Are we still equal?
Did the man who created Cyborg become a god?
Man, whole or individual, abstract or concrete?
Can man and Cyborg still stand together?
But what exactly is the difference between creating a Cyborg and a mother giving birth to a child?
Can the individuality of creation be recognized in both cases?
What is the difference?
When I Realize I Am My Mother's Child
The story of Blade Runner 2049 begins with the crate that K finds under the yellow wildflowers, which reveals an unprecedented fact - a replicant was pregnant, had become a mother, and had given birth to a child. From this point on, between the ice and mud-covered Los Angeles and the dusty, dead Las Vegas, K, the Company, and the Replicant Resistance, each side moves to begin the pursuit of their goals in this morally and ethically shaky world, as well as the ultimate question of identity - the question of "What is a human?"
To this question, the movie seems to give a hint of a possible answer - "Mother". This may seem different from the previous view of humanity or emotion as a criterion for judging human beings, but I will look at the literary metaphors of K, the replicants, and the movie itself to explain how the notion of "mother" could possibly be the answer to this question of identity.
One of the concepts I would like to introduce before I begin is Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto. In the Cyborg Manifesto, she imagines the Cyborg, as a combination of inorganic and organic matter, as a man-made product that combines technology with the human body, and the living with the non-living. The replicants in Blade Runner are cyborgs, conceived not from the flesh and blood of their mothers but from cold, mass-produced machines; the biological notion of a viscous, warm "mother" has been obliterated in mass production or, in the case of the replicants, never existed. Their births are not the result of natural evolution over a long period of time, but are the result of man-made, computerized calculations and programs - Haraway says, "It is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust. " -- and perhaps it is. At least, until Rachel's remains are discovered.
Let's start with the main character, K. At the end of the movie, K watches Deckard go forward to identify with his real daughter, lies down on the snow-covered steps, and slowly closes his eyes as flakes of snow fall on his cheeks, beard, and wounds -- the consensus of the viewer is that K, in this moment, completes his metamorphosis from replicant to human, and that he becomes a real person. At the same time, we don't forget where it all started - from the moment K discovered the bouquet of yellow wildflowers, from the moment he began to link his vague memories to the mysterious skeleton of a mother. This moment means that as K begins to suspect that he has a mother, that is, that he is a his mother’s child, he begins to grow up, to grow from being a replicant attached to a human being, to a human being himself: from being intensely dependent to being independent, which sounds exactly like the life stage of a human baby growing into an adult.
K's actions and journey throughout the story may be a metaphor for the process of human growth: at the beginning of a baby's life, he does not have a sense of self, and after slowly coming into contact with the world, his mother, friends, toys, and the gaze of others begin to make him feel like an independent human being; and in the first period of rebellion, he reinforces the notion of "I'm a human" by rebelling against the world; By the time he reaches adulthood, he is able to recognize himself as a "human being" without those “coordinates”. K's transformation is similar, from unconditional execution of orders to passive resistance to the female boss, and then gradually awakening through Joi’s encouragement and contact with Deckard, Anna, and the leader of the replicants. His final decision to save Deckard goes against both the orders of the company and the orders of the Replicant Leader - against the orders of the "coordinates" that used to be the means by which he recognized himself and established the significance of his own existence, and he transcends the boundaries of his established identity and follows his own independent choices. Once again, it all started with K's suspicion and belief that "I am my mother's child".
"I am my mother's child”, means that he is entitled to be born again into the world as a human being and not as a replicant (i.e. Cyborg), to re-understand his own existence, as if starting from a baby just out of the womb and growing back into a human being. This also meant that he did not have to be born as an adult with responsibilities and a job to do, as a normal replicant would be, but was "allowed" the space for self-exploration and growth, which sowed the seeds for his later rebellious, independent actions. Although the end of the story reveals that K is still just a member of the Replicants, it highlights the power of this belief and idea - it's not about blood or genes, just the concept of "mother" has the power to transform a Replicant.
In addition to K, who has already achieved self-growth, a replicant "mother" has even greater significance for the replicant community as a whole. While the Replicants see Rachel's pregnancy as a miracle, the human side of the LAPD sees it as a trigger for the world to descend into war, and the result of this conception, Rachel's daughter, will, one day become the leader of the Replicant Resistance. The question is, why is the replicant’s pregnancy seen as a miracle, and why is it the mysterious daughter of Rachel who will become the leader, rather than, say, a replicant with a wealth of experience, a love of her fellow man, and a much more superior physical prowess and battle strategy, like Roy in the first movie?
This is the proposition of non-human artifacts. For replicants, their central proposition is to rediscover meaning - I was created with a thoroughly human will, I was made for a purpose or a function, even my lifespan has been set, can I, then, transcend the purpose for which I was made? To be able to reset what individuals value? In order to find their independent meaning and identity, the method they use is to search for the replicant child, a living witness that can prove the existence of a replicant "mother".
The reason for the Replicant Resistance's reverence for Rachel's pregnancy and birth is not explicitly stated in the movie; at first viewers may see it as imagery of a primitive human fertility cult in contrast to the world of cyberpunk, or as akin to Wallace's expectations for the evolution of the Replicants, but this is not the case. Fertility cult in human civilization is, broadly speaking, the idea that all life is born as one thing, and that the same mechanism behind it bestows its energy. Women conceive, livestock reproduce, grain grows, and it is hoped that this mechanism will last forever; human fertility cult is in fact the worship of the function of all growth, and reverence for the determining force behind it.
The replicants, however, have a different reverence for the miracle of pregnancy; for them, the appearance of a mother and the birth of a child, though biological, are also truly symbolic. By assuming that a replicant can be born "naturally" rather than being assembled and manufactured by humans, the replicant begins to transcend its destiny as a human service, a complete appendage to the human race, and meaningless in itself. It could be argued that the replicants' quest for the miracle of pregnancy, for the child born from the mother's womb, is not, like Wallace's, a quest for evolution or self-propagation to expand the population, but rather a symbol, a signal to the replicants that they can be detached from the existing human society. My opinion is that, it even doesn't matter to the replicants whether any more replicants can conceive and have children afterward: all they want is the justification that comes with that only one signal, their announcement to the world of their independence.
The logic of why the mere presence of one mother is sufficient can be explained in a more intuitive way. A child, who has a father and a mother, who is born from the warmth of her mother's womb, who grows up from a wailing baby into an individual with emotions and thoughts, if she is not human, then who can be? Than, if the child thus brought up (that is, Anna) is an individual who can be called human (and human beings certainly do not have non-human relatives), then naturally the father and mother to whom she is related by blood, Deckard and Rachel, can together be among the group of human beings. Thus the appearance of a mother - just one mother, one pregnancy - means that the race is qualified as natural and independent.
The replicant mother, therefore, implies a self-consistent logic, meaning that the replicants can realize their own reproduction and cycle of life apart from human control, and can maintain their society and identity by being reproductively independent of the manufacturing process and the class that made it. The initial fetus born from the womb of a replicant, a mother's child, is the spiritual symbol of all this.
Finally, in terms of literary metaphor, the discussion of motherhood in Blade Runner 2049 puts motherhood and humanity on an equal footing, and thus relates to the question of what it means to be human. Motherhood at this level is no longer the individual Rachel for K, nor the "miracle of pregnancy" for the Replicant Resistance, but an abstract concept constructed by many characters and fragments. Whether it is Rachel, who actually becomes a mother, or Fraser, who helps Rachel give birth to the child, or Lt. Josh, the human woman who secretly helps and cares for K, they all play the role of mothers to some extent, protecting their “children”. The role and concept of "mother" becomes their common denominator across bloodlines and across the divide between human and replicant identities - a common denominator that implies that motherhood and maternity are not exclusively human, and that humanity will not be exclusively human. The movie answers that question of identity on this level: the light of motherhood is also the light of humanity; "What is human?" , they are all human.
In conclusion, for K, the existence of "mother" means "I am my mother's child", and it also means that he can be born again into the world as a human being rather than as a replicant, starting from a baby just out of the womb, and growing up to be a human being again. For the Replicants, the concept of "mother" implies the fact that the pregnant Replicant mother, as well as the child born in the womb, strips the Replicants of their Cyborg identity, returning them to the same identity as their human counterparts, the same identity as their Creator. Symbolized by Rachel's child, the Replicant is no longer a being far removed from human - in that warm womb, among the blood and flesh clinging to it, and in the wooden horse toy of early childhood memories, "It is now made of mud and can now dream of returning to dust."
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