Cyberpunk Bodies

Meat Puppets/Robopaths
Fosters article disscusses the effects of cyberpunk idenitiy on society from either the "meat puppet" standpoint or a "robopath" perspective. The article is mostly based on a view of how cyberpunk bodies seem to affect "feminist, gay/lesbian, African American and postcolonial" bodies. Foster points out the differences between the mind, body, and machine. Foster then critiques other texts from Gibson to Haraway, mostly just summarizing their texts to support this idea of a "redefinition of embodiment." Foster uses many different examples to prove his point that embodiment has been changed by the idea of the cyberpunk, while at the same time discussing that a person cannot truly forget who they are (particularly for white male critics for some reason) a 'boy or girl.'

Blade Runner
Is a story about Deckard a retired blade runner (cop) who is brought back to "retire" some replicants that are on the loose on Earth. The replicants are humanoids that are illegal on Earth because of a war they had with humans. They only live for four years and are looking to increase how long they have to live. It takes place in LA in 2019, talk about a seriously un-environmentally friendly city. Deckard begins to look for these replicants meeting Rachel, a replicant who doesn't know she is one working for the man that created the replicants Tyrell, who says Rachel is "more human than human" and she eventually save Deckard from being killed by a replicant. The last male replicant Roy, kills Tyrell and Sebastian when he discovers that Tyrell will not help him live past the four year mark. Deckard ends up killing Roy's replicant girlfriend Pris, then dukes it out with him in the old apt building. In the end Roy dies after saving Deckard and Deckard runs away with Rachel.
Definitions

Cyberpunk - Fast-paced science fiction involving futuristic computer-based societies.
Meat Puppet - a person trapped in their own organic body, can also mean prostitute
Robopath - a person who believes they are a robot in an organic body
commodification - treatment of the body as a commodity (in cyberpunk definitions)
hardwired - To determine or put into effect by physiological or neurological mechanisms; make automatic or innate

Questions/Comments
1.) What was the significance of the unicorns in the movie?
2.) Is Deckard a replicant?
3.) Why are all animals robots? Is it related to the crazy amount of smog in the city?
4.) Why have women's bodies always been considered post modern?
5.) What exactly is an illegible human? And how can you be "more human than human"?
6.) What is with the concern about these cyberbodies when Foster points out himself that this is all fiction?

For being a futuristic film, I found the Polaroid picture pretty funny, same with the tiny windshield on the cop car, as well as him not wearing any gloves when touching evidence. After reading the Foster article, I really felt like I hadn't learned anything from him, but from the other authors, and the information would make more sense if you read it directly from them, not from summed up versions by Foster. Why does everything in this class go back to Freud in one way or another?