Where Chaos Rules:
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Human Dignity
By Ezgi Yamener, Mete Doğu Kenar, Onat Deniz Savuran and Mert Akyol

Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott presents a future which is neither bright nor pleasant. This is a dystopic future that is frightening in many ways. Most of the services which were provided by humans are now provided by replicants. This transformation creates new problems for the society. The most prominent problem in Blade Runner is whether replicants should be considered human and have the same rights as them or whether they must be allowed to exist to the extent that corporations see fit. Replicants are represented as “non-humans” whose rationale for being is justified through their use in warfare and sexual servitude. The duty of blade runners is to “retire” them, a euphemistic form of “killing”. While, initially, some actions of the replicants appear nefarious to the viewer, a better inspection of the nature of these actions reveals that they are just like human beings discovering how to be, trying to defend themselves, to survive and to find a reason for their own existence. Indeed, the movie shows that replicants are as human as, well, humans. These replicants are treated as second-class citizens who do not have any control over their fate. Their life spans are limited to only four years, and they cannot choose the way they want to live their lives. Applying the film’s scenario to real life without any mediation would of course appear preposterous. However, even though the movie depicts a dystopian future, the concepts which it introduces can be applied to real world. Replicants can be seen as an allegory for migrants or immigrants. Therefore, instead of looking at them as replicants, one can look at them as foreign immigrants or a fellow citizen who supports a different ideology. It would still create a similar effect: is another human dangerous or even “deathworthy” just because we are alien to them or cannot control them? One might suggest that we should just allow a free space for replicants to figure out their own existence, i.e., we should just let them be. As seen in the movie, however, this can also interrupt the well-being of people living with them. Without a guiding hand, the process whereby replicants find a raison d’être may turn out violent since they are represented as being inclined to act without thinking about the consequences of their own actions. Thus, one must surely find a balanced way to ensure that these replicants, or whomever one metaphorically compares them to in our actual world, understand the world around them without hurting that world. One’s quest to preserve human dignity should not go through the violation or destruction of another’s. Blade Runner then invokes one to question what it means to be human. “Human” here should not be explicitly the race of humans as the movie implies that a sentient being who can feel, think and act like humans is worthy of being accepted as a human. The movie shows what can happen if such beings are not given the respect and dignity they are due.