Blog #3

Clarissa RamosFilm 301

The films of 1960s to the 1980s’ era supported the ideals of leaving technology and returning to nature. The films were concentrated on how the advancement in technology has created chaos and social anxiety versus benefitting and helping society advance. This links to the ideals of conservative because conservative beliefs are based on confining to the known and not wanting to change to the unknown for fear of the outcome. This is the opposite for the radical ideologies, which challenge the results of technology. One film made during this era that portrays both the conservative and liberal ideologies is Planet of the Apes. The complete human and ape role reversal would be the issue for conservative ideology because it is not natural for humans to be submissive to apes and the radical issue would be the idea that apes actually controlled the world.

The paradoxical relationship between conservatism and modernity is that conservatism must comply and adapt with the evolution of society. Conservatism concerns itself with the foundations of society so those core issues will not be drastically changed or diverted from, for example the idea of family will always be present in society no matter what cultural or technological advancements occur.

Deckard’s true status remains undetermined because “Blade Runner” allows the audience to decide whether Deckard is either a human or replicant. There is much ambiguity as far as Deckards true status. References have “suggested” whether he was a replicant or a human, but there are various clues that are misleading and do not prove his status either way. Roy Baty’s character, as well as the other replicants in the film challenge the boundaries between human and replicant because replicants were “not just physically and intellectually superior to humans; in the dehumanised world that Blade Runner presents, replicants were ‘more human than human’” (Bukatman 77). Therefore, it was difficult to determine whether or not replicants were human because it was near impossible to distinguish between the two.