Swinging their hips

 

Shalom Harlow:

 

 

Yasmeen Ghauri:

 

Intellectual Cuties: No. 9 in a series: mathematics girl

I am pretty sure this is the same woman (talking about maths). She looks so much better to me in the second video. It’s the hair being up and her makeup. She also seems perkier in the second video. In any case, she is a worthy addition to my series of “intellectual cuties”.

 

 

 

Intellectual Cuties: No. 8 in a series: Daisy Cousens

Daisy Cousens is an Australian conservative and anti-feminist. She has a rather – distinctive – style of dressing.

Another Nineties Supermodel, Emma Sjoberg

 

The video directly above seems to be one of a series with music I quite like. I have posted similar videos of supermodel Nadège du Bospertus in the past.

Fembot in the workforce

“Luv is loyalty personified”:

The actress remarks that Luv, her character, doesn’t have to be somebody’s girlfriend or mother and she doesn’t have to look sexy. Maybe, but she puts a lot of effort into the latter. And, is she a strong independent woman? Not really. She is a kind of robot Girl Friday. She works for the top man, Niander Wallace.

” … executing violent orders with the sort of calm efficiency you’d expect from a bio-engineered humanoid designed for subservience … “ [my emphasis]

This Is the Actress Behind Blade Runner’s Terrifyingly Calm Villain, Luv

As I argued before, Rachael, an earlier female replicant from the original Blade Runner movie, left workplace employment by a powerful man, Tyrell, and became effectively a wife to the cop Deckard. In the latest movie we learn she had a daughter.

This new fembot or female replicant, Luv, doesn’t leave the corporation to follow K or “Joe”, the male protagonist. Instead she becomes the corporation’s most ruthless employee, and in the process she dies.

I am sure this movie and its meaning will be debated as heavily as the original. But, in my opinion, both the original and this new sequel can be read in a very non-feminist way.

[A point I forgot to make above was that it is mentioned that Wallace named Luv. And that he must have seen her as special. Naming is traditionally seen as a sign of authority. So Adam named Eve. There is an echo of this in the way wives typically receive their husbands’ surnames.]

She sounds like the perfect wife

” … executing violent orders with the sort of calm efficiency you’d expect from a bio-engineered humanoid designed for subservience … “

This Is the Actress Behind Blade Runner’s Terrifyingly Calm Villain, Luv

I am not entirely kidding.

“Luv is loyalty personified”:

 

Blade Runner reprised

We just saw Bladerunner 2049.

It helps obviously to have seen the first one, although the sequel makes more sense than the first film.

I think it’s a good film. But a cult film, with the usual long set pieces, some of which work, and some of which don’t.

There have been complaints about the character of Joi, the hero’s holographic girlfriend, but I got the impression that he renounced such “imaginary girlfriends” in the end.

One of the most interesting characters was a replicant (robot) villainess called Luv. By comparison, the most important female character was a little bland really.

I don’t think it was as good as the original movie, but it will, as they say, keep fans happy.

The iconic “Rachael” character makes a sort-of appearance. But not a very happy one. It’s interesting that the movie obsesses over her shiny red lipstick. Ridley Scott did too when he directed the original film. One addition to the canon is that supposedly Tyrell set up the meeting in the original movie between Deckard and Rachael precisely so that they would become a couple and have a child.

This is the recreated Rachael from the new film (it is such an irony that the original actress Sean Young is too old to play Rachael but technology has recreated her nonetheless):

I think it could have lost at least half an hour.

I would give it at least 7 out of 10. But it’s a bleak, violent movie and that would limit its appeal.

Three more points.

There is a theme of lying and deception throughout the film. The replicants may be more compliant but they are better liars.

Luv flirts with the male replicant/robot protagonist. In some ways this is the story of Deckard and Rachael again, but entirely negative.

The theory that Deckard himself is a replicant is strengthened but I am not sure it is quite conclusive.

Luv, the stylish replicant villainess:

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Luv, as people have noted, was the most interesting new character. It’s a shame that they killed her.

This is my old blog piece on the sexual politics of the first film. It has been heavily read.

Ex-Gay writer on films that valourise female virginity

 

Where the Boys Are: A Reevaluation

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As I have written before, the main (negative) achievement of the feminist revolution was to make men feel they could no longer have a reasonable expectation of marrying a virgin.

As I have also written before, one of the very few films to consider a woman’s virginity as significant, in recent years, was Metropolitan (1980), with the beloved character of Audrey Rouget. I have written about that movie extensively at this blog.

“needlessly sexualised fembots”

This is the second feminist, complaining review of the new Blade Runner movie:

Chances are you will wish you were dead: Blade Runner 2049 reviewed

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I take these negative, feminist reviews as signs that men will actually enjoy the film. One of the most-read posts I have ever written argues that the first movie was quite anti-feminist. I hope the new film continues that tradition – or at least – and this is a big hope these days – it is not actually feminist.

Hollywood’s female problem

Matt Forney has just reposted a review he did of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It is pretty negative. My more positive impressions are here.

My impression is that Hollywood doesn’t have much idea about how to create genuine, real, likeable, strong but feminine characters. I have written about this before, in respect of the character of Audrey Rouget. Forney writes:

“Most importantly, the only way Hollywood can create “strong” female characters is by depicting them as flawless Überfrauen with heavy flow. Gone is the subtlety and complexity of Kira Nerys, Audrey Horne, or even Rachael in Blade Runner. Hell, Princess Leia in the original films fits the bill. Carrie Fisher famously described Leia as a “distressing damsel” as opposed to a damsel in distress, but for all the barbs she traded with Luke and Han, she didn’t have ice water running in her veins.”

(I remember coming out of the theatre back in 1977 and telling my sister that I thought Princess Leia was cute. She had a bit of an air of Kate from The Taming of the Shrew – a woman with spirit who might be worth taming.)

Forney mentions Rachael. Rachael is that rarity, a genuinely feminine cinematic character. In my view, she acts like a real woman, ironically given her status as a “replicant”. I have analysed here the character of Rachael as fundamentally anti-feminist.