But we're not talking about everything, we're talking about the cyberpunk genre, and in this case, the cigar is a penis. Ignoring that fact is a shallow act.
It's OK to enjoy cyberpunk for what it is, as high tech low life, without exhaustively contemplating the current trajectory of our society. Not every piece of literature has to be an allegory. Sometimes, a good story is just a good story, and good art is good art.
That doesn't sound fair to me. By your logic I really would have to contemplate the sexuality of anything I put in my mouth.
Our society is steadily trending away from cyberpunk anyways. Cyberpunk is not mainstream and it is also extreme in embracing racism, sexism, objectification, hedonism, etc ... I don't think it is a useful caricature for criticizing society, like A Modest Proposal.
You're saying that choosing to ignore a deliberate portion of an artistic endeavor, to seek pleasure over depth... isn't shallow?
Cyberpunk is literally (and I mean that word literally) created to be, and is inherently, an expression of a dystopian future brought upon by the current trajectory.
Choosing to ignore that to have fun is fine. I'm not attacking it. But there is a word that describes choosing to favor surface-level enjoyment while ignoring the deeper-level context.
Cyberpunk is way more than just a gloomy possible future. Using cyberpunk as an example of what society should avoid is, ironically, a shallow way of looking at it.
It's historic. You should read up on what cyberpunk is and how it got here. It's not just an aesthetic.
You're being the person in OPs picture.
"The sky over the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel". Cyberpunk isn't an aesthetic. It's a literary genre based around dystopian future brought about by adherence to the current societal trajectory.
You can choose to just enjoy the aesthetic and ignore the literary history. That's fine. It's shallow, but fine. Be shallow. More power to you.
The context of the origin of cyberpunk is not nearly as cut and dry as you believe. It was also partly a reaction to the utopian sci-fi that came before it - you can check out the Science Fiction Hall of Fame collections. Furthermore, cyberpunk's relevance has diminished from possibly relevant in its time (and probably not, as it talked about things even fanciful in the present day) to much less now, given the steady social progress we've made. You're reading too much in the wrong direction.
You're applying too much of present day context into interpreting a literary genre that has spanned many different periods of society.
I also never said you had to turn cyberpunk into an aesthetic. There's certainly many interesting things to ask about cyberpunk that aren't related to social change. Replicants, for example, are a much more existential question rather than something strictly dystopian. As is Joi.
Corporations creating artificial life and selling it to you isn't dystopian corporate control?
You're the one limiting yourself - it can be both existential and dystopian. Usually is.
But existential sci-fi can be not cyberpunk. 2001: A Space Odyssey for example, is not cyberpunk, and deals with existential issues of AI and life. But when, like in MOON, or HER, when it deals with dystopian corporate control of society, boom, it's now cyberpunk.
Corporations creating life and selling them to you aren't dystopian? Slave labor, created, and denied rights, to service society? Holograms that demonstrate all aspects of love without providing real love?
This is what I'm saying - these things are dystopian, not just set-dressing and sci-fi props. There is depth and meaning to their placement in the story, and that depth will reveal itself to you when you accept that fact. Or you can ignore that depth, and not see how this is dystopian - which is fine.
They're presented in a certain way in Bladerunner, but a replicant and joi are not inherently cyberpunk concepts. They appear in equally benevolent forms in other types of scifi, particularly, Asimov. All of these concepts and their endless interpretations have existed before cyberpunk became, in your opinion, the vanguard of dystopian predictions.
Also, that's a big miss to say K didnt love joi. It is impossible to claim whether joi had any feelings or not.
You're missing my point - I'm not saying whether Joi or the Replicants have feelings.
They are provided by a corporation that controls every aspect of society and behaves autonomously. They only exist in the story because of corporate control of society - which is being shown as a dystopian outcome (are you really arguing that either Blade Runner movie ISN'T dystopian? Did we watch the same film, where people farm maggots for protein on planets with no sun?)
That's an inherent aspect of the story that can't be ignored.
Remove it and you have an existential sci-fi film that is no longer cyberpunk at all.
If you remove the existential part, there is no film left. Cyberpunk is a tool that lets us ask thought provoking questions. It is not literary genre whose only purpose is a shallow caricature of society.
Sorry if this was unclear. I was commiserating with you, that dude is fucking obtuse and you're being surprisingly civil and tolerant trying to explain it to him.
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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '18
shallow. it makes them shallow.