I was asked to write an article for the online publication Impakter. I thought I would link to it here. Impakter has decided to break the article into two parts. The link below is for part 1; part 2 will be published June 10th (I will provide a secondary link for it in a separate blog post). Here is the opening section of my article:
For a multitude of reasons, I contend that science fiction is more progressively impactful than any other genre. For my article here, I want to focus on a couple of key theories for why science fiction is such a progressive genre and then look at what are to my mind some of the most important progressive science fiction films of the 21st Century.
To begin, celebrated science fiction studies scholar Darko Suvin famously articulated science fiction’s most fundamental role: “SF is, then, a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author’s empirical environment” (20 Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On Poetics and History of a Literary Genre). In other words, science fiction “estranges” us from our reality and gives us an “alternative” reality in which to compare and scrutinize our own reality.
In the case of utopian representations, we can contemplate that alternative reality as a desired way of being. In the case of dystopian representations, we then see our reality in all its dysfunctionality and self-destructiveness, and, then, hopefully, change course.
More generally, science fiction studies scholar Phillip E. Wegner articulates the deeply pedagogical and revolutionary potential of science fiction:
“Science fiction in this affirming vision is understood to be a form, not unlike the works of Homer or Shakespeare, that delights and teaches, conveying through popular narrative forms the most significant truths. Science fiction is also one of what I name…the evental genres, teaching its audience new ways of thinking about history, and brushing against the postmodern and neo-liberal commonplaces that drill into us the myths that history is finished, fundamental change is impossible, and there are no alternatives. Science fiction encourages us…to glimpse once more the infinite possibilities that surround us, and to recall our immense collective capacity to make new worlds. It is precisely these lessons that make science fiction…so threatening to the reigning concern.” (His italics, 230-231 Shockwaves of Possibility: Essays on Science Fiction, Globalization, and Utopia)
In what follows, I will look at what I consider the most important 21st Century progressive science fiction films, films that exemplify these ideas, how these films “estrange” us from our own reality, thereby giving present day issues more accentuation, indeed, bringing clarity to the root causes of our most pressing issues, and, most importantly, open up alternative ways of being and alternative historical directions.
For the rest of the article go to the published piece in Impakter.