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Dystopia in the Science Fiction Film: Blade Runner and Adorno's Critique of Modern Society

  • Received : 2012.06.12
  • Accepted : 2012.09.20
  • Published : 2012.09.28
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Abstract

Science fiction films touch coming-future themes, particularly those referring specifically to futuristic technology and its influence over human life. Dealing with the resistance of the replicants in the approaching millennium, Blade Runner brings the feat of modern civilization into doubt through the image of the dystopian future. In Blade Runner, a city is filled with waste, pollution, and dirt and a corrosive rain falls from the polluted clouds. Adorno criticizes contemporary society and its civilization. Characterizing advanced capitalist society by its total administration penetrating into every sphere of life, he contends that modern society promotes alienation, atomization, conformism, and fatalism. Blade Runner provides a chance to contemplate the problems of modern society, proposed by Adorno's critical works. Therefore, this paper attempts to analyze futuristic characteristics described in the film with Adorno's critique of modern society.

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References

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