Blade Runner: A Proverb's Proverb

“But one cannot be in a vacuum.

We express our being by creating.

Creativity is a necessary sequel to being.”

-Rollo May, The Courage to Create

            The interaction of human reason and emotion makes creativity and creative acts an inevitable phenomenon.  Creativity is a mechanism utilized by humanity to make sense of their existence, to develop an authentic order out of disorder and chaos.  These creations have the capacity to reflect the internal human experience, to reflect “the uncreated conscience of the race” (Joyce). 

            The dystopian Blade Runner introduces us to a world where Nexus 6 Replicants, a human-developed android, have advanced to an unprecedented level of technological innovation: being “more human than human.”  Before their introduction, the viewer develops the expectation that the “skin-jobs” will be robotic Neanderthals embedded with survival instincts, sharing the human form rather than the human experience.  It is the gradual refutation of this expectation that forms the crux of the issue tackled by the film: what does it mean to be human?

            Tyrell Corporation’s creations present a caricature of the internal human experience.  Roy Batty and company wear their hearts on their sleeves, while we have trouble deciphering the motivations behind the presumably human characters.  We are introduced to Batty’s struggle against impending death through a focused shot of him struggling to unclench his fist, gasping the words “time enough.”  Deckard, on the other hand, (pun unintended, although recognized) seems to be reluctantly drawn into his duties as a Blade Runner by Captain Bryant.  What is troubling about the juxtaposition between the human and Replicant forms is the role reversal that happens throughout the film: the Replicants test the humanity of the humans.

Rachel, a Replicant unwittingly masquerading as a human, immediately probes Deckard with a test of empathy, simultaneously bringing into question the human mode of distinguishing Replicants: “have you ever retired a human by mistake?”  Later she explicitly brings into question Deckard’s humanity and the effectiveness of the void comp when asking “have you ever taken the test yourself?”  Furthermore, it seems on key that Leon Kowalski enacts his escape by shooting an agent who is delivering a void comp test (delivering the Freudian line “Let me tell you about my mother”) and that Batty seems to test Tyrell, proceeding to gouge his eyes in an Oedipal manner. 

While Pablo Picasso didn’t expect to be murdered by Guernica when he said, “every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction,” it perhaps would have been morbidly appropriate advice for Tyrell.  On the same note, while Oedipus kills his father and then marries his mother, Roy Batty kills his creator and marries/claims a reformed sense humanity.  The motif of eyes as a window into the soul manifests in the idea of the void comp tests, and ties the idea of the film together in Batty’s quote:

“If you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes…”

The Replicants take over the role of judge, jury, and executioner.  Through the bestowment of human qualities by their human creators, they judge the human qualities of their creators.  While it certainly brings into discussion specific aspects of humanity, the film takes on a more focused proverbial duty as a form of meta-art.  Our artistic creations are displays of realism depicting true human action in fictional and non-fictional genres.  They are created as close to human as humanly possible, which in turn aims to teach us about typical, recurrent situations and social phenomena (Burke).  They bring into question our actions and often imply a command for change, just as the Replicants challenge their human creators.

In essence, Blade Runner is a proverb on proverbs.