For my friends here in the SF, mostly, because I have cut off access i want to share something I personally find interesting, you might not. It’s some food for thought and a little bit of cinema meta.
When I first saw Bladerunner 2049, I hated it. I thought it was the most anti-feminist garbage I had ever seen. The original was notoriously misogynistic. I ranted and raved about it to anyone I coul because there was one scene, the one where the protaganist mourns the loss of his robot hologram girlfriend, Joi. The guy behind me in the threatre was crying and I sneered “She’s not even real! she’s a male fantasy!”
Now I have a changed opinion on Bladerunner 2049 (since you brought it up earlier Ben) It’s a hero tragedy, and it’s specifically written for men. But it also offers up a glimpse into the emotional core of men. It’s made me realize that women probably understand men more than men understand women.
K, has repressed his emotions to the point where he doesn’t know how to accept love from real people, he’s just as much of a supplicant as Joi is. Deep down he knows that what he is seeking is a genuine emotional connection but he doesn’t know how to feel that with a real person, even when a real women presents herself as an option (Decard’s daugther in the form of a Manic Pixie dream girl) His fantasy and Joi will never meet his emotional needs, but he’s too far gone to see that he has a way out. I don’t remember if the ending has him reject the hope of connection or take it, I didn’t really care at the time to remember, but I hope he did. Joi needed to die. and he needed to experience a symbolic death.
I saw a similar thing with Don’t Worry Darling. A tragedy of modern male culture is by disconnecting from emotional availability, men are becoming unloveable.
It’s like a weird genre of reverse psycology feminism.
I have grown to both love and hate the idea that “real” women portrayed in this movie are in a bubble and seem absolutely free of the horror of this world, so that they can actually keep the ‘spark’ of what makes the manic pixie dreamgirl ethereal. Because the alternative is these cold authoritarian types.
I certainly don’t “like” this movie, and I would never watch it again… but I get it. I wiuld like to karmically apologise to guy I sneered at who cried when Joi died, he’s probably gonna be okay, or rather, I hope he’s okay he deserves to be loved.