fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3538 ]

[ SECRET POST #3538 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3538 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh man... if we also want to get into genre history then we can go back to a time when science fiction was all about a theoretical outcome of policies dependent on racial superiority and keeping all vaginas far away from universities because cooties.

I'm not sure I want to go back there.

Sure, it's different, but...

Please explain, with specifics, how Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is about a theoretical outcome of policies dependent on racial superiority and keeping all vaginas far away from universities because cooties.

Or, more generally, explain what the fuck you're talking about and why you think that's a representative characterization of science fiction in general.

Oh my god no. Just google sexist sci fi and go read any of the literally hundreds of articles yourself.

I ain't got time to write a thesis.

I agree there's a lot of sexism in science fiction.

I don't think that characterization is representative of the genre's roots, nor do I think it's intrinsic to the genre from a theoretical point of view. Which is what I took you to be saying, and that's kind of why I asked what the fuck you were talking about.

I'm saying I think there's a lot of people that would agree that at it's roots early science fiction has a whole lot of sexism/racism endemic to it.

I don't think it's ALL there is to it, but holy shit is there a lot of it to go around. Like, for instance, there is a buttload of Russian sci fi that is essentially, "this is why communism is awesome, science says so, we will create the perfect race of workers and take over the universe".

But really I don't have time for a huge thesis considering other people have already done a way better job of characterizing it.

Again, I agree that there's historically been a lot of racism endemic to both science fiction and fantasy. Both have had complex relationships to real world ideologies and issues. Absolutely. Not questioning that, have not been questioning that.

But the question is, what does that have to do with the theoretical and aesthetic characteristic of each genre. The point that I'm trying to make by bringing up Frankenstein is that science fiction as a genre and a mode is not necessarily implicated in the particular traits that you outlined there, from a genre aesthetics point of view. And I still don't see where you're drawing that link, or more specifically, what that has to do with the claim that, going into the history and theoretics of each genre, they are drastically different in terms of the stakes they set up and the logic they work by.

going into the history and theoretics of each genre, they are drastically different in terms of the stakes they set up and the logic they work by.

Absolutely. Historically, this is true. However, I'm not sure it's true by current genre standards... in the same way as current genre standards also don't comply with past standards for social commentary re: race/gender issues.

See what I'm saying?

If that was your point, I think your first reply was an extremely obtuse way of making it, but I do see now what you were getting at.

I still disagree, in the sense that I don't think it's at all true that current genre standards actually have dissolved the historical-theoretical-aesthetic differences between science fiction and fantasy. But I strongly doubt we're going to make any headway at all on that one.

lol probably

I was just having fun talking about fiction though, so. Thanks!

Herpy is a master of saying some inchoate bullshit and it takes about 4-5 posts to tease what he really means out of it.

well, that's a tangent we could totally go on. I was more thinking in terms of the fact that the intentions and expectations each genre is built on are different. So yes, effectively, you can do the same things with magic and with technology in fantasy and sci fi, but the way you get there is different, and how the reader is supposed to understand magic vs. technology is very different. Focusing just on outcomes is an awfully narrow and dry way of looking at two very interesting dynamic genres.

That dynamism what what I was trying to get at though. My point was more to the fact that the separation between the two genres these days is really starting to be much less elves/wizards/knights vs. aliens/robots/scientists than it traditionally has been. Which... on the surface is probably a step in the right direction since either cliche is pretty done to death by this point.

But in my opinion it also means we're starting to see more of a blending to the point where it's sort of difficult to concretely state where one genre begins and the other ends, especially considering you can pretty much use "it was science!" or "it was magic!" as more or less interchangeable forces.

And while I'd really like to agree with you about the level of understanding the reader is supposed to have about magic vs. technology, I'm not entire sure that holds up. In theory it does, but in practice? How many people reading science fiction really have a good idea of how science works? I'm not sure if Hard Sci Fi is back in vogue again or what though, so feel free to edify here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #3538 ]

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