Blade Runner Chauvinism

The original Blade Runner and the remake share a bit of a Madonna-whore type chauvinistic relationship with women. Both protagonists, Deckard and K, have a prim and proper primary female counter, Rachel in the original and Joi in the sequel, and an illicit attraction to a smudge-makeup'd sex worker. Deckard's love is a replicant, and he thinks she's less human than he is because she's a replicant (Deckard doesn't know he's a replicant also). K's love is a computer simulation, K also thinks she's less human than he is (he knows he's a replicant, but she's just a program). Both women are written as a function of plot service, an attendant to the protagonist's story. Both women have a tragic outcome, and both are on behalf of the protagonist's story, not their own. Understandably, the second protagonist's search for his identity mirrors the first, and that search for identity is the foundation of compelling narrative, but that doesn't require that the romantic counterpart, and partner alongside the protagonist during his crisis, is emotionally, intellectually, and plot service-ly subservient to the protagonist. 

In the sequel, there are several female badasses. Lt. Joshi, Freysa and Love are all obviously characters with power, but they're written in such a way that their actions feel like they're in service to the protagonist's narrative, instead of driven from their own agency. Freysa has only a brief interaction with K, and much of it is expository, but ultimately tasks K with killing Deckard. This is almost reminiscent of mythologies of ancient honor cultures where a warlord's wife manipulates him to action because only men are characters of action. Joshi has much more screen time but every moment of her on screen is devoted to the story of K. He never walks into the office while she's finishing up a phone call, she never hints that there are other priorities in her life, even though she's the 'boss', it's all just about K. I think this is again more of a function of uninspired writing that isn't informed by a rich backstory, than it is due to a character attribute of her infatuation with him. Love is clearly not acting in service of K, but does act in the service of the plot... and in the service of Wallace. She's powerful beyond expectation, but still child-like in her petty jealousy. She's clearly not a woman with a lot of self-ownership. I think even if you were to ask the character Love, she would tell you that Wallace was her owner. Joi doesn't have a story of her own, but follows K like a factotum and helpfully gives encouragement and support. This is maybe the most forgivable subservience, as the character is literally a computer program written to make her owner feel good about himself. This leaves Mariette, the sex worker as the final female character. She actually does function on her own, and even rescues K after his first fight with Love. She reproaches Joi for her vapid nature, and has aligned herself with a political movement of rebellion against the status quo. So the most autonomous female character with the most self-ownership in the movie is a sex worker and a spy, who sleeps with men to get the opportunity to plant a tracking chip on them. Hmm.

In an interesting contrast between the two movies, Deckard forces himself upon Rachel starting with an unwanted kiss, but in the second movie, Joshi visit's K's apartment at night drunk and makes him uncomfortable with her sexual advances. Both movies include the unwanted sexual advances of a person in power over someone else, but the aggressor and victims of those advances don't share a symmetry between the movies. Female characters in both movies show fear and trepidation towards men, undoubtedly intentionally included in the movies to subtly characterize the setting as violent and misogynistic. The original Blade Runner doesn't show any hints of equality between the sexes. The inhabitants of the 2049 world see examples of empowered women, but the writers don't capitalize on many chances to explore deeper into any female characters and instead just write their dialogue to push the plot along efficiently. Mariette's best line in was her biting remark at Joi when she said "Quiet now. I've been inside you. Not so much there as you think". Just one or two more of those bits of dialogue would've gone a long way into developing the characters a lot further. Mariette, Joshi and Freysa are all characters that should have rich backstories. When Freysa is talking about holding Rachel's child, the moment was ripe for a quick line about her own history that would've ripped through us viewers. Missed chances.

Ultimately, I commend the producers and directors of 2049 for including so many strong female characters. I also think that the writers could've done a lot more to make them more relatable and compelling. I hope this movie stands the test of time, and remains relevant for generations, but just as the original includes sexual dynamics that aren't appropriate in the 21st century, I think maybe someday we'll look back on 2049 and regret how sexist it is also.