Blade Runner is a beloved classic, but like many movies from the 1980s, it also has a major casual racism problem, particularly with one character.
Blade Runner is a beloved 1980s classic, but one character is also a clear sign of sci-fi's casual racism problem. Many films from the 1980s casually throw in elements that would absolutely not be acceptable today, whether it be homophobia, racism, or another form of bigotry. However, Blade Runner features one character that is egregious even by the standards of the 1980s.
Blade Runner is one of Ridley Scott's most popular movies, following Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard as he hunts down and kills human-like androids known as replicants. Blade Runner was initially only a modest success, but has gone on to spawn a huge franchise consisting of several director's cuts, the 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049, an anime series, and even a Blade Runner 2099 TV show.
Besides just his look, Gaff's actions could also be construed as resorting to tired racial stereotypes, as Gaff spent most of Blade Runner making origami unicorns and cranes. Although these Gaff issues were fixed for Edward James Olmos' cameo in Blade Runner 2049, the problematic depiction of Gaff was a big issue with the original film. Unfortunately, those problems were representative of sci-fi's history of casual racism as a whole.
How Blade Runner's Cyberpunk Aesthetic Is Based In Cultural Appropriation Sadly, Gaff's casual racism is a product of Blade Runner's entire world being based in cultural appropriation. This is made clear in the original Blade Runner, with the film's large geisha advertisement being one of the franchise's most iconic visuals.
Unfortunately, this is a problem prevalent throughout sci-fi. Firefly only features Chinese and American cultures, with every other superpower being destroyed by a massive war before the events of the series. The highly-controversial live-action Ghost in the Shell movie does something similar, keeping its Japanese aesthetic but whitewashing the main character.
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