Race Difference by Felix Schürmann

Fantastic Films and “Race”

Albeit every feature film is a fictional piece, there are qualitatively different levels of claiming to be fictional. In this regard the genres horror film, fantasy film, and science-fiction film – the so-called fantastic film – share an interesting characteristic: While they are more obviously notional on the narrative level than other genres, these films nearly always operate with the conventional cinematic techniques for constructing the impression of depicting reality on the formal level. Within this area of tension between turning away from and turning towards realism, the category “race” gets negotiated in fantastic films, among other things.

Interestingly, nearly all milestones of the genres within the spectrum of fantastic film are full of “racial” metaphors and allegories. To begin with a well-known example, the 1933 box office record King Kong is not least an expression of Western discourses on “race”. James Snead sums up his widely recognized analysis of King Kong and its follow-ups as follows: (Snead 1994: p. 35f.)

“The Kong trilogy remains a perhaps unequaled dissection of the various layers and strains of Western racial and sexual fantasy, and serves up a perhaps endless menu of contradictions, compromises, and subterfuges, all in service of what the films of the thirties did best: the glorification and mythification of archetypal white male and female types, and the canonization of their typically lopsided alliances.”

A new version of King Kong has recently been shot by Peter Jackson, one of the most prominent directors in fantastic film at present. Interestingly enough, Jackson initially earned his reputation with a Zombie film, Braindead (1992). This is interestingly therefore, that the Zombie film has its origins in a representation of “race issues”, too. The initial film for this genre, Night of the Living Dead (1968), confronts a black hero with a crowd of white enemies, wherein it makes hardly a difference between living and dead whites, male and female whites, or white families and police squads. In his seminal essay “White”, Richard Dyer analyzed Night of the Living Dead and its follow-ups in-depth and dwelt on “the explicitness of their political allegory” (Dyer 1988: p. 59). Basically, Dyer reads the film as a multi-layered metaphor for “white loss of control” (ibid. p. 63), be that in terms of control over the US or of control over the white body:

“’The fear of one’s own body, of how one controls it and relates to it’ and the fear of not being able to control other bodies, those bodies whose exploitation is so fundamental to capitalist economy, are both at the heart of whiteness. Never has this horror been more deliriously evoked than in these films of the Dead.” (ibid.)

In Braindead, Peter Jackson didn’t pluck up the racial allegories of Night of the Living Dead, but he strongly referred to King Kong in the opening sequence. There a monster got snatched by white adventurers on an island inhabited by black “savages”, and – likewise in King Kong – this island is depicted as a natural space without a history, whereas the urban space is populated solely by whites. “Race” is also a major explanatory category in Jackson’s biggest success so far, the triple-feature Lord of the Rings (2001-2003). In 2002, the British newspaper The Guardian published a poignant polemic on the films and the underlying novel, which got straight to the heart of the subject as follows:

“The Lord of the Rings is racist. It is soaked in the logic that race determines behaviour. Orcs are bred to be bad, they have no choice. The evil wizard Saruman even tells us that they are screwed-up elves. Elves made bad by a kind of devilish genetic modification programme. They deserve no mercy.

To cap it all, the races that Tolkien has put on the side of evil are then given a rag-bag of non-white characteristics that could have been copied straight from a BNP leaflet. Dark, slant-eyed, swarthy, broad-faced – it's amazing he doesn't go the whole hog and give them a natural sense of rhythm.” (Yatt 2002)

Science Fiction and the “Extraterrestrialization” of the Other

But out of wide and intriguing area of representations of “race” in fantastic films, I want to focus the science fiction genre, in particular two films of the science fiction boom in the 1980s, Blade Runner (1982) and Brother From Another Planet (1984). Among others, a major feature of science fiction stories is the presence of non-human creatures, these can be human-made “cybernetic organisms” (“cyborgs”, hybrid-beings constructed of organic and synthetic components, e.g. like in Metropolis/1927) or extraterrestrial “Aliens” (most-known example might be Alien/1979). Several film scholars read the cyborgs/Aliens in science fiction films as a metaphor for immigrants. Charles Ramírez Berg for example interprets that like the monsters in German expressionist films in the 1910s and 1920s (e.g. in Der Golem/1914 or Homunculus/1916) have been “projections of a socially unconscious dread of the Jew” (Berg 1989: 16), Aliens in science fiction films can be read as “symbols for immigrants” (Berg 1989: 4):

“As we know, since the days of silent cinema not just Hispanics but all ethnics have been dealt with in American movies mainly by stereotyping. Now an interesting distortion has occurred: Hispanics and other ethnics have become Creatures from Another Planet, Aliens that must be eliminated – either lovingly, or by returning them to their native environments (…) or violently, by destroying them.” (Berg 1989: p. 5)

Albeit I think Berg overestimates his point a bit, his analysis leads to the fruitful idea of an interpretation of the boom of the science fiction genre after World War 2 as a displacement of xenophobic fears out of the real-life sphere into outerspace – as an “extraterristrialization” of “the Other” –, with regard to the discrediting of explicitly xenophobic representations of immigration issues in Hollywood (e.g. like in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Cheat/1915) by the experience of the consequences of Nazi racism.

In this respect it is an interesting question why two films out of a further boom of the science fiction genre in the 1980s, Blade Runner and Brother From Another Planet, attack the borders that mark-off the difference between the humans and the cyborgs/Aliens. In both films, the cyborgs/Aliens are visually indistinguishable from humans – from white humans in Blade Runner, and from black humans in The Brother From Another Planet. For Blade Runner, Berg himself gathers from this fact that the film supports a quiet progressive claim:

“By seeing the Alien Other in human terms, it once again forces consideration of how the long-range aims of immigration reform in this country conflict with the nation’s cherished humanitarian ideals. True to one side of its generic roots, the film noir, in the end Blade Runner ruminates on the existentially inexplicable, raising more questions than its futuristic private investigator – or we as a society – are able to answer.” (Berg 1989: 14)

Blade Runner

It is part of the great reputation of Blade Runner that it allows a wide range of possible and plausible readings. For example, not only the replicant’s dilemma of deceasing in a few years – but not knowing exactly when –, but also the lifetime shortening disease of J. F. Sebastian could be read as a footnote on AIDS, what came up in the time when Blade Runner has been shot. Furthermore, there is also a wide religious imagery on the formal as well as on the narrative level: The head of the replicants, Roy Batty, leads them out of slavery like the prophet Moses did with the Jews, he spikes his hand like the hands Jesus Christ have been spiked, and in his dialogue with Tyrell, who lives in a Babel-like mega building and is represented as the big creator, he depicts himself as the lost son.

As I mentioned before, in respect to the topic “race” the cyborg characters are a key element for the analysis. As in other science fiction films not only but especially of the 1980s, the cyborgs in Blade Runner cannot be visually distinguished from humans. In James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), which obviously got strong impulses from Blade Runner, the human cyborg hunter Kyle Reese mentions: “They look human: sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot.” In Blade Runner, cyborg hunter Deckard makes a similar experience, the replicants are invisible. They embody the old racist fear of the blurring of visual “racial” boundaries. Deckard’s special ability is to make the boundaries visible again by identifying the replicants with the so-called “Voight-Kampff-Test”, which gets used to provoke emotions (allegedly) only humans can feel. In contrast with Charles Ramírez Berg, my argument is that the metaphorical imagery of Blade Runner in respect to “race” is reaching far beyond American migration issues and among others is also strongly referring to anti-Semitism.

The sharp contrast between the film noir-like hardboiledness of the human characters and the emotionalism of the replicants – especially of Roy Batty in the final sequences –, discredits the “Voight-Kampff-Test” as absurd. Not only that the German-sounding name of the test is evocative of the history of fascism (at least for American audiences), but also it is one of many hints in the film illustrating the brutality and arbitrariness of the rule. A lot of significant science fiction films project elements of fascism onto their imaginations of future social order, for example Metropolis (1927), Fahrenheit 451 (1966), A Clockwork Orange (1971) or Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). But in none of these films the references to anti-Semitism are as distinct as they are in Blade Runner. Besides the ominous “Voight-Kampff-Test” with its questions for origin, there are the Hebrew-originated names of the replicants Rachael and Zhora which evoke associations to the Nazi practices of identifying Jews.

In Fact, Deckard’s problem to identify an “invisible race” among whites is comparable with the problem of the “Aryan” characters of Jud Süß (1940), the most notorious anti-Semitic feature film shot in Nazi Germany. Both films use the conflict of identifying an “invisible race” for their major objective, what is to construct difference in the case of Jud Süß and to deconstruct difference in the case of Blade Runner. In Jud Süß it is the Jews and in Blade Runner it is the replicants, who are causing the film’s major conflict by leaving the place assigned to them and irrupt with an emancipatory intention into an urban sphere where they are not allowed to be. A further interesting similarity is the confusing inconclusiveness in both films when it comes to the intelligence of the “racial Other”. In Jud Süß, when the young “Aryan role model” Faber is frustrated and states: “We’ll never be as clever as the Jews”, his old counterpart Sturm answers encouraging: “The Jews aren’t clever. They are just more cunning.” A likewise woolly logic is expressed in the opening crawl of Blade Runner, which says replicants are “at least equal in intelligence” to humans. But while Blade Runner intensifies this insecurity and eventually leaves open if replicants are more intelligent than humans, as it doesn’t make a hundred per cent clear if Rachael is a replicant or if Deckard is a human, Jud Süß turns to highlight difference and lets the Jewish project fail at the end.


The Brother from Another Planet

Two years after Blade Runner premiered, another science fiction film with a strong and at first sight even more obvious racial metaphoric hit the cinemas: In John Sayles The Brother from Another Planet (1984) an Alien (the “Brother”), which is physically (nearly) identical with a black human, crash-lands in Harlem. Like many science fiction films of the 1980s, the whole story takes place in the urban space of a metropolis. The continuous symbolism of the film is announced right in the beginning, when the spaceship of the Alien is crashing just in front of an “immigration center”. Like Blade Runner, The Brother From Another Planet is full of references to the sphere of fantastic film (for example, a white computer gamer is compared with a Zombie) as well as to the sphere of religion (the “Brother” is able to heal by laying on of hands – machines as well as human bodies, what is also interestingly indeed). Furthermore, black heritage and identity is an omnipresent issue in the film, be that dialogues on slavery, the “Brother”’s visit of an exhibition on Afro-American history, or the characters representing different parts of black history in the US.

An important difference between these films is that Blade Runner uses the cyborg Other while The Brother From Another Planet works with the Alien Other, and that Blade Runner‘s characters are solely white, while The Brother From Another Planet works mainly with black characters. The latter features an Alien Other which is visually indistinguishable from the Black Other. But in contrast to Blade Runner and other science fiction films of the 1980s, the Alien is widely passive. The “Brother” gets treated by humans, he doesn’t make nearly no decisions by himself. Depicting different kinds of treatments, the film unfolds how the Other gets constructed in the American society. In particular the film highlights the attempts of black humans to integrate the “Brother” into their identity concepts. In The Brother From Another Planet, the major factor for the process of constructing the Other is inclusion, not exclusion. Even though a symbolic black community eventually drives away the white bounty hunters who are chasing the “Brother” (and, by the way, introduce themselves as “immigration officers” in the pub), the film unmistakably deals out criticism on black identity politics. Besides, the black pub patrons are not free from xenophobic fears, when they talk about Haitians and Polynesians.

However, the most astonishing element in this process seems to be that the construction of the Other doesn’t need no communication. While Blade Runner is negotiating “race” mainly within the sphere of the visual, The Brother From Another Planet centers the hearing-related sphere of communication. Because he can’t speak (at least the language of the humans), the communication between the “Brother” and the humans is limited and always single-edged. This one-sidedness works up to a derisive climax when it comes to the dialogues between the “Brother” and white characters. While communicating with black humans is very difficult for the “Brother”, communicating with white humans is nearly impossible. The white women who cares for the “Brother” as well as the lost students in the pub give endless monologues. Contrary to the black humans in the film, they even hardly recognize the one-sidedness of their communication. Like in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, for the Alien a real communication is only possible with a child. However, unlike in Steven Spielberg’s box office record, in this case “going home” is no way out for the Alien in the end. Rather it seems that the film is suggesting that there is no home for the Other.

Conclusion

Blade Runner and The Brother From Another Planet unfold and discredit the process of constructing difference. Following this objective, Blade Runner uses the cyborg Other while The Brother From Another Planet works with the Alien Other. Per definitionem, cyborgs are artificially constructed while Aliens are “naturally different”. Blade Runner questions the artificiality of the cyborg, and The Brother From Another Planet unfolds that “natural difference” is socially constructed. In this regard, both films break with the narrative tradition of science fiction film. A further major contradiction to the conventions of the genre is the ending in both films: The objective of classic science fiction narratives featuring heroes fighting against cyborgs/Aliens is no less than restoration. LeiLani Nishime notes that

“Within the generic logic of horror and science fiction, these Others must be expelled or destroyed to restore the status quo. It follows that films in these genres can also be read as simple expressions of racism or xenophobia as they seek to reinforce and solidify differences.” (Nishime 2005: p. 35)

However, in Blade Runner as well as in The Brother From Another Planet restoration is impossible in the end. In Blade Runner, Deckard has become the Other, while in The Brother From Another Planet the Alien Other has merged in the human Others. But even though both films let come true a lot of racist nightmares, they end not too optimistic: The hero gets confronted with a dangerous future without a perspective for home and identity.

Read more on this in Dirk Salowsky's article Excuse Me, Do You Match This Stereotype?