Blade Runner’s Replicants are Human?
Thematically they are stand-ins for all lesser-than-human humans
I recently viewed a video on YouTube on the topic of Blade Runner, one of my favorite movies from the 1980s. Because of this and my appreciation for the more recent Blade Runner 2049, I was interested in what the reviewer had to say about what we got wrong about Replicants. His take was that people often miss what Replicants are—thinking that they are robots. The confusion, he stated, was made worse because they are not called Replicants in the original book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick. Thus, we may see the Replicants in the movie as being, for example, terminator-like, with a human look on the outside, but inside a robot skeleton.
The name Replicant was consciously chosen for the movie, the reviewer noted, to show that these beings’ bodies are exact duplicates of humans, and thus are essentially human. They are so human that it was difficult to detect them without a lengthy psychological test which, if successful, caused them to betray themselves in their response to the answers. The original movie opens with such a test as a Replicant shoots his interrogator after he is uncovered by the test.
I believe that Replicants can be regarded on two levels. For the first level, if they were in existence, there would be the debate as to whether they were actually alive, and as such, really a person. And if so, did they have human, personal rights? Part of that analysis would involve whether any real human biological material used to create them. If so, how much of that material within them would it take to count them as human? For example, most would say that putting a human liver into an animal would not be enough to give that animal human-level rights. If we gave that animal a human brain, that might change things.
However, taking it in the other direction, what if the Replicants really are simply complete replicas of humans, in that every aspect of their bodies was manufactured as an imitation of the original part? Does the mere fact that they look and act completely human, make them persons? Are they really even alive?
The question of whether a synthetic human deserves to have human rights was also explored in Star Trek: The Next Generation with the character Data. In the episode, “The Measure of a Man,” Data is put on trial to determine his status as a person or property. In his case, there was no doubt as to his completely synthetic makeup. He was an android through and through. The interesting, and I believe correct determination, was to assume he did have person rights. The judge did not know for sure if he was actually alive, but she believed that it was better to avoid the possibility of a grave injustice than not.
And this brings us to the second level of how we should view Replicants, thematically. Thematically, in the world of Blade Runner, Replicants are human persons who have been deemed by the culture as being less-than-human. They are the expendable soldiers in a useless war. They are the “pleasure models” used as prostitutes. An interesting aspect here is that these are beings with super-human capabilities in strength. Roy Batty, the renegade Replicant leader, even has intelligence matching his creator’s, Tyrell. Yet, they are considered sub-human in that they were created for specific roles and with short lifespans. They were not intended to live the life of a “normal” human being.
This brings to mind aspects of our own celebrity and sports-fueled culture. So often we only see the “super” aspects of celebrities. Their powers being some sort of talent, wealth and, of course, fame. Their lifespans as famous people are often quite short; we want them only for that they offer us and when they can no longer deliver, we discard them.
Replicant prostitutes can provide super-human satisfaction. We have those too. There’s the so-called sex workers amongst us, available both live and on video. They, in effect, come alive and do their thing when we want them, then we switch them off when we are done.
There’s also hints of the sub-sub-human class of Replicants as well in Blade Runner. We see these briefly in Sebastian’s apartment, which is filled with living toys for his amusement. Played by “little people” actors in the movie, we see them quivering in their seats when Roy Batty arrives on the scene. We wonder what may have happened to them after their owner was killed, not that anyone would have cared in that world. These, along with the throngs of people below in the streets pushing through the endless rain with only their neon umbrellas to protect them, represent the sub-human classes who have no power in our world. These are the persecuted minorities. Not simply minorities by skin color, but those persecuted because their belief systems counter the state religion of the ruling classes. They also represent the unborn, a class of humans in which we can now kill and discard with impunity in most places.
I summarized my stance in the comments of the YouTube video referenced at the beginning of this article. There, I stated:
“Replicants are human thematically. Throughout history and even today, humans have often decided that some classes of humans are not quite human; therefore, we are free to use them or kill them. We can enslave them, we can use them for sexual gratification, we can abort them.
Replicants are stand-ins for persecuted minorities, prostitutes, and the unborn. There is a truth there that resonates.”
This comment was removed within hours. Doubtless you can guess which class of humans mentioned was the reason for the comment’s removal.
It’s troubling to realize that our culture is nowhere near being morally superior as some think it is. We still do the same evil things as always. We use and abuse other human beings, and when they present a problem or an inconvenience, we can even kill a certain subset of them.
And, remember, in our world, there’s no debate about whether any of these classes of humans are biologically human. And even if we are not sure, isn’t it far better to avoid the possibility of a grave injustice—and treat them as if they are human persons?
Data’s judge was right.