Women In Ridley Scott's Dictee And Blade Runner

Throughout the history of literature and film, women have been portrayed in endless ways. Women have been depicted as being helpless, ruthless, motherly, or weak among many others. The most common portrayal of women, in my opinion, is that we are either objects of desire or subservient to the more "superior" gender, that is, men. In Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Theresa Cha's Dictee, women are, indeed, portrayed in different ways. I want to compare the representation of women from both works of art. Ridley Scott's science fiction classic, Blade Runner, is a story that takes place in the future- 2019 to be exact. There are two things that struck me about this film, the first being that its style is very similar to that of film noir. In
film noir, such as The Maltese Falcon or Mildred Pierce, the mood is melancholy. The fashion, black and white photos, art-deco buildings, the use of voice-over, and even the cigarette holders are reminiscent of film noir. Moreover, women in film noir are portrayed as being helpless and meek, always in need of a strong, handsome hero to come in and "save the day," or as femme fatales-- sexy, strong, and deadly. Rachel, the replicant who doesn't know she is a cyborg and ends up killing Leon, is the perfect image of a femme fatale—from her dark hair, right down to her dark lipstick. While she is tough and hardened enough to survive the severe environments, she is also tender and vulnerable enough to express pain and grieve.
In Theresa Cha's Dictee, women are portrayed in a different light. This book is frustrating, confusing, and yet, enchanting, with poetry, riddles, photos of mothers and heroines. Dictee contains a multitude of women who embody cultural mythologies: the Nine Muses, Yu Guan Soon, St. Therese of Lisieux, and Joan of Arc. However, these figures exist only as fragments in the text, making their appearances through letters, confessions, and images. For example, the Nine Muses appear as sectional headers, but their constellation appears incomplete. Parts of St. Therese's confession is textually incorporated as diegesis. Joan of Arc appears as Maria Falconetti playing Carl Dreyer's vision of Joan of Arc. But rather than looking at the context or characters of the book in an attempt to come up with identifying how Cha might have represented women, I take the book as a whole to approach female representation. Discovering what is concealed within this chaos of a book can be seen as discovering the innermost thoughts a woman has. Just as it takes work to understand the book's essence, it takes just as much, if not more, work to understand a woman. The unconventional style of the book is unique, a style I have never seen before. But looking at the style of the book, the ambiguity of the words, the lack of proper grammar even, it is clearly constructed of many layers that must be peeled away before reaching the core of the meaning. It is subjective, complex, and delicate. Seeing as Dictee is a supposed autobiography, perhaps that's what Theresa was like.
While Blade Runner is a classic movie that has been lauded for many years and will continue to do so, Theresa Cha's representation of women hit the spot for me. Just like the book, a woman's mind is chaotic, filled with bits and pieces of different information, intricate, and not meant to be dissected and placed into a theory or formula of understanding. Despite the hard going of the actual reading of the text, in the end, I was able to see that Cha's method of portraying women is simply brilliant.