereby lack of responsibility has resulted in the economic rationalism and consumerism phenomena. It is a monstrous, malformed world filled with fires and acid rain, constructed with dehumanised, sterile buildings. Habitants of the streets appear to lack …show more content…
The fragile relationship between emotion and technology is displayed through the characterisation within ‘Blade Runner’. Roy Batty – the artificial being of technology is in fact ‘more human than human’ against the society that produced him. As Roy accepts his approaching death he releases a white dove, contrasting heavily with black setting, when into the first blue sky seen in the film which is symbolic of the connection and purity to the spirit that lifts Roy to the status of a human being with a soul. It is evident that he acknowledges himself as a sad product of technological curiosity. In an act of emotional superiority, the technologically made Roy saves Deckard, the maker or personification of society. This biblical allusion brings forth the vague and unclear distinction of boundaries between artificial and real emotions, reinforcing this is the partial stigma of Roy as he sacrifices himself for humanity and feels the pains of life. Ultimately, in a society where corporate greed has become the dictator and figure of power, it is the humanoids and their bond with animals that exemplify humane qualities traditionally associated with human …show more content…
2005, The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science Fiction Classic (pp.213-225)
Casmir, F.L. 1994 Building Communication Theories: A Socio/Cultural Approach (pp.131-159)
Desser, D. 1985, Blade Runner: Science Fiction and Transcendence, Literature/Film Quarterly 13, (pp.172-9)

Littlejohn, S.W. & Foss, K.A. 2008, Theories of Human Communication, 9th Edition

McGarry, M. 2008, Norbert Wiener 's Cybernetic Theory and Parental Control, viewed 29 August 2012, http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Papers/App_Papers/McGarry.htm

Ryan, D.C. 2007, Dreams of Postmodernism and Thoughts of Mortality: A Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Retrospective of Blade Runner, viewed 30 August 2012, http://sensesofcinema.com/2007/feature-articles/blade-runner/

Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J.H., & Jackson, D.D. 1967, Some tentative axioms of communication. In Pragmatics of human communication: A study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes (pp.48-71)

Wiener, N. 1954, Cybernetics in History. In The human use of human beings: Cybernetics and society
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