Blade Runner and the Right to Life

Eli Park SORENSEN

doi:10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111

@article{ART002045339},
author={Eli Park SORENSEN },
title={Blade Runner and the Right to Life},
journal={탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities},
issn={2092-6081},
year={2015},
volume={8},
number={3},
pages={111-129},
doi={10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111}

TY - JOUR
AU - Eli Park SORENSEN
TI - Blade Runner and the Right to Life
JO - 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities
PY - 2015
VL - 8
IS - 3
PB - Ewha Institute for the Humanities: EIH
SP - 111
EP - 129
SN - 2092-6081
AB - This article takes a closer look at the notions of “human” and “rights” in connection with a discussion of the first volume of Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality, and the film Blade Runner. Foucault develops a series of arguments about what he describes as “The ‘right’ to life, to one’s body, to health, to happiness, to the satisfactions of needs, and beyond all the oppressions or ‘alienations,’ the ‘right’ to rediscover what one is and all that one can be.” This right to life is likewise one of the main themes in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Blade Runner, which tells the story of a group of replicants — or human-like robots — returning to earth in search of more life. On earth, however, they are outlawed, and most of the film’s plot essentially consists of Deckard, the main character, hunting down and killing the replicants. In my article, I argue that Blade Runner is a film that explores what one could call the culmination of biopower, the imagination of a life whose absolute perfection at the same time becomes the expression of absolute monstrosity, i.e. a threat to life that legitimizes the death penalty. Questioning and discussing the notions of “human” and “rights” in a sci-fi context, Blade Runner develops some of the implications of Foucault’s ideas about “an animal whose politics places his existence as a living being in question.”
KW - Foucault;Ridley Scott;Blade Runner;biopolitics;replicant;death penalty
DO - 10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111
ER -

Eli Park SORENSEN . (2015). Blade Runner and the Right to Life. 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities, 8(3), 111-129.

Eli Park SORENSEN . 2015, "Blade Runner and the Right to Life", 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities, vol.8, no.3 pp.111-129. Available from: doi:10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111

Eli Park SORENSEN "Blade Runner and the Right to Life" 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities 8.3 pp.111-129 (2015) : 111.

Eli Park SORENSEN . Blade Runner and the Right to Life. 2015; 8(3), 111-129. Available from: doi:10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111

Eli Park SORENSEN . "Blade Runner and the Right to Life" 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities 8, no.3 (2015) : 111-129.doi: 10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111

Eli Park SORENSEN . Blade Runner and the Right to Life. 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities, 8(3), 111-129. doi: 10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111

Eli Park SORENSEN . Blade Runner and the Right to Life. 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities. 2015; 8(3) 111-129. doi: 10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111

Eli Park SORENSEN . Blade Runner and the Right to Life. 2015; 8(3), 111-129. Available from: doi:10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111

Eli Park SORENSEN . "Blade Runner and the Right to Life" 탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities 8, no.3 (2015) : 111-129.doi: 10.22901/trans.2015.8.3.111

KJC Korea
Journal Central

Statistics

Tools

Sharing

Issue List

Citation status