Webliography

Q4. If science fiction is a genre that imagines our future, what happens to gender

and race?

Source 1: On The Importance Of Imaginative Literature by Vandana Singh (2001)

This is an article written by a physicist and social worker residing in Boston. Singh presents an interesting insight on the marriage between science fiction and fantasy which proves to be relevant since both of science fiction and the imagination of our future are confronted here.

As proposed by Singh, this married genre provides us with opportunities to create alternative technologies and cultures through the imagined worlds. Ultimately this produces metaphors – which are said to be the language of our unconscious minds- thereby enabling us to expand our views of the world by stimulating thoughts on the possible futures.

A setback for this article is the superficial discussion on race in the genre which is ‘often accused of … portraying … scantily clad women’ and her realization that Imaginative Literature in the West is still dominated by men. However, Singh made a valid point on the portrayal of ‘the Other’ which could be referred to as ‘anyone different from ourselves – a person of another caste, class, nationality, race --- or an animal, or an alien’. This is an interesting point to note and is definitely useful in helping me widen my primary definitions of ‘gender’ and ‘race’, which may have been restricted before this.

In contrast, even though the website is seemingly established having various science fiction writers as active participants on the forum, the immobility to link to other pages does invoke a sense of doubt in the credibility of the source.

(245 words)

Source 2: Human Race Will 'Split Into Two Different Species' by Niall Firth (2007)

As an online article by an established newspaper, this source has proven its reliability. It presents the idea that racial difference will eventually diminish in the speculated future as ‘interbreeding produces a single coffee-coloured skin tone’.

Firth’s work adds an appealing twist to the issue of race which has long been dabbled in the discussions of science fiction. Its attraction lies in its presented subjugation of the collective human race through class, as opposed to classification based on ethnicity since colour would no longer be an issue.

Firth has also paralleled his findings with a popular science fiction novel, The Time Machine by H G Wells (1895) which sees the human race engineered into two species: the intelligent and wealthy Eloi as well as the grotesque Morlock. Although this parallel is seemingly relevant, it would be greatly beneficial to look further into Dr Curry’s report on the possible future which served as the main argument for this article.

In dealing with the essay question, this brief article warrants an intriguing introduction to a distinct argument on the issue of race and should as such be further developed.

(187 words)

Source 3: R Is For Race, Not Rocket by Adilifu Nama (2009)

This journal article is helpful in revealing the progress of the inclusion of ‘blacks’ in films thereby creating a new multiracial onset in the American science fiction landscape. It explains the shift of ‘black’ participation from the 1950s where the population was said to to be too effected by history and social location to the emergence of the Black Power nationalism in the late 1960s which gave rise to a phenomenon referred to as ‘Blaxploitation cinema’ where the “black experience” is ‘represented, recognized, and, in the end, validated’(p. 158).

Comprehensive case studies were given in the form of ‘black characters’ in popular science fiction films such as ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Matrix’. For instance, the placing of the ‘black’ character Lando Calrissian in ‘Star Wars’ proved to be watershed for ‘blackness’ in American sci-fi cinema. His role as a successful mobile character reflects the shifting social and political paradigm of African Americans in the early 1980s. Nama thus likens the American science fiction landscape to the social construction of race in US society, where static is absent.

While this reading is ostensibly panoptic in its discourse on the ‘black’ inclusion in science fiction cinema, unfortunately it only embraces the American point of view plausibly due to the genre’s increasing prevalence in Hollywood therefore giving no insight into the science fiction genre as a whole.

(224 words)

Source 4: Best Wives Are Artefacts? Popular Cybernetics And Robot Women in the 1970s by Susanna Paasonen (2001)

This scholarly article is a commentary on the various themes of the film, ‘The Stepford Wives’, with reference to Betty Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique’. The film is a speculative fiction which is based on values of the 1960s. Paasonen thus seeks to debunk the mystery surrounding the female gender of the future.

With Friedan’s feminine mystique being a close analogy to the themes presented in the film, the robotic Stepford wives are adept embodiments as the robots are stripped off their names, or original identities, hence giving light to ‘the problem that has no name’ as coined by Friedan (p. 191). Paasonen also discusses the issue of technology as a male terrain, as all the husbands work at technological research institutes and the robotic women are treated as ‘automated puppets whose controls are held and operated by men’. The gendering of the robot also emphasizes the seductive quality given to technology in the run to ultimately destroy the goddess as mystic origin. Nevertheless, Donna Haraway’s claim that she “would rather by a cyborg than a goddess” (p. 195) seem to argue for the possibility of change and multiplicity in technology.

Based on the above, it is apparent that this scholarly article aims to cover the themes of the films in as just a manner as possible. Nevertheless, pertaining to the essay question, Paasonen failed to discuss on the feminine gender as a whole thereby giving challenge to the projected portrayal of females as the subjects are all assumed to come from a white middle class background and are heterosexual.

(255 words)

Source 5: Unbending Ethics Of The Machine In Brave New World by Sukyi E. Douglas-McMahon (2008)

Douglas-McMahon’s article attests Huxley’s transnational feminist nature through the exploration of the power struggle in his novel ‘Brave New World’. In the novel, Huxley presents the foreboding tale that humans have become too dependent on machines and are as a result a mere automata with prescribed roles.

Based on the article, the essay question can be demystified through the presentation of machines as the ultimate dominant power in the imagined world therefore eradicating the assumed control held by men. In fact, as suggested by Douglas-McMahon, both men and women alike are mercilessly manipulated and rendered powerless by technology as it exploits human labour for greater power and efficiency.

The interesting point to note of this article is the possibility that race and gender would not matter in the science fiction genre thereby eradicating the power struggles between ethnicities and genders because ultimately, technology reigns. It would however be highly useful to find out if there is any form of gendering found within the technology itself in later research to substantiate this argument.

(172 words)

Total word count: 1076

Reference List

Douglas-McMahon, S E. 2008, ‘Unbending ethics of the machine in Brave New World’ in Technological determinism and feminism in Aldous Huxley’s Essays, Brave New World, and Island, English Department of Theses and Dissertations-English, viewed 7 September 2010, <ecommons.txstate.edu/engltad/5/>.

Firth, N 2007, Human race will ‘split into two different species’, Dailymail Online, 26 October 2007, Associated Newspapers Ltd, viewed 30 August 2010, .

Nama, A 2009, R is for race, not rocket: black representation in American science fiction cinema, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, California State University, viewed 5 September 2010, >.

Paasonen, S 2001, Best wives are artefacts? Popular cybernetics and robot women in the 1970s, School of Art, Literature and Music, University of Turku, viewed 1 September 2010, .

Singh, V 2001, On the importance of imaginative literature, 11 June 2001, South Asian Women’s Forum, viewed 26 August 2010, .