Last month, Scifi Squad posted a top ten list of scifi couples. The usual suspects show up there (Han and Leia from Star Wars), with a few modern additions (Zoe and Wash from Firefly and WALL-E and Eve from WALL-E). But then there’s #3: Rick and Rachael from Blade Runner.
I wasn’t aware that being a rapist made you one half of an awesome scifi couple. But maybe the Scifi Squad folks don’t remember the scene where Rick Deckard throws Rachael against the wall after she tries to leave, and then forces himself upon her (she cries in that scene, by the way) while terrifying her into telling him “she wants it.” It wasn’t hidden. The scene is pretty damned clear: at best, Deckard is an abusive son of a bitch; at worst, he’s the worst kind of rapist you’d expect to see in a Lifetime movie.
They’re reasoning?
Between filming two parts of his memorable Star Wars romance, Harrison Ford fell in love with a replicant. That’s the last thing you’d expect from the world-weary Rick Deckard, who specializes in terminating “skin jobs,” but the heart wants what the heart wants, and the cool, classic beauty of Rachael (Sean Young) sneaks through his defenses, until he’s doing everything within his power to keep her alive.
Did they see the same movie I did? He hardly does anything for Rachael. Yes, at the end of the movie he takes her away, but that’s the only moment where Deckard really does anything for her (rather than for himself). Throughout most of the movie he is either screwing with her mind (i.e. telling her she’s a replicant and that all her memories, which she thinks, at that point, are hers, are in fact fabrications), killing her kind, or forcing himself upon her. One shouldn’t forget that the world Deckard has come to know pretty much allows him to get away with doing whatever he wants to the so called “skin jobs.” I wonder if a little of that has rubbed off into the real world…
Two thumbs up for rapists, I suppose.
