Max Headroom's "War"

I rarely review individual episodes of a series, but Max Headroom is so good that I did want to talk about one particular excellent episode: War. In this episode, the lead character Eddison Carter starts covering a terrorist group (the White Brigade) which is launching attacks on the lower-end parts of Eddison's city. In a stunning twist, however, the terrorist is being funded by network tv to provide "entertainment terrorism", in order to keep the ratings up for certain networks. "War" is an exceptional episode, even if I do detect a certain amount of traditional Brit anti-Irish bias here. The idea of the media literally funding terrorism, of terrorists using special effects demonstrations in place of actual terrorist demolitions, etc. is truly mindblowing. Obviously, there are parallels between the White Brigade and groups like Fox News, that provide the same sort of terrorist "media events", which later turn out to be nothing. I think Max Headroom could do a slightly better job of paralleling government and corporate interests, but that's no fault of Headroom. In fact it's a tribute to the series, one of the few sci-fi series that imagined the future would be even worse than it is now. So, friends, if you get a chance, check it out.

Max Headroom: Anti-Corporate Rabblerousing

I just finished watching the complete Max Headroom series over a period of three days. I can't believe how good the series was! Impeccable writing and cynicism that is nearly a match for Blake's 7 makes Max Headroom one of the best sci-fi series I have ever seen, perhaps the best. The cyberpunk elements of the series are of course great, but what is truly distinctive is how the series used the character of Max to both gain and yet subvert its own advertisers. The set design on the series is absolutely phenomenal, and Max has proved to be a far more reliable barometer of the future then series like STNG. Practically every prediction made in the series has come true in some sense, and some of its warnings about cyberterrorism seem particularly prescient in an era dominated by spin-controlled media who seek to shut down organizations like Wikileaks. I feel so greatful I've had the opportunity to watch this show. It's the only series I've seen that goes beyond Blake's 7 in its attacks on corporate and media manipulation of working class and middle class populations (of which I am a member). I hope to include future entries on Max Headroom, as well as on Firefly, which I have also just finished. Hopefully, some Outer Limits reviews will also be coming your way as well.

Note: I'm still hard at work on the Encylopedia project. Here's the Dialogue breakdown

Babylon 5 (full), original BSG (full), Firefly (full), Max Headroom (full), new BSG (all but the last season and one episode of the 3rd), Farscape (slightly less than half way), Outer Limits (a little more than halfway full), Doctor Who (about 30 episodes done), Twilight Zone (complete), STNG (complete), TOS (complete), Space 1999 (complete), DS9 (about 3 seasons worth), Earth 2 (fully recorded), Blake's 7 (fullly recorded)

Series I have access to that have not been dialogue recorded: UFO, Buck Rogers, Torchwood, Alien Nation, The Prisoner, Hyperdrive, Red Dwarf, Dollhouse (VOY and DS9 I have access to scripts)

Series I soon hope to purchase: Space Precinct and\or Stargate SG-1

As I've said before, I'm going through each series and recording dialogue that deals with political, social, economic, religious, or philosophical issues. Some series, like SG-1, I'd prefer not to watch, so if anyone wants to take those ones over, it'd be a blast. This dialogue recording process has gone relatively well, and I'm hoping to eventually add Stargate Atlantis, Enterprise, Earth Final Conflict, and Andromeda to it, though I don't know that I will tackle the Japanese series myself (not because they are bad, but just because I don't know Japanese culture well enough to comment on them intelligently). Lost In Space is another one I should perhaps tackle.

Why are Female Friendly Shows Being Cancelled/

I recently heard that Caprica, the BSG series targeted at female audiences, has been cancelled and is to be replaced with another Battlestar Galactica series, Blood and Chrome, about a "hotshot young pilot" Will Adama. Do we need any further evidence that the sci-fi channel is dumbing itself down even further than normal? How many times do we have to go through the "Top Gun" hotshot scenario before it gets old? It was entertaining in the BSG remake, but only because Starbuck was such a well conceived character. Clearly, this move is aimed at the testerone section of the public who wants more blood and battles.

This represents a continuing trend in sci-fi television to cancel shows that are either female friendly or portray complex female characters. I think that's one of the problems that Firefly (which I recently finished viewing) has had with the general audience. It made the mistake of viewing women as three dimensional human beings with complex personalities, personalities not reducible to stereotypes. Gina Torres's character (sorry, forgot the name), River, Caylee, and in particular, Inara, were superbly drawn, and therefore not appealing enough to men raised to simply view women as sex objects. This accomplishment was all the more remarkable considering that Inara's character was a Companion character, only the second starring sci-fi tv character to be a prostitute (Callie from the original BSG was the first). I think the real problem with the sci-fi genre as a whole right now is that it primarily read and watched by men, and is therefore targeted at the male, rather than female audience.

Will the new Battlestar Galactica be Remembered

I am closing in on the Fourth Season of the New Battlestar Galactica, and I am wondering what the long term impact of the series will be on televised science fiction. An article here argues that BSG still deals with relevant issues. I am a little less sure of that myself, to be honest. Terrorism, while a pressing political issue, has always varied in the amount of press coverage it received. It was "in" in the seventies and the 2000's. But will it be so forever? I think the new BSG broke new grounds in character development and provided some more radicalized political characters, such as Tom Zarek. But compared to Blake's 7 or Babylon 5, it wasn't particularly daring for its time period. Both Blakes 7 and Babylon 5 dealt with terrorists, and sympathized with them far more than BSG did. Both Blake and Captain Sherdian were in a sense terrorists themselves. I don't think that BSG is a genre shifting show in the way that the original Star Trek, Blake's 7, STNG, and Babylon 5 were. Worse, it did not stop the decay of the genre that has been occurring since the advent of reality television. Today, outside of Caprica and the new Doctor Who (and sundry spinoffs), there is very little in the way of good science fiction. Ten years ago, we had a nearly fully functional Sci-fi channel, that ran series like Farscape and the new Outer Limits (relatively decent), as well as Andromeda, which was at least decent for a few seasons. There was Firefly and Dark Angel and a host of inventive programs coming out in the wake of the digital revolution created by the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars franchises. Now, there's literally nothing out there. BSG wasn't the first of a new breed. I fear it may be television science fiction's swan song.

Space Precinct: Cop Shows in Space

So what is your guys opinions on space cop shows like Space Precinct, Star Cops, and Star Rangers. I am thinking of asking for Space Precinct for my birthday, as it looks like an interesting series, but some of its predecessors in the space cops genre do not impress me. There was a really good law show set in the future that aired ten years ago, and during the height of ER, there was Mercy Point, a space hospital show, but basically its very hard to find a market for these kinds of specialized series. It's too bad, though i'm not really one to encourage the Orwellian boot of law enforcement to migrate into space.

Original Outer Limits vs. Sequel: No contest

I just wanted to say how much I prefer the original Outer Limits to its sequel series. The original series had an alien every week, and always was full of interesting ideas. Politically, it was foreword looking and maintained one's interest in how the series would unfold. By contrast, the sequel series was full of crappy special effects and crappy story lines, often having to recycle from the old series just to come up with good plots. There were a few good episodes, including a quite moving Holocaust time travel story, but overall the series drowned in its own mediocrity. It is my hope that future television series do follow the original's example, not its inferior ripoff.

Tourist Attraction, Homoeroticism, and Latinos

I am currently watching the Outer Limits episode Tourist Attraction, from the original series. What struck me as very unusual about the episode is that there is a small scene, almost a throw-away, in which a Latino dictator critiques Ralph Meeker's adventurer character for his hypermasculinity, saying that among Latinos it is quite common for men to show physical affection without this being seen as a sign of homoerotic behaviour. I don't know if the episode is taking shots at homophobia or shots at Latinos, but either way its a pretty risky line to put into an early sixties TV series. As usual, the original Outer Limits proves itself to be ahead of its time.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the Gay Agenda

Well, this is more in the fantasy category, and this is obviously meant in a somewhat humorous fashion, but for all you flaming conservatives of the right, how dare you let your children watch that homoerotic masterpiece, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Only people with gaydar as dull as a coal-brown nose can miss the obvious subtexts of an "Island of Misfit Toys", an aspiring Elvish dentist kicked out of his community for being "different" . . . and less masculine, and a persecuted, socially marginalized red nosed reindeer. Your children are being perverted by the twisted lies of Satan! Rudolph will corrupt your children . . . first they will follow Santa Claus, next thing you know they'll be dancing to Adam Lambert, and checking out gay Christmas porn. Or, perhaps, just perhaps, they'll spend Christmas with their gay partner enjoying the wonders of Christ and the Christmas season. But OBVIOUSLY GAY PEOPLE CAN"T DO THAT! (ENDING) O.K. rant over. Seriously, I'm glad there's at least one LGBT-friendly Christmas tale out there. We need more.

Doctor Who, Pyramid of Mars and those Darn Egyptians

Doctor Who's racial politics often keeps me up late at night and Pyramid of Mars is no exception. A fourth doctor story, it is an exceptional tale involving mummy robots, ancient Egyptian gods, ancient astronauts, and the obligatory superstitious savages. The main savage in question, Namin, is a servant of the "one true god" Sutekh and gets killed off at the end of the first episode. I'm not sure, however, that the episode is being deliberately anti-Arabic, because the references in the episode seem to point directly at Egyptians specifically. Hinchcliffe era stories weren't afraid of stepping on people's toes . . . this is the era that brought us Talons of Weng-Chiang . . . but in this case, I think the offense while there, is probably unintentional. Still, Doctor Who usually does a better job of sending up British racial politics when its being ironic, as in Giant Robot or Day of the Daleks, than in its modern politically sanitized vision of the future.

Why I hate superheros

I hate superheroes. I hate them with a passion. In fact, it is my opinion that the whole super hero genre, as a genre, is leading to the collapse of any semblance of communitarian or even democratic values in contemporary America. Why do I believe this? Because of the cult of the ubermensch that surrounds superheroes today. These magical beings are to be worshiped, loved, never questioned, and generally obeyed (minus the good '86 revisionist trend). Superheroes are a genetic elite, who engage in vigilantism for the sole purpose of beating up some poor innocent street kid whose only crime is not being born with the superhero's elite genes. And, oh yeah, they're almost all white and even more male. If they're females, they have to have breasts that stick out into the stratosphere and be surprisingly easy to get into bed with. Does anyone see a problem with this? Sieg Heil, Superman, even if you were created by two Jewish kids from Brooklyn. We know what direction you're taking the world in.

Keywords: Nazis, Superman

Jennifer Government and sci-fi anti-capitalism

For those who are inclined to like anti-capitalist science fiction, you may enjoy Max Barry's novel Jennifer Government. The novel is an over-the-top (I mean completely) satire on consumerism and capitalism that is one of the few genuine anti-capitalist novels I've read in the last thirty years. That being said, the novel reads like an extended Hollywood treatment, so you wonder whether the author is really as anti-capitalist as the novel would make one believe. The novel does a good job of depicting corporate warfare in its most extreme forms and takes several effective shots at the libertarian movement, asking whether sometimes freedom isn't overemphasized in contemporary society. If nothing else, Jennifer Government is an interesting read. I suggest you check it out.

Depictions of Torture in Sci-Fi

I'm providing a link here to a ministry that psychologically tortured me about ten years ago. I am diagnosed with OCD (and now also with bipolar). The ministry locked me in a room for five hours and the staff screamed at me to repent of my OCD or be cursed by God forever. Finally, when they saw I would not relent, they let me go.

Science fiction, to me, has always done a rather bad job at depicting torture. That may be, in part, because some sci-fi people are sadomasochistic at their heart (perhaps myself included). They like to see their heroes battling people dressed up as Nazis, people wearing uniforms, people saluting Nazis, or not saluting Nazis and getting shot. Doctor Who and Babylon 5 have both tried to depict torture but only somewhat successfully. BSG does a better job at it, but I also think there is a definite anti-Islamic strain of sadomasochism running through that series as well, one that I am very uncomfortable with. I think, as sci-fi or near sci-fi treatments go, Clockwork Orange and V for Vendetta are two of the better treatments, particularly the book version of V, which fully teases out the moral implications of V's torturous actions, even if it does somewhat excuse them (for somewhat understandable reasons however). I think, though, the definitive treatment of torture in a near sci-fi setting is Closetland, with Alan Rickman. Check it out. You just may have trouble sleeping after.

Has anyone read Clans of the Alphane Moon?

For regular readers of the blog: Has anyone read Phillip K. Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moon? I'm thinking of using it for a literature and mental illness course, but I'm wondering if there's enough to talk about in the novel. Knowing Phillip K. Dick, I suspect that there is, but I wanted your take on it. Let me know.

Donnie Darko and Mental Illness

I think Donnie Darko is a rare sci-fi\horror film in that it does not trivialize mental illness or the suffering mentally ill people go through, but tries to understand what the experience of mental illness might be like for those suffering from it. It is never quite clear whether Donnie is himself mentally ill or the saviour figure he perceives himself to be. What is clear from the film is that the societal standards governing mental illness in the eighties (the time period in which the movie is set) are designed to create a joyocentric, self-absorbed society that does not truly care about how the mentally ill perceive things. Donnie Darko, as a film, contrasts the possibly schizophrenic Donnie, with his razor sharp analysis of hypocrisy, with the shallow eighties motivational speakers that dominate his school. In doing so, Donnie Darko remains the definitive cinematic statement against the Norman Vincent Peale school of "Positive Thinking", which currently dominates cognitive behavioral psychology. For that the producers of Donnie Darko have my gratitude.

Commercialism ruins sci-fi

In a spirit not in tune with the season, I want to say how much I detest the commercialization of sci-fi that occurs during the holidays. Transformer toys, Star Wars toys, mass productions of second rate science fiction novels, the obligatory big budget, not big idea sci-fi Christmas epic. It's enough to make one sick. What about the old days, when everyone was justly cynical about the spirit of the season, and we had our own genre "Imagines," rather than Mercy Me Christian Christmas songs. I want Tim Minchin kick ass anti-Christmas lyrics in my sci-fi, not a return to the early sixties, in which science fiction still did an occasional Christmas episode. It's enough that we commercialize the other 364 days of the year . . . do we really have to make Christmas day yet another effort in capitalist consumerism? Rant over.

Why is BSG's 3rd season so bad?

I've been watching the 3rd season of the new BSG in bits and pieces, and I have to say, it sucks. I've heard that the writers were forced by SCI-FI to write the series episodically in season 3, instead of with a story arc. I don't know if that's true (I suspect it is), but I know that the series loses a lot of its power after the first four or five episodes of season 3. There's still potential there, but I wonder if I'll be disappointed by season 4 (no spoilers, please!). I think season 3 of BSG is to season 5 of Babylon 5 what bad cheese is to bad yogurt (o.k., sucky analogy). And I can't keep track of all the people hopping in the sack with one another in season 3. It's a little offputting. I don't care about the sex, but even most highschoolers don't go through partners that quickly!

Disney and Sci-Fi\Fantasy

To me, Disney has a rather checkered record with science fiction and fantasy. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien hated Disney animation so much that they tried to forbid their books being adapted by these companies (Lewis failed posthumously, but Tolkien succeeded [also posthumously] through getting Ralph Bakashi to adapt the films). The Black Hole, Disney's main sci-fi film, had some great special effects, but it was a cheerless affair (one I am currently watching now). Sleeping Beauty had some great animation, but also contributed to gendered stereotypes of women. Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast were good in and of themselves, but not true fantasy or sci-fi as we understand it today. Perhaps my biggest problem with Disney adaptations, however, comes from Disney's atrocious handling of The Black Cauldron. The company butchered Lloyd Alexander's masterpiece, turning what should have been a sure-fire hit into a failure, one predicated on a combination of two books into one over-loaded plot. I fear that ultimately Tolkien and Lewis were right. No matter how well intentioned, Disney's additions to science fiction and fantasy have ultimately dumbed down the field.

New Sci Fi Novel: Francis Schaeffer, Galactic Warlord

Hey guys, just wanted you to know that when I was in the hospital I started plotting out a new novel featuring Francis Schaeffer as a sci-fi character. The novel's kind of a thought experiment, to see if I can write a convincingly interesting sci-fi novel that does not explicitly endorse my own pro-evolutionary views. Yes, I know, very hard, but worth a try anyway. I'll give you more details if the project makes it beyond the extensive planning I've already done for it.

Blog back online

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know I didn't cancel this blog. I was in the hospital the last week suffering from sleep deprivation, plus a condition that causes sleep deprivation. Hope you are well, and I'll have more to post later this week.

John

28 Days Later: Brutally Uncompromising

I think that 28 Days Later will remain the definitive zombie movie (and yes, they are zombies!). Why do I think this? Because only 28 Days Later, alone among the zombie movies of the last 40 years, is brutally uncompromising in its depiction of human agression and lack of compassion. It offers no hope for the future, no promise of a better world, and the redemption at the end, such as it is, seems but a temporary respite. Moreover, Jim and Selena, the leads, are characters that one can identify with, much more complex than the castoffs of the various zombie retreads of the last 30 years. 28 Days Later, to me, is a film that says life is hopeless, life is meaningless, and then asks you whether Jim's compassion for others is something still worth preserving, or a trait that will get him killed. Like the best British films, it is cynical about the human race in all the right ways, while never losing sight of the fact that we all belong to that race, for better or worse.

Even zombies.

Gynoids and Student Apathy

Almost every semester, I talk to my class about the concept of gynoids and virtual sexuality. I have, of course, for a long time known of the stereotyped female androids of Star Trek, and the subversively submissive androids of The Stepford Wives (how anyone could see Levin's work as anti-feminist is beyond me). But in the early 2000's, after I accepted evolutionary theory and many of the concepts of the transhumanist movement, I gradually grew nervous with the idea of virtual sexuality. I predicted, it turned out correctly, that virtual, and particularly online avatars of women, would be used for sexual exploitation. Other people's concerns at the time, quite correctly, were for the women being harmed by cyberstalking, avatar bullying, etc. My concern was more fundamental: what would happen when those virtual images, or their solid robotic counterparts, started taking on human emotions. Early in 2004, I expressed this in a story about a pedophile who abuses sentient robotic children, that the state will not protect (perhaps not the most original idea). I am of course, concerned for any A.I. that might be harmed in such a process, but I am also concerned about how such a process might lead us to objectify other human beings as well, treating them like gynoids rather than flesh and blood people.

My concern is that my students don't seem to even care about this phenomenon. Even when I mention extreme examples of this kind of sexual disregard for women, such as Japanese hentai games (Rapelay, for instance), it merely infuriates my students, who want unrestricted gaming freedom. I understand their frustration to a certain extent, as censorship is usually a bad thing. But if our Wild West of internet subjectivity has led us to create rape simulators, isn't it about time we calmed things down a little bit?

Mother Night

Though not technically sci-fi, Mother Night was written by sci-fi pioneer Kurt Vonnegut, and is therefore more than worth a look. Vonnegut skillfully interrogates the difference between performing an action and being the role you play. Howard Campbell Jr., the protagonist of the book, is a man who wishes to live only in a "nation of two", but ends up serving as a propaganda tool for the Nazis, while simultaenously being a spy for the Allies. I really suggest you check it out. The movie version, at least is great, and I'm looking forward to reading the book.

Wicked

Wicked is a novel I've been re-reading lately. While not sci-fi, its revisionism makes it worth mentioning on this blog. Basically, Wicked is a retelling of the Wizard of Oz, from the Witch's point of view. Many of the racist subtexts that Baum put in to the original novel are brought out by Wicked's author, Gregory Maguire. Basically, the novel is a meditation (God I hate that word) on the nature of evil. Maguire's Elphaba struggles to recconcile herself to various views of what evil is, none suiting her. Maguire quite perceptively points out the Ben Kenobi truism that "Evil is evil from a certain point of view" I don't know that I entirely agree with that truism (or agree with it at all), but Maguire offers an excellent analysis of how an entirely good person can be labeled, literally, a Wicked Witch, by her society. Wicked is at times a heartbreaking read, simply because you feel so much sympathy for the characters, particularly Elphie, yet you know how the story is going to end. I wish U.S. copyright laws were looser, as I hear that the Russians have already written several excellent revisionist fantasy novels about the Lord of the Rings. Anyone else know of any good revisionist fantasy or sci-fi?

Note: By the way, revisionist fantasy has nothing to do with revisionist Holocaust denial, for those who might be inclined to make that mistake. Two entirely seperate genres, the latter being worthless except for historical analysis.

Good sci-fi graphic novels, anyone?

Does anyone reading this have a knowledge of good science fiction graphic novels? I have included Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Captain Confederacy in a class I'm teaching this summer. It's too late to include any others, but I'd like to know of any others for future classes. The only other sci-fi one I really know about, that's any good anyway, is that X\Y chromosone series one, which looked like a hilarious sendup of gender politics. I felt really impressed by V for Vendetta, upon my second reading. What I really liked especially was it's homages to Peter Watkins's Privilege, a movie I have extolled to you before. Take care, guys, and I hope to have longer posts up later this week, it's just I'm working about 70 hours a week.

John

Francis Schaeffer and Adolf Hitler: A sci-fi couple made in heaven

Francis Schaeffer was a famous evangelical apologist, who was pretty much a failed art critic, while Hitler was a failed artist, who became a successful politician. I think the contrasting views of these men would make for great sci-fi, especially since Schaeffer is in many ways more similar than most evangelicals would like, to Hitler (he had intense political aspirations that went hand in hand with his religious ones). Tell me what you think though.

Could there ever be a good Creationist sci-fi novel, lol?

What do you guys think? Is good sci-fi dependent on the world being older than 6,000-60,000 years old. Does sci-fi, to be truly effective, need to have deep time. C.S. Lewis's works, particularly Perelandra, sometimes stray close to creationism, but ultimately draw back. Practically all Catholic sci-fi accepts the ancient Earth\evolutionary "hypothesis". The only evangelical sci-fi authors who are even halfway decent are Stephen Lawhead (who accepts the theory of relativity, but is silent on evolution), Kathy Tyers (who will occasionally use evolution in her secular works, though I don't know whether she believes in evolutionary theory), and Chris Walley (who as far as I know does accept evolutionary theory, and definitely accepts an ancient Earth). I think it would probably be easier for an Old Earth Creationist to accept an ancient Earth than a young Earther, but that's just my opinion. Tell me what you think.

Note: I'm not trying to keep harping on the Christian theme, I just haven't had time to watch real (i.e. secular or Catholic) sci-fi, but only read crappy evangelical imitations lately. Ah, such is life.

Charles Williams: Spirit in Bondage?

Just a continuation of my last post on De Sade. It seems to me that not only Williams, but also Lewis, were infected with a certain amount of sexual sadism in their writing. Spirits in Bondage may refer to many things other than Christianity. Lewis's letters to Arthur Greeves could be seen as a possible indicator of this, if we were actually sure Walter Hooper was giving us the complete letters of C.S. Lewis, unadulterated by editorial influence. I am reading Williams's All Hallow's Eve, and the note of sexual oppression in that novel is intense. I really need to stop reading Christian authors for a while, if for no other reason than it giving me a warped vision of contemporary sexual practices.

The Marquis De Sade and Science Fiction

You know it's strange, considering how sadistic some science fiction series are, but I don't know that De Sade has ever been adapted for the science fiction landscape. The one exception to this was the Gor series, a rather sexist seventies and eighties series that emphasized masculine domination and dominance hierarchies. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of De Sade's philosophy (though perhaps I should not say that, as I have only encountered him second-hand, not directly through his works), and if Gor is any indication, I probably would do well to stay away. On the other hand, the obvious sadomasochistic themes in books like Starship Troopers, Lord of the Rings, and pretty much everything Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis ever wrote, makes me wonder how much one can really keep out one's inner De Sade, especially men. On the other hand, I frankly feel watching DeSadian inspired films, such as Hostel and Salo, often dehumanizes people, even when, as in the case of Salo, the writers are politically, rather than sexually, motivated.

The Free Market and Science Fiction

Science fiction has a love affair with the free market, particularly libertarian sci-fi. One needs only read the numerous speeches (I'm tempted to say diatribes) of Johnny Rico's military instructors, to realize this (see Starship Troopers). The love of free markets can also be seen in Pournelle, Larry Niven, and other libertarian authors from the 70's and 80's, as well as the borderline sci-fi of Ayn Rand (Anthem and Atlas Shrugged). It is interesting therefore to note how the genre itself has become an increasingly monopolistic enterprise, with a small number of authors and publishers dominating the field. New blood is often hard to find, unlike in the fifties and sixties, thus slowing innovation, as older authors are preferred, even when their works have begun to lose relevance. Don't get me wrong, I like Asimov and Clarke as much as the other guy does, but I would like to see some more risk-taking being done in the science fiction genre. I'd also like to see more novels that avoid the socialist\libertarian binary for other scenario's, such as Ian Banks post-scarcity economic scenarios. But tell me what you think.

Demons and Science Fiction

One thing I really hate is the use of demons, devils, etc. in science fiction novels and films. I am a religious person, but I think the idea of a personal devil is poisonous nonsense that hurts people. Yet in popular TV programs like Charmed, movies like the Exorcism of Emily Rose, and even an occasional Doctor Who, features these figures. People do not realize that real people suffer exorcisms and are even killed, because of the belief in demons. In Africa, hundreds of children have been hunted down and slaughtered in Pentecostal-inspired witch hunts. Therefore, using demons in popular sci-fi, while not sacrilegious, only inspires certain extremist sects of Pentecostalism and other religions to go out and kill some more people. Or cleanse them of their anorexia (Mercy Ministries Australia), or expel demons through farting (Restoring the Foundations, I kid you not). I'm all for a mythological religion, but that might be taking things a bit too far.

"Kathy Tyers and the Eternal Mutant Super Jew"

If you want to read a pathological evangelical novel, I suggest you pick up Kathy Tyers's Firebird series, a truly scary piece of writing. In this "trilogy" of novels, a spacefaring race of allegorical Jews breaks up into two groups -Messianic, soon-to-be-Christian Jews (the Sentinels) and the Shuhr, evil secular Jews who abort "babies", conduct genetic engineering experiments and are generally very nasty telepaths (the whole Jew as telepath theme that we've talked about earlier). What is sad is that Tyers's seems to be unconscious of her racism and indeed in other works proudly proclaims herself to be an opponent of eugenics-based thinking. Yet, why is it always the non-Christian Jews that end up getting killed off in Christian novels? I realize premillenial dispensationalists may not be able to help this, but it's depressing none the less.

Keyword: politics, Tyers, politics and Tyers

Ray Bradbury, Madeleine L'Engle featured in Imaginarium Geographica?

If you haven't picked it up, I highly encourage you guys to check out the Imaginarium Geographica, which features Jules Verne, C.S. Lewis, H.G. Wells, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams as characters. I may be reading into things, but I'm pretty sure the authors of the series also wants to introduce Madeleine L'Engle, Ray Bradbury, and perhaps Lloyd Alexander as well. It's a highly entertaining romp that is surprisingly philosophical for a children's series, as well as an excellent pastiche.Take care! I'll try to post more sometime later this week. Sorry about there being no posts yesterday. I was getting an article ready for publication.

Inklings Fiction Call Out

Hey guys, I just wanted to send a call out to anyone who knows of fiction written about the Inklings. Note, about the Inklings, not by the Inklings. I am currently writing a paper on the Inklings (Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, etc.), so any recommendations would be most welcome. I hope to share the paper with you guys once I get it published. Like any former evangelical, I hope to eventually write a novel about the Inklings, albeit somewhat more critical than the standard evangelical text.

What sci-fi class would you like?

So, I've thought of a number of sci-fi classes to teach eventually, and I wanted to throw the reading lists by you guys:

Science Fiction and Religion: Dune, Case of Conscience, Speaker for the Dead, Canticle of Leibowitz, Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion

Science Fiction and Politics: Neuromancer, Dune, Dune Messiah, That Hideous Strength, Anthem, 1984, Clockwork Orange.

Dystopian Fiction: 1984, Clockwork Orange, After Dachau, Handmaid's Tale, Anthem, Children of Men.

What do you guys think of these lists? Obviously, they lean slightly in the religion direction and perhaps pay too much attention to fascism, a phenomena I have only begun studying again over the last 2 years (I did study it a lot in high school and undergraduate studies as well). I also have a great fondness for the Dune series as a political instruction tool, hence its (potential) overemphasis. Tell me what you think. I might post again on this topic later this week.

Note: Posts may be a little more infrequent for a while, as I am now working two jobs. I plan to continue running the blog though.

It's Alive and Abortion Politics

I recently watched the horror\sci-fi classic, It's Alive. Although I do think the film is somewhat overrated by sympathetic critics, I found much to recommend in it. In particular, I like how it brought up various takes on having children and then shocked you with how the film viewed those takes. For instance, the father in the picture, rather than being fiercely protective of the mutant child, wants it destroyed, a seeming parallel with the abortion debate, but later grows to love it, only for the government to destroy it. There's also a regrettably anti-birth control theme that connects birth control pills to environmental pollutants in a quite schlocky manner. As a film, It's Alive suffers somewhat from an overextension of the script. That being said, there's plenty of ideas to play with here, so I recommend it to any horror fan, especially of the Catholic persuasion (God, I can't believe I'm saying that). Just don't expect the movie to endorse easy pro-life\pro-choice positions.

Keywords: mutant baby, Catholic

Academics in Space

Relatively little television science fiction has dealt with the position of academics in the future. The one exception to this (here's a big surprise) is Babylon 5, which quite humorously took academic pretensions apart in its Season 4, when the academy was used to try to gain legitimacy for President Clark's fascistic regime. Later on, the series shows future academics, 100 years after Sherdian's death, tearing his reputation apart through historical analysis. I have mixed feelings about the latter event. JMS seems to believe in a vague class of people called "heroes" that are above the judgment of mere mortals. I, for one, would welcome such a historical deconstruction, as long as it doesn't lead to another future history (also shown by JMS), in which holograms were used to re-enact history, to the detriment of "fact"! Scary stuff, but since we don't have holodecks right now, not particularly convincing.
I would like to see something like "College 2101" or a show to that effect, but I don't think there'd be a huge audience for it. What do you think?

New Spielberg Science Fiction Series

Has anyone heard about this new Spielberg science fiction series, Falling Skies? It looks potentially intriguing, but I'm hesitant to give Spielberg my endorsement on anything. E.T. and Close Encounters were nauseating in their cuteness and coyness, as was much of his eighties output (of course his non-sci fi is great.). On the other hand, he did a very good job with A.I. I thought, so maybe he can bring another hip political sci-fi show onto the air. Lets hope so.

Baron Harkonnen as Pedophile

One of the most disturbing characters in all the sci-fi genre is Baron Harkonnen, Paul Atreides's nemesis in Dune. Harkonnen is one of the first clear depictions of a pedophile in science fiction history, which alone makes him unusual. The character is quite well drawn, but nevertheless I find it disturbing how easily Herbert seems to conflate pedophilia with homosexuality, as the Baron's ambigous sexuality seems to stay rather on the homoerotic side. This is particularly noteable in the Dune miniseries, which unlike the Lord of the Rings movies, does not try to hide problematic elements of the original text (for which I give it credit). Yet you would think an intelligent sci-fi author could have gotten beyond that canard, even by as early a date as 1964. Just goes to show you that a genre that promotes human rights has not always done so consistently.

The Year of the Sex Olympics

An interesting TV movie from the late sixties, Year of the Sex Olympics was in many ways a precursor to reality TV and its effects on television audiences. It is most notable for featuring Nigel Kneale, of Quatermass fame. Kneale was a confirmed antique, seeing society as being controlled by the "masses" who had no respect for art and culture, but instead were manipulated by media corporations and government officials. The movie's not nearly as risque as it sounds, but the idea in and of itself is hilarious and sustains the first third of the movie (which is about how far I've gotten). Definitely not for those who like the "Real Housewives of Orange County". It is noteable that Kneale was not the only person who expressed a prescience concerning reality TV. Peter Watkins's Privilege in many ways also predicted elements of reality TV that would later become standardized.

Space 1999 and Racial Diversity

Space 1999 is a show that is often forgotten by sci-fi fans. Initially hugely popular, the series soon fell off, mainly because of its reputation (justly earned) for poor science and poor scriptwriting ability (despite the presence of otherwise able writers like Johnny Byrne, of Keepers of Traken fame. And yea, I think that's a good episode. Prove me wrong!). One thing that was very notable about Space 1999 was the multiracial, multinational cast. There was an Anglo-Asian woman, two white Brits, two Anglo-Africans, and three white Americans in the cast. Although there were no Russians because of Cold War concerns, Space 1999, like Star Trek, generally had a more positive view of the Eastern Terror than was common among Western television writers of the time. And I think that in many ways Space 1999's depiction of race was more positive than Star Trek's. For instance, the two black characters were both clearly intellectuals, avoiding the kind of animalistic casting of blacks that Uhura occasionally seemed to represent (let me dance to a Swahili tune, Mr. Spock, and get your Vulcan sex organs in an uproar). Although Americans represented the senior staff at the base, there was definitely less of a gung-ho, conquest of space narrative in Space 1999 than there was in Star Trek. I think in many ways Space 1999 resembled Babylon 5 in depicting a racial harmony that was less forced and less influenced by PC American standards of multiculturalism than Star Trek. People got along, not by denying difference (as in Star Trek), but by acknowledging it. Coincidentally, Space 1999 had one of the most pro-alien narratives of any sci-fi series up to that point and deserves acclaim for that. Regrettably, in season two much of the diversity in the series was lost, as the show took on a more American tone, but Space 1999 still stands as a landmark in nuanced racial depictions in science fiction.

Gollum . . . mentally ill?

Note: A post from my other blog that I thought you might find interesting. Biblical counseling\nouthetics, by the way, is an evangelical form of therapy that among other things, argues that most mental illness is the result of sin.

I really wonder why there has to be a study about this. While professional therapists are debating Gollum's psychological deviancies, real life evangelicals are being exorcised by deliverance ministers and nouthetically confronted by biblical counselors. That being said, I don't really have a position on Gollum's mental illness or lack thereof. I think it's rather silly to apply psychotherapeutic techniques to a literary character. I do wonder, however, what the nouthetic diagnosis of Gollum would be? Doesn't bear thinking about.

C.S. Lewis, Phillip Pullman and Childhood Indoctrination

Hey guys: Just an entry from my other blog that I thought was very applicable to this one.

I'm working on a class I'm teaching for the winter, about Lewis and Tolkien. I've been rereading essays on both men's works, and one issue that occasionally comes up is the Phillip Pullman\C.S. Lewis debate. Now, I like both Pullman and Lewis, though I think Lewis is a slightly better writer (that may just be childish preference talking, however). But I am disturbed that both Lewis and Pullman saw fiction as a vehicle for proselytizing to kids. I contrast this with Tolkien and J.K. Rowling, who did not seem to have the same goal. Both Tolkien and Rowling believed in certain values and morals and fought for those, but they did not believe in using children as religious pawns, so the issue of belief vs. nonbelief was largely kept to the side. It is no coincidence, in my opinion, that Tolkien and Rowling are better sellers and favorites. They express universal truths that we can all believe in, while not forcing people to subscribe solely to the author's point of view (this is particularly true of Rowling). I think the continued popularity of Pullman and Lewis speaks to the continued marginalization of children in our culture, where they are used as little more than political weapons by one religious\non-religious group against another.

Mel Gibson and The Passion of Frodo

Imagine, for a moment, Mel Gibson directing Lord of the Rings. How would the movie differ? Well, according to Tolkien, the Dwarves were kind of the Jewish people in the Lord of the Rings. This presents a problem for Gibson, as the Dwarves are clearly among the good guys. So Gibson, I theorize, would blame a Dwarvish banking conspiracy for Frodo's withdrawal from Middle Earth. Perhaps Frodo would die in the Gibson version, a victim of Dwarvish machinations. It would be amusing, though hardly ethical, to see Gibson dressing the Dwarves in first century Jewish garb and giving the Dwarves Pinnochio-sized noses to prove how "evil" they are. But fortunately for those of us who still believe in ethics and morals, or just plain good taste, Mel Gibson is not planning on directing the Lord of the Rings.

Is Frodo Baggins a Holocaust Revisionist?

Mcsweeney's has a hilarious send up of both academic criticism and the Lord of the Rings. They have another send up of Return of the King in addition to their send up of Fellowship of the Rings. One of the questions that bears asking from their work, however, is whether Frodo and Bilbo are in fact post-de-facto Holocaust revisionists, trying to justify the orcicide of Mordor. I thought that idea, while hilarious, actually is pretty serious at the same time. Is Frodo Baggins a kind of David Irving, saying we "Only killed 500 orcs, not 500,000"? The problem is, Lord of the Rings, while never consciously racist, does have a strong undercurrent of unconscious racism going through its text, and that racism can not easily be denied. So, perhaps in the future, we should have a movie entitled "Judgment at Hobbiton", though unfortunately Spencer Tracy won't be able to star in it. So, I throw this out to you LOTR fans. Are you sure you're getting the real story about Mordor? We only have Frodo's word for it.

P.S. Supposedly Lord of the Rings is the Nazis favorite current reading material. Go figure.

OCD and science fiction's responsibility to the mentally ill

Budd recently brought up Orson Scott Card's novel Xenocide, which created a religious movement out of OCD. As someone who suffers from OCD, I have always been fascinated by Card's depiction in Xenocide. I think OCD is a deeply underused mental illness in science fiction, even more than the almost equally underused schizophrenia and bipolar. Phillip K. Dick, at least, portrayed the complexity of schizophrenics lives in unusual, tender terms. But OCD is even a more interesting mental illness, in sci-fi terms. What Xenocide pointed out is that OCD has some evolutionary benefits. For instance, my OCD gives me literally almost superhuman powers of concentration. I can read 300, 400 pages a day often, or work on a paper for 10 hours straight, and not be tired. I think contemporary science fiction too often emphasizes the victimized or maladaptive elements of mental illness, without realizing that mental illness is not necessarily maladaptive, if channeled in the right directions. Of course it causes problems. But so does one's sexual orientation and science fiction authors don't routinely demonize LGBT people (nor should they).
I think science fiction really needs to come to terms with its own history of psychophobia. Obviously, I am in part talking about Scientology. I don't think its any accident that it was science fiction that created the most deeply anti-mentally ill ideology of the last century. Science fiction, from its conception, has always emphasized the power of the ubermensch, and therefore neglected the hidden powers that undermensch populations can also have. Science fiction's history of ableism and racism is directly linked to its inability to divorce itself from the myth of the superhuman. But I'd really like to science fiction to link itself to the underdog for a change, not for the Paul Atreides's, Enders, and Supermans of the world. Science fiction, quite simply, owes mentally ill people for the crimes done in science fiction's names. And it's about time that mentally ill people collect.

On the Absence of the Orthodox from Science Fiction

I have yet to read a science fiction novel that deals with Greek or Russian Orthodoxy. Partly this may be because the Orthodox faith is more precarious than Western Christianity, and therefore less likely to survive into the future (after all, even Catholicism barely survives in the Hyperion series). But I think science fiction's lack of engagement with Orthodoxy, like its lack of engagement with Judaism, is because both of these faith traditions don't allow for the nice kind of fundamentalist\atheist, churchman\atheist simplifications common in depictions of Catholics and evangelicals. For instance, Orthodoxy, so far as I understand it, does not define so much what God is, as what He isn't, and therefore lacks the kind of juridical, judgmental nature of evangelicalism or Catholicism. Judaism, interestingly, emphasizes action over belief, and I think it therefore in many ways scares atheist writers who like to create nice binaries between religion and unbelief, binaries that are largely meaningless in the Jewish tradition. The smartest science fiction writers, like Dan Simmons, acknowledge the complexity of religious belief in these traditions, but the large absence of the Orthodox faith, and the lesser absence of Judaism, is a blind spot in contemporary science fiction that needs to be addressed

Charity in Science Fiction

Charity, in the form of debt-relief, medical clinics, etc. is very absent from television science fiction and the spirit of charity is also often quite absent. In TV sci-fi, the good guys are good because the programmers say they are good, or because they happen to rescue a planet of miners with their fancy laserblasters, but not because they are actually good people as a whole. Blake's 7, Firefly, and Farscape are much more realistic in this regard, as all three series show the "good" guys often rejecting charity for expediency, like people do in real life. I think the most moving acts of charity in TV sci-fi are probably Steven Franklin's repeated efforts to help the populace of Down Below. Babylon 5 is one of the few TV sci-fi shows to portray the full weight of poverty on a population, and Franklin represents the decent humanitarian impulse we wish we had. None of these programs, again with the exception of Babylon 5 and to a lesser extent BSG, come out in favor of the governmental palliatives we know are the only true solutions to poverty and want.

It Happened Here and Alternative History on Film

One of the most fascinating movies of the last four decades is It Happened Here , an alternative history set in a Britain which the Nazis successfully invaded. It Happened Here is significant in that the film does not pretend that the Brits would have acted particularly nobly under German occupation. The main character is in fact a collaborator, who is portrayed as no worse or better than the British partisans who are fighting the Nazi occupation. The movie was somewhat controversial when it came out, and some scenes had been removed until quite recently, because they were thought to encourage fascists.
Alternative history rarely appears on the silver screen. Watchmen, Fatherland, C.S.A., Death of a President (an alternate history in which George Bush was assassinated), and It Happened Here are the only cinematic alternative histories I know about. On television, Sliders portrayed alternative histories quite frequently, but not particularly persuasively. It Happened Here, along with C.S.A., remains the definitive classic of the genre, though Watchmen had its moments. But this genre is hugely underexploited and hopefully in the future Hollywood will see the potential for both entertainment and education in the alternative history style.

Afrofuturism

One course I would love to teach is on Afrofuturist science fiction. I am a big fan of African-American fiction, not because I'm trying to be politically correct, but because so much of African-American fiction is geared to people who grew up in religious, working class and lower middle class homes. Among Afrofuturists, I particularly like feminist Octavia Butler. Butler's works are some of the most radical in the science fiction genre. Even when she gets a little doctrinaire, as in Parable of the Sowers (kind of the Handmaid's Tale of Afrofuturism), her characters always have more complexity than those found in white feminists works, like Margaret Atwood. I also have Brother from Another Planet, the first Afrofuturist major film (so far the only one, though there were a couple of minor blacksploitation entries in the seventies), which is interesting but the sound quality makes it slightly hard to understand. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the classic of all Afrofuturist works, Black No More by George Schuyler. Black No More is a hilarious sendup of racism in which all blacks are turned into whites through a scientific process and a one of these new whites becomes a member of a KKK-like organization. Unbelievably, impossibly politically incorrect, especially in the racist thirties, Black No More is the ultimate in science fiction's exploration of race.

Science Fiction works I'm teaching this semester, any suggestions?

So, I wanted to talk about my reading lists for the next two semesters. This semester, my reading list includes Fight Club, Native Son, Galatea 2.2, Martin Eden, The Trial, The Sparrow, and The End of the Affair. Only Galatea 2.2 and the Sparrow are science fiction works. Galatea 2.2. is the most serious mainstream literary exploration of the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence, while The Sparrow talks about how religion will change in the face of first contact. Both works are quite good, particularly the former, but next semester, I'm seeking to have truly outrageous titles in my course. Right now, I plan to teach Clockwork Orange, Iron Dream, The Kindly Ones, My Holocaust, Black No More, Indian Killer, and Captain Confederacy. As you can see, quite a few of these works are sci-fi (Clockwork Orange, Black No More, Captain Confederacy, Iron Dream). I was wondering if you guys could think of any good works to include? I'm looking for works that will push buttons, that are in some cases (most actually) gratuitously offensive and un-p.c., as I believe these works are the best at promoting meaningful dialogue in class. For instance, My Holocaust is about the academic practice of competitive genocide, in which people fight over "most victimized" status. If you know of any works along those lines, please let me know.

The Holocaust and Contemporary Science Fiction

Contemporary science fiction, particularly television science fiction, does not often deal with the Holocaust, and when it does it does so in relatively allegorical terms. The most concrete references to it occur in "Genesis of the Daleks" and the 3rd and 4th seasons of Babylon 5, but both series ultimately shy away from the precipice. I think that for the genre to evolve, it has to be willing to take such portrayals to the hilt. For instance, a depiction of an interstellar Nazi state could be a major work of art, if done correctly, and a good cautionary tale as well. Some of the best depictions of the Holocaust have come from alternative history tales, such as The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H., Boys from Brazil, After Dachau, and Iron Dream. These are truly memorable portrayals of evil that deserve and demand a second reading. More complex visions of fascism, such as those offered in movies like The Believer and books like Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. Realizing that Nazism has a perverse fascination on us that is not always salutatory will go a long way to at least partially mitigating its evils. I hope that in the future, television sci-fi can have the courage to show the Shoah, in the hopes of creating a more productive dialogue about what might have been, had the Nazis won the war.

Category: Politics

Captain Confederacy

While perusing the web the other day, I came across this fascinating blog. It is an online reprint of a popular but highly (and I mean highly) controversial comic from the late eighties and early nineties, Captain Confederacy. Captain Confederacy tells the story of a world where there was an alternate Civil War, that the South Won. Now, the South is using superheroes to bolster up their propaganda campaigns, with the white superheroes always triumphing over the black ones. Eventually, Captain Confederacy resists, and gets involved in some serious miscegenation action with a black woman. The Southern forces of anti-racism eventually win and establish a more racially inclusive Confederacy.
As you can see, not for the faint of heart, and I can't say there weren't some parts that bothered me a little (and I have a very, very thick skin for such things.). But you got to admire a comic that so recklessly dispenses with both Southern stereotypes of blacks and Northern and minority stereotypes of Southerners. This comic sometimes seems to veer wildly from southern apologetics to daring anti-racist screed, often within the same issue (or even the same page). Whether you think it's racist or not, one thing is quite clear. The writers of Captain Confederacy had real guts, the kind of guts that got Norman Spinrad banned in Germany and Savoy publishers arrested in Britian. I'd rather have that kind of risk-taking than the intellectual conformism of the present, any day.

Category: diversity, multiculturalism

Bring the Jubilee

I am about halfway through one of the best alternative histories I've encountered so far, Bring the Jubilee. The novel portrays an alternate history in which the South won the civil war. Two elements of Bring the Jubilee make it exceptional: One is the philosophizing about time and free will. The novel delightfully explores the differences between predeterminism and free will, exploring the circular nature of time. The second aspect of the novel that makes it exciting is that it shows how a Union loss during the Civil War might have very well ended up creating a new form of slavery in the North using indentured servants. In many ways, Bring the Jubilee anticipates the daring anti-racist critiques of the recent film C.S.A. (itself an alternate history), but in a more science fiction, and less counterfactual manner. Bring the Jubilee also, unlike so much Civil War alternative fiction, does not subscribe to the cult of victimization that engulfs Southern narratives of alternative fiction. It's a great read, and I encourage you all to pick it up. I can't wait to finish it.

Aliens I: The Greatest TV Aliens Ever

For me, television science fiction has always been handicapped by its lack of inspiration in designing alien species. Part of this comes simply from budgeterary constraints. Its a lot easier to show knobbly headed humanoid aliens then anything truly unique. The Scarrans (pictured here) are among TV's best efforts at creating a truly unique looking alien. I think Babylon 5, Farscape, and Doctor Who (in both incarnations) have done the best at creating strange species, both from a psychological and biological perspective. Babylon 5 had the most detailed alien cultures of any show, particularly the Minbarri and Narn (admittedly humanoids). It also presented the wonderful Shadows, the first non-bipedal species to play a major role in a science fiction story arc. Farscape usually featured bipedal aliens, but wonderfully strange ones, like the Scarrans, Luxans, Hynerians, Pilots, etc. The cultures may not have exactly been detailed, but there was a wonderful sense of adventurousness in the design of these species. Star Trek has not been as successful, though there have been some wonderful species shown even in that series: the Horta and the Borg being both alien and well thought out. Doctor Who, however, is unique in its ability to create aliens that consistently defied the bipedal humanoid prejudice, even if they looked incredibly corny. The Daleks, for instance, though descended from a humanoid species, are one of the most startingly original creations in all of science fiction television.

Now what I would really like to see is Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's Moties on sci-fi TV. That would be something to see.

Glenn Beck and science fiction

Yes, Glenn Beck and science fiction. Despite the huge popularity of media celebrities like Beck, there has been relatively little attention paid in science fiction television and film to the possibilities of the Father Coughlins of the airwaves and broadband. Babylon 5's Dan Randall is probably as close as any of these shows have come to dealing with the cult of media worship that surrounded Beck, Limbaugh, Coughlin, etc. Making matters worse, these programs always show some safe CNN-like champion of bland liberalism replacing the conservative media of the right, a result that is both unlikely and seemingly not much better than the alternative. Partly, science fiction is cautious about its portrayal of the media because it is unsure what forms of mass media will be used to inflame the conservative masses of the future. Yet there is plenty of material to play with here. For instance, a talk radio host or a televangelist getting ahold of nanotechnology and using it to control his followers every thought and mood. Or a right wing rabble-rouser on the level of Tom Zarek, with or without the strong political critique that Zarek offers of centrist liberalism (preferably with a good right wing critique of liberalism, as oppossed to the cornball stuff Hollywood comes up with). So science fiction TV, you are on notice: We need some mass media personalities on our shows, if only to critique the mass media.

The Abuse of Exorcisms in new films

Well, with the new release of The Last Exorcism, and the continuing popularity of films like The Exorcism for Emily Rose, I thought it would be a good idea to caution science fiction producers not to follow the same path. These new films on exorcism clearly exploit mentally ill populations, which after all are the victims of exorcisms. The mentally ill often have no choice as to whether or not to get an exorcism, as the recent scandals concerning Mercy Ministries Australia testifies to. Exorcism is not some cool religious rite tailor-made for horror movies, but an abusive, denigrating religious practice, primarily aimed at the mentally ill. It has no place in any modern religion, still less as the subject for exploitative Hollywood films. Fortunately, to my knowledge, only Space 1999, among major sci-fi series, has had an exorcism in it, though that Scotty-murder episode in the original Star Trek got pretty darn close. Hopefully, science fiction television won't follow the examples of horror films.

Creation of the Humanoids

Creation of the Humanoids is an early sixties film, reputed to have been Andy Warhol's favorite picture (what a recommendation!). Really, though, this is a fascinating movie. Some of its speculations on A.I. were so advanced that it would take till A.I. (1998 or so), before Hollywood would again interrogate the issue of artificial intelligence so deftly. There is definitely a Phillip K. Dick-like fascination here with what separates man from machine. The movie also predicts that artificial intelligence will become the civil rights issue of the future, with the Order of Flesh and Blood violently oppressing the A.I. population. Some people have criticized the sets and special effects. Frankly, I love them myself, because they kind of remind me of that retro-future look so popular in the sixties. But please, check it out for yourself. It's a great movie that pulls no punches in its explorations of the boundaries between men and machines (and the film actually appears to side with the latter, to my great approval.).

O.B.I.T

I just finished watching a fascinating episode from the Outer Limits, entitled "O.B.I.T." In many ways, it is a precursor to The Prisoner. The episode portrays aliens, with the unwitting cooperation of the U.S. government, installing monitoring computers around the country, preying on everyone's secret thoughts and exposing them to government censorship. Powerfully, one military leader admits that O.B.I.T. monitoring is like an "addiction", a "drug", that is self-feeding and self-renewing. In many ways, O.B.I.T. serves as a cautionary tale of the dangers of government computer surveillance technology. This was a persistent problem in the sixties, with the government using the most advanced surveillance technologies of the time to get rid of white socialist and black power groups, such as the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers. The episode also serves as a warning on the dangers of Mcarthyism, still a sensitive issue in early sixties America.

Of Annoying New Age Priests and Sci-Fi

Nothing annoys me more than annoying New Agers spouting off meaningless dribble in sci-fi movies. Nothing against the New Age movement personally, but all this "come to union with yourself", "find your own spiritual power", "learn to evolve beyond hate" etc. rhetoric is just a little too much like the New Thought movement of the early 20th century. The more a character gets zen (or Zhaan), the more she\he is likely to make startlingly incomprehensible, utterly meaningless statements. Don't get me wrong, I think an examination of the belief systems from which New Age Thought came from, like Buddhism, are well worth exploring, but I have less use for their exploitative Western equivalents. So, lets have a little less Zhaan and a little more true Buddhist Zen, not its diluted New Age equivalent

The Gerstein Dilemna in Science Fiction and Real Life

The Gerstein Dilemna, as I've termed it, is the choice between saving millions by killing thousands, or doing nothing and walking away. I've given it that term in reference to SS officer Kurt Gerstein, an anti-Nazi who infiltrated the SS in World War II and subsequently tried to alert the world about the Holocaust and sabotage the Holocaust from within the SS. Gerstein is believed to have destroyed a number of gas shipments to the camps, but in order to destroy those shipments, he had to let others go through. Thus, in order to try to save hundreds of thousands, he had to kill tens of thousands. Few literary works have taken on Gerstein's life: The Deputy being the most prominent. But though science fiction has never dealt directly with Gerstein (to my knowledge) it frequently brings dilemmas like these up, because of the epic scale on which it is set. Unfortunately, sci-fi seldom shows its heroes making the hard choices, and when they make the hard choices, they are always spared the consequences. Rosselin considers genocide in BSG, in order to save the human race (killing milllions to save thousands, in that case) and Ender commits a "guiltless genocide" in Ender's Game, but neither of those examples are particularly encouraging. A true Gerstein-like scenario is needed in sci-fi, as a cautionary tale, if nothing else. Sometimes the only way to resist the enemy, is to fight the enemy within. In the process, you don't have clean hands. But then, in war, no one really does.

Sarah Jane Smith and Feminism\Anti-Feminism

Ah, yes, Sarah Jane Smith. A women still of impeccable beauty, played by Lis Sladen. An entrepreneurial reporter, one of the few women to truly pierce the doctor's shell. And a feminist?
Doctor Who fans tend to brag about Smith as being one of the early representations of feminism in science fiction television and to be fair she was an improvement on the bikini clad women of Buck Rogers, running at roughly the same time in America. But I don't see Sarah Jane Smith as necessarily much of an advance for feminism. Indeed, her feminism was used as the butt of several cruel (but admittedly, very funny!) jokes in the first season of the Tom Baker era. In one episode, Sarah shakes hand with a man and greets him as Director of a science facility, only to find out that she had sexistly assumed that the man ran the facility, when in reality his female companion had (see "Giant Robot"). That same female companion ended up being a dictatorial feminist on the path to scientific world conquest. In a second episode, Genesis of the Daleks, the Doctor cleverly uses Sarah's feminism against her to persuade her to climb down a tunnel to prove that women are equal to men. So, why such mixed messages? One man: Terrance Dicks. There isn't a Doctor Who episode in existence which hasn't had Mr. Dicks's poking some fun at the feminist movement. As much as I want to take this seriously and berate Mr. Dicks for the offense of political incorrectness, he's just so darn funny about it! So, Sarah's characterization may have been a relic of an earlier era, but thank God for that. We love Sarah Jane just as much anyway.

Battlestar Galactica and Mormon Population Genetics

I watched Glenn Beck today, mainly to get mad, and had to suffer through a very covert one hour infomercial for Mormon population genetics, clothed in an argument against Manifest Destiny (a doctrine, coincidentally, that Mormons very readily believed in). In case you are one of the four or five people who doesn't know this, Mormonism is considered increasingly suspect in scientific circles because the accuracy of one of its central claims - that Native Americans are really lost tribes of Jews - has been called into considerable question. I don't want to come off as a fanatic anti-Mormon. I'm hardly an expert on the church, and my main problems with it aren't factual but deal with the over-abundance of clerical power at the top of the church hierarchy, shamefully used to lessen doctrinal dissent through a very active process of excommunication. But watching Beck made me think of the BSG series, particularly the old ones. Glenn Larson was a devout Mormon and Mormon theology infuses the old Battlestar Galactica. In a very real sense, the old BSG serves as a apologia for Mormon views on the Lost Tribes. The series tries to make plausible the idea that current humans (the Lost Tribe) are really the descendants of the 12 colonies (get it - the 12 tribes of Israel). In the new series, the sacred scriptures, including the Book of Pythia (the Book of Mormon) point out that the myths of the lost tribe are true, and therefore many characters, including Laura Rosselin, put their faith in these scriptures, despite the questionable lack of evidence for God's existence in the universe. While BSG never confronts the whole genetics issue in the series - WAY TOO CONTROVERSIAL - it is interesting how BSG tended to culturally pilfer other cultures (Egypt in particular - again significant) in its quest to prove a basis for a Mormon-friendly sci-fi series. That cultural voyeurism, the willingness to steal from other cultures what is not yours to take, has been a sad byproduct of Mormon theology, from the well meaning but very offensive posthumous baptizing of Holocaust victims to the trivialization of Native American culture. That the BSG series continue that tradition does not speak well for either BSG or Mormonism.

Filed under: science fiction, Battlestar Galactica, population genetics, Mormonism, Holocaust victims

Stop Suppressing Politically Controversial Sci-Fi

I am beginning to get more than a little paranoid about the apparent suppression of politically risky sci-fi. Norman Spinrad's latest novel, Osama the Gun, can't get published in the States because it deals with a future terrorist attack in a nuanced manner. Spinrad's famous novel Iron Dream, which portrays Hitler as a science fiction writer, mysteriously has gone out of print, despite the fact that it is considered one of the major explorations of Hitler's ideology in contemporary sci-fi. Spinrad is a major writer, but I fear he's ticked off so many people by being honest that he's suffering a kind of unofficial censorship today.
Similarly, until quite recently, Peter Watkins's films were out of circulation. Watkins sci-fi is some of the most politically radical ever filmed, particularly Privilege, which mocked government control of the entertainment industry and youth culture. That this excellent film was unavailable for close to forty years is a travesty. We need more artists like Watkins and Spinrad, not less.
And while you're at it, will someone finally release Blake's 7 here in the States? Don't worry, we can handle the bleakness. What we can't handle is a science fiction genre that refuses to take risks.

The Moral Ambiguity Divide

Science fiction television is divided into basically two halves: series that present basic battles between good and evil and tend to see the universe in terms of absolutes, and series which stress moral ambiguity. Here's how I'd divide the series:

Absolutist shows: Star Trek, TNG, Voyager, Enterprise, SG-1, Doctor Who (original), BSG (original), Buck Rogers, The Prisoner, Earth 2, V (original), Twilight Zone, Outer Limits

Ambiguity shows: Andromeda, Firefly, Farscape, Blake's 7, BSG (reboot), Torchwood, DS9, X Files

In the Middle: Babylon 5, Crusade, Doctor Who (reboot)

This is obviously not a full list of series. Which kind of series you like tends to depend a lot on your cultural and ideological background. As a rule, though I hold to some absolutist beliefs, I prefer the more ambiguous shows, because the writing is much better. Of my favorite series, only the original Doctor Who and The Prisoner are absolutist. Some of the other absolutist shows are fine, like The Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, but as a whole I just don't think these absolutist shows can match the nuanced characterizations of Farscape, Blake's 7 and Babylon 5. On the other hand, some shows have taken the ambiguity so far, such as Firefly and the BSG (reboot), that their characters are essentially cyphers and lack the depth of personality of a Kerr Avon or a G'kar. My other problem with the more ambiguous series, particularly with the new BSG (reboot), is that they sometimes sound too sympathetic to horrendous ideas, like the government eliminating certain civil rights during a time of war. I for one was more than a little pissed when Rosselin outlawed abortion for the good of the body politic in the new BSG, and I'm a pro-lifer! I thought Rosselin should stick to her guns and not give in to the "ends justify the means" rhetoric that has come to characterize the entire rebooted BSG franchise. I think JMS's position on Babylon 5, in which there are always choices, but always consequences to one's choices, is less likely to lead to this kind of relativistic anything-goes approach to civil rights and legal morality. But then again, I do like Blake's 7, which takes BSG's ambiguity and ramps it up ten degrees. I guess, though, that is because there is no sanctimonious pretense to moral strength on the part of Kerr Avon, which makes Blake's 7 more palatable than BSG, with BSG's constant desire to stay "relevant". Long term, I think Blake's 7 has been far more significant to the genre, because it refused to give some of the cheapened answers to moral questions that BSG delights in. Just my opinion though. Tell me what you think.

Category: Science fiction politico, science fiction politics