Commerce And Culture In Blade Runner By Ridley Scott

A tech-noir science fiction film is defined by Google as a dark-movie expressing a specific type of cinematography while incorporating the elements that define science fiction such as advance technology and time. Ridley Scott’s timeless film, Blade Runner, is considered the pioneer for these types of films. Starring acclaimed actor Harrison Ford, his character, Deckard, comes out of retirement forcibly to complete one final job: “retiring” four escaped Replicants who made their way on Earth in order to prevent their untimely death. Business and society are intertwined in the film, with an emphasis on the Replicants to be “more human than human” (Blade Runner).

Blade Runner released in 1982, during the second year of President Ronald Reagan’s first term. Reagan, a conservative Republican, successfully lobbied to enact supply-side economics that lowered taxes for the upper middle class and the wealthy in order to have a flow of money “trickle-down” to the lower middle class and those in poverty to boost economic growth; a theory best known as “Trickle-down Reganomics. ” President Reagan also proposed to slash massive funding for entitlement programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and cutting funding for environmental programs, which he deemed unnecessary and did not align with traditional Republican beliefs. Blade Runner takes place in Los Angeles in 2019 and the film still depicts the United States as a capitalist society, but the power on Earth resides with white businessmen elitists. The film depicts the writers’ vision on how they believed the United States would end up as if all of the economic policies of Reagan transpired enacted: a very small number of people would hold all of the power and wealth in the country while the middle and poor class become left off for the worse. The potential for environmental destruction was also depicted throughout the film, as industrial pollution drove Los Angeles into an environmental disaster, with the city being shown as extremely run down and dirty. Additionally, the effect on the environment caused irreversible damage; so consequential that many types of animals went extinct, most notably the common owl, which comes to light during a conversation when Deckard notices an owl flying and asks a woman to confirm that the owl is indeed artificial, which she does, and Deckard remarks “must be expensive”.

Blade Runner’s setting, Los Angeles 2019, appears as a complete 180-different look than present-day L. A. Earth has become a desolate, dystopian society as many people have migrated to the “Off-World colonies, ” which are advertised and marketed as “a new life awaits you in the off-world colonies, a chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure” (Blade Runner). The height of commerce and power are only obtainable by those who have the opportunity to go to the Off-World colonies. The people stuck in a run-down Earth include the poor, the useless, and a small number of elitist (Tyrell), who stay there to exert power. Los Angeles’ society is heavily dominated by the Asian culture, shown as Gaff speaks a dialect of Chinese, and many street vendors are run by Asians who sell their culture (Deckard's introduction in the movie starts with him waiting for noodles at a street vendor). However, the largest chain link between business and society lies at the Tyrell Corporation, the entity responsible for creating Replicants. Tyrell, owner of the aforementioned conglomerate, prides himself with his work with the motto, “more human than human”. Tyrell also states that “Commerce is our Rahul Dutt Commerce & Culture Section 004 Professor Menna October 7, 2018 goal here at Tyrell” (Blade Runner), indicating that any hiccups or missteps by the Replicants on the off-world colonies do not matter to him, as he had already received the payment for the purchase.

The Replicants created by Tyrell are vastly superior than humans; their intelligence and physical strength outweigh even the smartest and strongest humans. However, this seemingly lucrative business model became disrupted when a group of Replicants slaughtered their human overloads after their fail-safe of having a four-year lifespan did not prevent certain Replicants from developing conflicting emotions, leading them to incite a bloody massacre. Naturally, the citizens on Earth had their emotions running wildly, paranoid for their safety and passed a law before the events of the film outlawing Replicants on Earth, creating the position of the Blade Runner. Tyrell’s greed and lack of empathy for the destruction his creations perpetrate in causes himself becoming the primary reason for Los Angeles' irreversible forsaken state.

By creating Replicants who surpass humans in every way, to the point that they become far superior than humans, Tyrell essentially caused the beginning of the destruction of jobs for the people at the bottom of the class structure. His action of replacing humans with artificial beings that are more productive and efficient, render lower-class humans nearly completely irrelevant. This conquest by Tyrell to replace humans with artificial beings who are smarter and stronger is eerily reminiscent of today’s job market, allowing this decades-old film to draw contemporary connections. In today’s workforce, increasing tensions between employees and technology have risen because robots and artificial intelligence threaten to make many humans’ roles obsolete, especially in factories and other manufacturing settings. However, these changes in modern-day society do not just affect blue-collar workers, they also pose great threats to white-Rahul Dutt Commerce & Culture Section 004 Professor Menna October 7, 2018 collar workers. In the Finance industry, the rise in artificial intelligence development threatens to lessen the need for human interaction, especially in roles such as trading. Although trading has generally always been associated with images of a person yelling at a stockbroker from across the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, modern advancements in computer technology threatens to severely limit the need for humans. Computers have the capability of obtaining programming fitted with algorithms that will execute trades based on a certain set of criteria, often outpacing human gains because computers need just milliseconds to detect price discrepancies or opportunities in the market, which humans would take far longer to detect, if at all. Collectively, these changes affect America’s middle-class and lower-class workers, threatening to cut their jobs similar to those in Blade Runner. The perspective that Replicants pose a dire threat directly affects Deckard’s perspective of his surroundings. Deckard understands what his position as a Blade Runner entitles him to do: hunt down Replicants and retire them, and that he is considered the savior of their society. Deckard dislikes the killing portion of his job which causes him to retire before long. Before the events of the film, Deckard was closed-minded about Replicants, but the events during the film shows him the light, per se. Deckard becomes much more fluid and is quoted as saying, “Replicants are like any other machine, they are either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit it's not my problem” (Blade Runner).

Deckard’s interaction with Rachel, an experimental Replicant created by Tyrell, further expands his perspective on Replicants. Rachel’s difference from previous Replicants arises from that she received the memories of Tyrell’s niece, giving her an “emotional cushion” in order to better control her emotions. This “emotional cushion” also provides Rachel with a sense of belonging that she is a human. Deckard expresses his bewilderment by saying “Suspect? How can it know what that is?” (Blade Runner) when Tyrell informs him that she is “beginning to suspect” (Blade Runner) she is a Replicant after Deckard administers the Voight-Kampff test. While a normal test would usually last around 20 to 30 questions, it took Deckard over 100 questions in order to come to the conclusion that she is a Replicant, a conclusion that he himself did not have faith in. Deckard’s reaction causes himself to reevaluate how he perceives the world around him and takes control of consciously looking at things and events as he chooses. As with most fictional dystopias, Blade Runner attempts to provide its audience with a unique perspective on how global events might be shaped due to a particular cause or event facing society at that time.

One of the main events America faced during the movie’s release developed over the issue of economics, with President Ronald Reagan proposing drastic measures to counteract the work of his Democratic predecessor, Jimmy Carter, who thrust the economy into a poor shape. With Reagan’s proposals heavily favoring the upper-class with the intent (or hope) that the success of the upper-class would boost lower classes, society worried what would happen if wealth in America ends up concentrated in the hands of a few people at the top; a fear that Blade Runner channeled and depicted the long-term results of. Its depiction of how big business, namely the Tyrell Corporation, had such a significant effect on society, and individuals such as Deckard, whose lives endure the consequences of that business, reiterate just how intertwined business and economy are with society.