The following is the first two paragraphs (around a page and a half) that were at the head of my paper on Metropolis and The Matrix. However, now that it's a paper on just Metropolis this opening seems a little pointless. Anyway, for the genre nuts among you:
In her introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin, one of SF's greatest writers and literary critics, says "Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive" (146). Those of us who study SF know this already, but it's worth explaining to the uninitiated. The mantra of my own critical perspective is: science fiction is always about now. This can be the "now" of the creation of the work, the "now" of the initial reception by an audience, or even, if we are particularly careful, the "now" of our own experience of work. It is not, however, the fictional "now" of the narrative itself. As Le Guin says, the genre is not supposed predict. Audiences who expect prediction experience either disbelief or dismissal. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was not about the actual year, 1984, but a metaphorical reflection of his own society "writ large." The same is true of almost all science fiction. Max Headroom was set "20 minutes into the future" but it was about corporate ideology and the rise of cable television in the 80s. Isaac Asimov's Foundation series was set in a time in the future so distant we have no measure for it, but it was supposed to be a model for an organised, rational society ruled by an intellectual élite. Frank Herbert's Dune, set in a similarly immesurably far-flung future, is a direct refutation of Asimov's vision. Star Trek is largely about the civil rights and counter-cultural movements of the 1960s. Star Wars is a re-telling of the creation myth of the United States of America.
Science fiction is always about now. It is a representation, a metaphor, a commentary on the present, the world as it is, through the focusing lense of fantasy, the world as it could be, shouldn?t be, ought to be, or might be. When we do not view SF in this way we have a tendancy to enter a mode of mockery instead of a mode of analysis or inquiry. When SF fails to match the world as we know it, or the world as we think it will likely be, we laugh because we feel we are smarter than the artists. Orwell's novel fails to accurately predict the political climate of the early 80s in England. This is a true statement. However, the novel is not supposed to accurately predict. Similarly, if SF?s commentary on the time in which we view it frightens us, challenges us, or questions our beliefs, then we can, through this same mode of mockery, dismiss it as so much inaccurate fantasy.
Posted by orion at August 15, 2004 11:51 PM