All good points!

Something I’d never really picked up on or forgotten was the fading value of natural female fertility in the film. Thanks! I’ll look out for that more on re-watch.

Like I said, I don’t disagree.

I’ll reply with is the part of my previous comment you didn’t quote (and rant from there I suppose):

In the end I think two things can (edit: both) be true here. 1) the film itself isn’t misogynistic and the portrayal of women in it is part of a bigger dystopian theme, and 2) the use of female characters for that kind of story just doesn’t cut it for some/enough women anymore who, without demanding “girl boss” characters, would prefer either direct stories about female oppression or portrayals the lean into more fruitful or interesting ideas and themes.

IE, I think a woman (or anyone else sensitive to such to this issue) can see all of what you point out and fairly conclude that they don’t need to like the film or feel like they’re missing anything by forgetting about it. While there’s dystopia all around, the focus and the depiction of the main characters is pretty gendered. I don’t think you’re really arguing otherwise. And I think it’s fair for someone to conclude that they don’t get anything out of that. That they already know all about the lack of agency of housewives or pleasure bots or the centrality of women’s fertility to their social value … because they live it, and are busy handling it IRL and this film isn’t really helping anything.

I think Blade Runner 2049 is a deeply, deeply feminist film. It doesn’t shy away from depictions of female objectification/ownership/subordination/violence - they are important for telling its story and getting across its themes - but it sure as hell doesn’t endorse them either.

It may very well be. Has Villeneuve or anyone else spoken about this??

But I think it’s worth asking what makes a good feminist film. Simply having the suffering of women as a gender in the film as a theme or plot point etc arguably doesn’t cut it. The general angle I’m pushing here (without having really thought about this question at all) is that today there arguably needs to be something useful for feminism today in the film, and that I’m not sure it’s there in BR-2049.

You point out the various female characters around K driving his story. I noticed that too, but in the end, for me (long time since I’ve seen it) it didn’t feel like women were playing the game. It felt like Wallace was powerful, Deckard was important and K was “us”, the protagonist we relate to and see the world through. The woman were either bosses, attack dogs, agency-less loving partners (Joi), prostitutes, or indelibly special creatures in need of protection (Rachael/Deckard’s daughter). The freedom movement and their leader is probably a notable exception but I’m not sure it really gets much screen time.

So it’s dystopian but men are still at the center and women still suffering the usual things … for what?

To compare, I’m thinking of the Earthsea series (by Le Guin … if you haven’t read it and like fantasy at all I recommend it). Its feminism famously gets on the nose toward the end (though it ends well IMO), but the second book, Tombs of Atuan is a wonderful metaphor of womanhood told through the character of a young priestess that, IMO, does a good job at getting at how the roles people/women are forced to play traps them in labyrinths they don’t or struggle to understand and that are darker than they can realise. I personally found it subtly haunting.

Also, just randomly here, Ripley in Alien & Aliens. Many would say she’s an early “girl boss” character (but done right/well), but something you forget about her time in the films is how much everyone basically flatly ignores her until shit goes bad and she has to save herself (and the cat or adopted daughter). Even if you’re oblivious to feminist issues, you feel and see it in those films … a woman who knows what she’s talking about being ignored by men who think they know better with horrible results.

The Shining (Kubrick), where Wendy is totally keeping that family together (notice how she’s the only one every doing maintenance work) and tolerating a child beater husband (in one release there’s a scene that makes it clear that Jack had previously hit the child) and his career to the point of being trapped alone in the cold wilderness with a murderous husband because that’s who he’s always been (what a metaphor for domestic abuse). Again we get a depiction of something real today but elevated with horror in a way that highlights not what women suffer (Wendy and Danny survive in the end) but what trap they’re in and how they don’t see it coming or even understand it, but, you know, really should if they want to live.

With BR-2049, I feel like it’s kinda just dystopia and the whole slaughtered women, prostitutes and hot loving-AI just have to be there to fill out the world. The video about Joi linked above was definitely interesting (like I said), but I don’t think it reverses anything I’m saying here … if anything its point was that even men are now living more like housewives than they used to (at least middle-class and lower millennial men) and so nothing really fruitful about feminism right?

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All that being said … great post! I like the film! I’m not sure it’s deeply feminist though. I think it’s got feminism in there within its dystopia, but I’m not sure that’s a high bar and I think it bears the mark of being done by men (who probably think they’re feminist).

Is it a good feminist film for men to digest? Maybe?!