Get a Life!: Taking Fiction as Reality

What makes or breaks a television show, a movie, or a book series in the often maligned and marginalized science fiction genre? The fans. Fans brought Star Trek back from a future of being remembered as nothing more than a short-run campy scifi show to a burgeoning enterprise. Fans brought Star Wars from the silver screen into an expanded universe of novels, comics, video games, television shows, merchandising and established the brand as a multimedia empire. Fans are an integral part of keeping any creative venture afloat, but more so in the science fiction genre than anywhere else. Without there would be no Next Generation and the reality of science would pale in comparison to the fiction.

Fans bring a number of things with them. The first being a passionate intensity for one subject: Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Gate, Serenity, Doctor Who, and a host of others that I cannot think of at the moment. Fans gather in conventions to put their interest on public display. Some even fashion costumes to mimic many characters from the universe. There is a place for all kinds of fan obsession: from the lowliest Stormtrooper to the emperor of the Galactic Empire all fans play their role.

They are Legion.

The second thing that fans bring as an intimate familiarity with the source material. The best contribution to a body of work such as Star Wars may come through the writing of passionate fans as seen in the Expanded Universe. This interest may spread to areas unforeseen by the series creator, as theories of fan canonity or "fanon" may outshine the original established canon and replace it. For insance, Boba Fett's death in the Sarlacc Pit was ruled out after several highly successful stories in the Expanded Universe were published and his position as an Ensemble Darkhorse among the fans was firmly entrenched. In one of his many rereleases of the trilogy, "George Lucas stated in the audio commentary of Return of the Jedi that he added a shot of Boba Fett crawling out of the Sarlacc, which Fett does, stating that the character survived, he managed to blast himself out, killing the Sarlacc in the process" [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Boba_Fett]. The fans played a role in Lucas reaching this decision, so the "fanon" became canon.

The moral of the story is popularity will bring you back from being slowly digested for 10,000 years.

How does this relate to Star Trek, fanfiction, and the role of popular science and science? What is the merit in immersing yourself in the realm of popular science to such an extent that a sketch by William Shatner on SNL hardly seems disingenuous?

William Shatner: You know, before I answer any more questions there's something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I've spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled... y'know... hundreds of miles to be here, I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!

--Get a Life sketch from SNL

It is precisely because the fans may take it too far, that they may let the fiction affect the reality that we are able to see precisely how much our reality is itself a construct of the fiction. In Constance Penley's "NASA/TREK" the ideology of the construct Star Trek is the driving force behind the reality of NASA, and they rarely meet up cleanly. In other words, our drive to reach the stars is driven by a fiction, and the practice may not necessarily live up to it. No more clearly is this connection between the fiction and the reality present than in examples of fiction taking on fiction-- pastiches such as Galaxy Quest.

Jason Nesmith: There is no "quantum flux". There's no "auxiliary". THERE'S NO GODDAMNED SHIP. You got it?

...

Brandon Wheeger: I just wanted to tell you that I thought a lot about what you said. 

Jason Nesmith: It's okay, now listen... 

Brandon Wheeger: But I want you to know that I'm not a complete brain case, okay? I understand completely that it's just a TV show. I know there's no beryllium sphere... 

Jason Nesmith: Hold it. 

Brandon Wheeger: no digital conveyor, no ship... 

Jason Nesmith: Stop for a second, stop. It's all real. 

Brandon Wheeger: Oh my God, I knew it. I knew it! I knew it! 

--Galaxy Quest

In some cases the difference between canon and "fanon" become blurred and the former may affect the former. Similarly "fanfiction" and a successful pastiche are not too far off from each other as well.  In the case of the film Galaxy Quest, the characters are clear send-ups to the characters from the various iterations of Star Trek. Tim Allen's character Jason Nesmith channels a Shatnerian delivery that reeks of overacting and arrogance accompanying the public perception of William Shatner milking his role in the original series for all its worth. Alan Rickman's alien character carries clear influences from both Spock and Worf– the inability to remove himself from the I Am Not Spock problem of never escaping your role as the other, the makeup and prosthetics, and the chilly exterior.

Although it might be made by fans we shouldn't confuse parody for fanfiction.

Galaxy Quest works as an interesting instance of pastiche because it in fact lauds the role of the fans– the heroes could not succeed without the aid of several nerdy characters Tim Allen had written off at the start of the story. The fans save the world, the actors only succeed by luck and the virtue of others. When Nesmith writes off the fan Brandon as embracing a short-lived series with little merit he does a disservice to the concept of works like Star Trek. Sure, their sets may be cheesy, their acting not always on mark, and their plots contrived. But a work like Star Trek which takes the future of man (and woman's) exploration into the farthest reaches of the cosmos as its subject allows for a greater access to the potentiality of a bright future in the public unconscious. That allows for strides forward in the field of science.


Sagan neglects to account for something when he says,"Entertainment...is the opposite of enlightenment; popular science and science cannot coexist because popular science ("irrationality") confounds the progress of science ("rationality")." (Penley 6) The popular fiction allows for insight into where science might take us, even if the specifics of the science are hazy or downright wrong. The popular science influences the science in a way that makes it meaningful, even if the actual science behind it is bunk.

Sources:

"5 Reasons Pop Culture is Run by Fan Fiction" http://www.cracked.com/article_19084_5-reasons-pop-culture-run-by-fan-fiction.html

"SNL Skit: Get a Life!" http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x930vt_william-shatner-snl-skit-get-a-life_fun

"Ensemble Darkhorse" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/EnsembleDarkhorse/Film

"I Am Not Spock" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IAmNotSpock

Civilization & Superstition

I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing -Darth Vader

Hey everyone! Sorry this is so late. A midterm on Tuesday and Ulysses took most of my time for the last few days. I noticed several themes cropping up while I was reading Nova this week. The physicality of the characters, how much of their individuality and personality was tied into their bodies and forms of expression. Another theme I picked up on was the immense distance between objects in space, the vastness of the void and how transportation was the hub on which all people relied on in order for the societies in the Pleiades Federation outer rim planets to function in any form remotely resembling modern society. Delany also forms a commentary on current forms of expression in Katin's proto-novel, an archaic form in the future where the senses can be directly stimulated by an instrument and the wonders of the universe are open to them. Issues of labor and scarcity crop up through the concept of the "ports" which the people use to plug-in to technologies and Illyrion.

Futurama's Holophoner = Sensory Syrinx

What struck me most about Nova was the juxtaposition of the modern and the anachronistic as provided by examples such as Katin's novel and the tarot cards in the story. When Katin describes what a novel is to Mouse he states it is an, "archaic art form superseded by the psychorama" (page 27). He claims that it was capable of "vanished subtleties, both spiritual and artistic, that the more immediate form has not yet equaled" (page 27). Through the use of anachronistic, outdated forms such as the novel Delany calls attention to the barbarous tendencies of societies regardless of the passing of time.

This barbarism is called out most specifically in Lorq's recollection of watching the futuristic "cock-fight" he saw with Ruby and Prince. The lizards used in this practice works as a metaphor for how things fall apart, "the offspring of that race's gods, dwarfed by evolution, were mocked in the pits by drunken miners, as they clawed and screeched and bit" (page 95). The god's of a race may beget the lowest of the low, taken as game by those that follow. Time will lay objects of worship down to objects of sports– displaying the barbarism in society regardless of how far we have advanced.

Another example of continuity in the futuristic society of Nova is the Tarot cards, which now serve as a sort of prediction of the future based on the Jungian symbolism. This is in fact a reversion back to past superstition. Katin may make plas to justify this practice as embodying basic symbols that crop up all throughout human history, but really all he is doing is prescribing a framework that only fits the events in retrospect. Indeed, people who see the future in light of these symbols find the symbols prescriptive because they believe in them: if you think you will meet a stranger who will change your life for the better, you are more likely to be open to that sort of thing or if you think all you have built will fall to ruin you may take any sign of adversity as the coming of this and facilitate your own downfall. In a society where the wonders of far-flung galaxies are within our grasp it seems dubious that such a silly thing as the tarot would carry weight. Irony aside this shows the ebb and flow of culture over time; as time passes something out of vogue falls back in again and we find our understanding of our surroundings cast into doubt by the light of discovery.

The Woman People Didn't See

“The Women Men Don’t See” is alternately hilarious and depressing. Tiptree uses Don’s abrasive, ignorantly anti-feminist remarks brilliantly. He compares “the women” he is stranded with to his image of what women should be. After the plane crashes, he checks the women for signs of hysteria - an illness only associated with women. He is “irritated” when he realizes that “the damn women haven’t complained once” (120). When he begins to grow suspicious of Ruth Parson’s actions, Don writes off his subconscious thoughts, and reassures himself that Ruth is “a decent ordinary little woman, a good girl scout,” even though he knows something creeps “under the careful stereotypes” (130). The remarks become more jarring when he is “surprised” that Ruth leaves her daughter alone with their pilot - she claims that the pilot is a “very fine type of man,” and Don only notices that she doesn’t defend her daughter as a “good girl.” It is okay, then, for Don to judge the little women, but it is strange for Ruth to judge a man. The story takes a more obvious feminist satire slant when Ruth and Don discuss women’s lib, and Don expresses his concern that Ruth wants to be “some kind of professional man-hater” (133). My favorite obnoxious line of all: “Well, what’s wrong with any furtively unconventional middle-aged woman with an empty bed?” (133). I’ll restrain myself from quoting all of Tiptree’s brilliant lines.

Despite all of Don’s annoying-lecherous-old-man comments, he really hits the message of the story home when he asks at the end of the story “How could a woman choose to live among unknown monsters, to say goodbye to her home, her world?” (143) Obviously, he misses the point. Ruth speaks of men as an alien race - she can analyze Captain Esteban as a very fine type of man, just as she can appreciate that hating men is like hating the weather - there’s no reason to despise a different species. She explains that “Women have no rights, Don, except what men allow us” (134) - women are the oppossums that live everywhere, alive only because men don’t perceive them as threats. At one point, Don notices that “She’s as alien as they” (the “real” aliens) (138), but he seems to forget that observation when he laments that she’s choosing to live with unknown monsters. The story makes it clear that Ruth does not consider Earth to be her home, her world, or anything that could ever belong to a woman. I say that it’s “depressing” because, although Ruth’s solution to women’s problems is funny in its extremity, it is also a hopeless view of the world and women’s present/future place in it.

I think this story works brilliantly alongside the article “Who is Tiptree? What is he?” Sheldon, writing as Tiptree, narrates this story through the eyes of an old man (presumably the “type” of man that Tiptree was assumed to be), uses exaggerated comments to show how men can construct crippling stereotypes to analyze women, and through those stereotypes, they can refuse to “see” them as anything but “the Other.” On another level, Sheldon is “the woman no one saw,” someone who could operate cleverly within gender stereotypes and burst somewhere beyond them. My favorite part of “Who is Tiptree? What is he?” is the quotes from Joanna Russ - someone asks her if Tiptree was a woman, “by which I gather he can’t recognize a female point of view if it bites him” (3); Russ also believes that Tiptree has ideas that “no woman could even think, or understand, let alone assent to” (3). I found myself wondering how Russ could think that if she read “The Women Men Don’t See,” but perhaps she could argue that seeing the women men don’t see requires a separation from or transcendence of that gender binary.