Totally wrong: those guys are CUTE!
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Still too cute to qualify.
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Very true. And Tiffany was the one Trumpspawn that Trump didn’t have to go outside the USA to acquire! The others are all from imported wives. Again we see an example of Trumps’ proclivity to offshore jobs (in this case, mating with him) that could be taken by Americans.
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Both tropes, about “lacking empathy,” and “replicants,” encourage violence against neurodivergent people.
Just like that other trope, about the serial killer who wants to become a womon, encourages violence against trans womyn.
And other tropes encourage violence against black men.
And, while some people use it innocently, the alt-right uses “reptilians from alpha draconis” as a code to encourage violence against Jewish people.
I didn’t see Blade Runner in a long time (or read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) but I cannot remember that replicant or android was used as code for (or connected to) autistic persons.
Sometimes Often a sentence has no hidden agenda and I don’t believe we profit as society if popculture refereces are verboten. I am sorry if your experience is worse than mine, but in my environment no one uses Blade Runner to encourage violence.
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Roy Batty’s final act would seem to contradict… unless he knows that Deckard is a replicant, since they do help each other out.
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Reminds me of the Michele Bachman TIME cover - she was complaining they picked the photo from the photoshoot which made he look crazy; their response was she looked that crazy in all of them.
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Dart, so everything is offensive? May I go sit quietly in my room, or is that a microaggression against some group?
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It’s a pretty long leap from encouraging empathy to encouraging violence against those innately less disposed to it. Contradictory, even; violence and empathy are largely in opposition, psychologically.
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Or perhaps Roy came to the concept on his own.
He was extremely intelligent and introspective, after all.
It also took me ages to realize that possible truth about Deckard
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There are always groups of people asking if some other group of people are really people. That’s one of the themes of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (and, of course, of Blade Runner.) An extension of this, is an exploration of the idea that humans have always decided that some people aren’t human and therefore it is acceptable to commit acts of violence upon them. Neither Philip K. Dick nor Ridley Scott were arguing that this is an OK thing to do, but both were presenting a view into a society into which such a thing was happening. Your statements about the ways in which autistic and other non-neurotypical people are treated in society are certainly true, but to try to claim that a story with characters that share some stereotypical characteristic in common with such people is a cause of violence against them is, to put it mildly, a bit of a stretch.
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in a vat.
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Further evidence:
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Those said to “have empathy” can be just as violent as those said to “lack empathy” …
Hmmm. Batty’s dialogue with Deckard during the final fight may constitute an empathy test in its own right Aren’t you the good man?, etc.
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It’s a lot more nuanced in the book. The whole notion of a mood organ (completely omitted from the film) throws humanity’s claim on some unique emotional empathy into stark relief. Either we are machines, or we are effectively the product of our machines. What’s the difference?
ETA: Our “machines” don’t have to be sci-fi whatifs. They can be androids or drugs or utterly mundane coping mechanisms. Maybe my machine is having been taught how to use complicated silverware correctly. Maybe yours was, like, learning to negotiate with your siblings. I have no idea. But I do know we all have our machines.
EATA: I think that last one might have been directed more towards @MarjaE. I’ve been drinking, and came this close to losing a hundred bucks to some schmuck who didn’t even know where the cue ball goes after a scratch in 8-ball. Sorry!
It goes in the kitchen, and you have to shoot out of the kitchen. Banking back inwards is okay.
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Yeah, and Hitler loved puppies.
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Ugh. Worst elevator ride ever.
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It was an American vat. It’s HUUGE. All my kids deserve American vats. I don’t know about your kids, your kids are living in a hell-hole. It’s a war zone. That’s what Hillary wants for you. That’s why I call her Lying Hell Hillary, because she doesn’t say she wants your kids to live in a hell-hole fighting each other for rats but that’s what they’ll do. It’s the Mexicans who’ll fight them for the rats. I’m going to build a wall - we’ll keep out all the illegals, and all the rats. Rats aren’t U S Citizens! We can fight them. Anyway we need American vats, made right here in Pittsburgh Connecticut because it used to be steel mill country and now it’s a desert, that’s what 50 years of Democratic government has done for the country, so I’m the only one who can give you a plan to grow your kids in American-made vats. Trust me, they have no idea what kind of plan I have. It’ll be great. We’ll give the Mexicans their own vat so they can have their own kids and don’t need to come here. That’s the kind of guy I am.
[Edit: this is frighteningly easy to write.]
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