Invasion of the modernity snatchers
Thu 03 Dec, 2009
Patrick West says the SF revival mirrors our dark view of the world – and our place in it
Science fiction has traditionally been the whipping-boy of literature, movies and art. It has been characterised as a refuge for geeks, nerds and morons, an avenue in which lonely men project their adolescent fantasies about androids with pink hair and neon boob-tubes. But the curious fact is that science fiction and fantasy have been the most successful genres of the Noughties. Sci-fi is a bit like the Irish Daily Mail, smoking too much, drinking too much, Jeremy Clarkson, Facebook, Kevin Myers: no matter how many times we are told it is bad for us, we still can’t get enough of it.
You only have to witness the revised popularity in the 2000s of Philip K Dick’s works to gauge this trend. His stories Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? (1968) and We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1966) became the films Blade Runner (1982) and Total Recall (1990), respectively. But few at the time acknowledged Dick’s influence. Instead, both movies’ success were attributed to the dark, violent visions of directors Ridley Scott and Paul Verhoeven.
But the 2000s have seen a glut of Dick’s stories adapted to the large screen, with the author accorded due credit. Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report began the process in 2002, which was telling in itself: Spielberg is a great film director, but he is not a master of dealing with moral ambivalence. Dick’s work, on the other hand, is infused with confusion, paranoia, obsessed with questioning what is the nature of humanity and reality. Then came Paycheck (2003) and A Scanner Darkly (2006). Walt Disney is currently producing an animated version of King of The Elves (1953), and according to Dick’s daughter, Isa Dick Harkett, there are negotiations taking place to bring to the cinema even one of his most unreadable novels, Ubik (1969).
Dick’s popularity is only a microcosm of a wider appeal for sci-fi and fantasy. While most people lost interest in the Star Wars franchise after a mostly dreadful series of prequels, they were instead devouring Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of The Rings trilogy (2001-03). Or the X-Men trilogy (2000-06). Or the Matrix trilogy (1999-2003). Or AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001), the Fantastic Four (2005), or Star Trek (2009). I could go on, but I guess you’ve got the point by now.
Science fiction tends to flourish in periods of unease. HG Wells was popular in the 1890s because of the gloomy, introspective mood of the fin de siecle. Metropolis (1927) represented a sense of both hope and despair about the course of German history. And we all know that low-budget American sci-fi flicks of the 1950s were a metaphor for fears about communism, homosexuality, masturbation, Jews, Catholics, Teamsters, Elvis Presley, the blacks, and so on.
The 2000s are no different. The 9/11 attacks will probably be recorded as the defining moment of this decade. But this has also been a decade when we have worried about the economy, the environment, overseas wars, multiculturalism, GM foods, identity politics, victim politics, the smoking ban, dirty bombs, Sellafield, moral relativism, paedophiles, internet piracy, the EU, or whatever happened to Mitchell McLaughlin’s moustache. In short, the Noughties have not been a happy time.
This is perhaps why we have retreated and regressed into the infantile worlds of science fiction and fantasy. Sci-fi is a genre that is notoriously badly-written, Philip K Dick being an exemplar, and any sci-fi that is deemed noteworthy is conveniently re-packaged, given a posh cover and placed in the serious literature section in bookshops and libraries. Gulliver’s Travels, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Slaughterhouse Five are all classic sci-fi works, but you wouldn’t think so to judge by the contents of your local library’s sci-fi/fantasy shelf. All you will see there are Harry Potter books and lots of crappy Star Trek and Doctor Who adaptations.
In sum, science fiction is stylistically no better or no worse than any other genre. But it does address the big questions, and we have been asking an awful lot of questions this decade.
Sci-fi is often badly-written because it is more concerned with dealing with metaphors than characters, of using fiction principally as an avenue to address philosophical and theological issues. For this reason, it can be formulaic. Most science fiction stories of the Noughties have followed the same Jungian archetypal, Joseph Campbell monomyth: the orphaned boy who initially resists the calling, accepts the challenge, meets a couple of accomplices (one who is serious, one who is comical), is exiled to a wilderness, meets a wizened old man, confronts the source of evil in his lair, receives acclaimed redemption at the end. If this story appears familiar it is because it is Star Wars, Star Trek, the Lord of The Rings, The Matrix, Harry Potter and many more.
But if you ask the same questions you are going to get the same answers. Sci-fi’s redemption in the Noughties should be both lamented and lauded. It is regrettable that we have used this genre as a means of childish escapism, but we should welcome the fact that it is no longer socially embarrassing to enjoy a good story. You may regard sci-fi aficionados as akin to ‘Comic Book Guy’ from The Simpsons, who is a tiresome and pedantic man. But have you ever realised that ‘Comic Book Guy’ is nevertheless the wisest character in The Simpsons?
Patrick West is a journalist and author of ‘Beating Them At Their Own Game, How The Irish Conquered English Soccer’ (Liberties Press, 2006)
COMMENTS
On television we have had the “reimagined” Battlestar Galactica, an American show which did much to readdress the poor reputation of television Sci-Fi, with it’s real world inspired stories making analogies with the war in Iraq and Palestine (a military occupation, guerrilla and terrorist resistance, collaboration, treason, informers, assassination, torture) or a post-9/11 America (paranoia, the breakdown of democracy, political persecution, censorship, suspension of civil liberties).
But this is not the first time we have been here. It’s just really the first time since the 1950s and ‘60s that the United States has so widely embraced Sci-Fi in print, movies and TV as a way of popularly addressing contemporary issues through a “safe” medium.
Even during the hey day of the annoyingly preachy Star Trek: Next Generation the stories inspired from the news headlines were comparatively few (anyone remember the famous “IRA” episode banned by those pillars of liberalism, the BBC, BSkyB and our own dear RTÉ?)
In Britain during the late 1970s and ‘80s there was Blakes 7, whose dark and dystopian vision said as much about early Thatcherite Britain as it did about the “Magnificent Seven” and other movies that originally inspired it.
Notably not much Sci-Fi television has come out of Britain in recent years. The “reimagined” Doctor Who, for all its much vaunted praise, is fairly meaningless fluff.
It is only in literature that we find any real attempt to reflect present global and political concerns, of which Scottish wordsmith (and recent SNP convert) Iain M. Banks is perhaps the greatest exponent.
By Séamas Ó Sionnaigh on 2009 12 04
Didn’t realise Iain M. Banks supported the SNP. Does Iain Banks, too? Moving swiftly onward… I’ve never read any of Banks’s SF but I’ve read plenty of his literary fiction, some of which is virtually SF anyway, such as Walking on Glass and the Bridge. I still think the Crow Road, totally non-SF, is a masterpiece. The BBC TV adaptation from the 1990s is fantastic, too.
I do remember the kerfuffle about Star Trek. The episode was called the High Ground. Sky actually did show it, though I think it was out of sequence. BBC and RTÉ banned it. Oooh - political!
By Jason Walsh on 2009 12 04
Well he should do, he gave an interview about it!
He admitted that his (reluctant) conversion from “New” Labour to the SNP was more driven by his dislike of Blair and now Brown and London-based politics than any real belief in an Independent Scotland.
Think it came off the back of the whole giving back his passport stunt as a protest against the British and American misadventures in Iraq, blah blah blah.
Agree with you, the Crow Road is a classic. And a LOT less disturbing than the Wasp Factory.
Yeah, as far as I remember it was years later that Sky showed it in full - but did they not show it first with the offending scene deleted?
By Séamas Ó Sionnaigh on 2009 12 05
I’ve never read the Wasp Factory (though I know the twist). CR is superb, genuinely superb. Walking on Glass is much-maligned by good, likewise the Bridge. Also, the Business is very good (and politically interesting). I thought Dead Air was poor, though. A scream of rage more than a novel.
More later.
J…
By Jason Walsh on 2009 12 06
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