Week One Notes
I will not add a lot of notes this term and will instead make use of videos posted through the class blog.
Screening Space: 1-26: Give thought to what Vivian Sobchack has to say here about he relationships between SF Film and Literature, for she does a good job of not defining terms for us but of breaking down many of the misconceptions and myths about both the literature and the films that critics label as Science Fiction.
The ending of the opening and short section for your reading offers an excellent point of departure, for the author brings up Sturgeon's Law, which provides, in turn, an excellent touchstone for the class: "But 90% of everything is crud."
As the text underscores, many critics who praised SF (Speculative Fiction is a term I prefer, in fact, the "What If" literature Judith Merrill noted as important and which she wrote), in term condemned the SF film--and often for good reason, for many if not most (especially the early films) do not aim for, well, stretching of the intellect or the imagination.
And so Sturgeon's Law come into play, for we can say the same thing about SF Literature and Film in the face of criticism about the products. Indeed, we will read and watch the 10% worth our attention, literature and films that, as it were, stand the test of time and criticism.
Sobchack for good reason defends the film genre and also for good reason does not try to define in explicit terms "Science Fiction Film"; the discussion threads will give everyone ample opportunity to come to terms with this definition that we want to leave fluid for reasons the text will discuss throughout the text.
So do not worry about a dictionary definition but take the time to read the arguments. While this text got written some thirty years ago and subsequently updated by the author for this version in, I think, 1987, know that discussion continues.
And while SF Literature remains, as it were, under the gun in terms of acceptance as important literature, films suffer from even more negative criticism: "Certainly, if we are to make evaluative statements, few SF films are great; most are not even good. But the same is true of SF literature" (20). Keep this statement in mind in the context of Sturgeon's Law.
Read carefully, too, the discussion of the a continuing criticism, that the literature generally takes an optimistic view of science but that the films offer in general a distrust of science. As the author points out, and as you will see and read, these generally accepted statements, usually made by people who know little about either the literature or the films, make no sense.
Much of the literature over the past fifty years, in fact, has taken a specifically dystopian turn; and the same is true in terms of the films, which often offer hopeful outlooks.
But all the literature we will read and the films that we watch aim for more than instructing us about science or simply to entertain. And, as the author notes, "Not all SF literature is proscience and not all SF film is antiscience" (21). In addition, neither the literature nor the films remain static in their perspectives about science and other areas that the genres embrace.
You can order Destination Moon from Netflix if you choose to watch this still interesting George Pal film Sobchack discusses to show that all SF films are not negative about science.
The Thing From Another World (based on a story by John Campbell, which you can read on line) does present scientists as naive and/or dangerous--like many films of the era, including Invaders from Mars, the military saves the day, which is not always the case. But indeed, the films concluding lines--Keep watching the skies, Keep watching the skies.--do underscore a certain Cold War paranoia from 1951. As our author notes about this excellent film, "It is also antiscience and antiscientists" (23).
But we want also to take care, for the film should not be dismissed as simply "pro fear." As out text underscores, the film genre of SF is relatively new; attaining its status long after SF literature, "it only emerged as a critically recognized genre after Hiroshima" (21). When you watch the film, you will note that the lead scientist, the one who causes all the problems, worked on atomic bombs at Bikini.
Thus, many of the films portray not an outright condemnation of science and scientists but but a circumspection born of experience.
As first-alien-contact films It Came from Outer Space and The Day the Earth Stood Still underscore, the focus also falls in both the literature and the films on human weakness and the race's potential for destruction. Among other things, both films present aliens who do not come to destroy. And to this end, the films generate thoughtful consideration about the human situation, especially as both films present scientists in a positive light.
So keep what the text has to say in mind as you watch films for this week and read the literature at hand.
The Readings:
This week, the literature concentrates on Alien Encounters, the subject, too, of all the films up for consideration this week, including the troubling Screwfly Solution linked elsewhere--and you can read the alarming Tiptree story.
In fact, both The Women Men Don't See and The Screwfly Solution provide excellent first-encounter readings, and with a strong feminist touch; both stories will apply to other areas we will investigate, including gender roles.
I hope that you will keep this anthology and end up reading all the stories included, one of my goals, for this specific collection did not hit the market until late summer of 2010, and it contains quite a few stories I have either not previously read or have not read in decades. Such is the case with Stanley Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyssey," from 1934.
We generally think that alien encounters result in either invasions or horror, as occurs in multitudes of good and bad stories and especially films during the Cold War.
But as occurs in It Came From Out of Space, multiple narratives and films create sophisticated or at least friendly aliens, and many like Tweel. While the creature is referred to at least once as a "freak ostrich" (141), the narrator comes to admire the alien who joins with the narrator to hold off the "barrel-brutes" until out of the blue a rescue vehicle arrives.
By the stories conclusion and after multiple adventures, Dick Jarvis comes to admire Tweel and to realize the creature's complexity. And following the development of their bond reveals one of Weinbaum's strengths, the ability to create creatures other than humans who have, well, character, and who follow what the introduction calls "extraterrestrial logic" (137).
Note, too, the science involved, from the belief that Mars has intelligently designed canals (H. G. Wells in 1898 uses this belief that Weinbaum embraces in his War of the Worlds, a wonderful narrative about alien invasions of Great Britain.) to how atomic energy provides propulsion of large and small things.
Think, in addition, to how the author utilizes an intertext with Homer's Odyssey in his story: this idea of the lone person on a voyage, this time 800 miles on an alien world, populated by a wide variety of non-human forms, from moving grass to stone entities, including Tweel, who remains alien throughout:
"But Tweel hung on to some of my words. He remembered a coupe of them, which I suppose is a great achievement if you're used to a language you have to make up as you go along. But I couldn't get the hang of his talk; either I missed some subtle point or we just didn't think alike--and I rather believe the latter view." (142).
Give thought to the manner in which Jarvis relates to this creature and the extent to which he comes to see his companion's complexity: unlike Robinson Crusoe and other adventures in SF such as John Carter, Jarvis does not dominate, does not condescend. Crusoe taught Friday English and named his slave, never thinking to learn the native's actual name or his language.
Think about how Jarvis differs in this manner: "Yet, in spite of all difficulties, I liked Tweel, and I have a queer certainty that he liked me" (144). Note, too, that they end up communicating not in either English or "Tweel," but through math.
But we still have an adventure, to be sure. Among other things, give though to the "Sirens," the tempters who could have shipwrecked Odysseus if not for his ingenuity, this putting wax in his companions' ears and ordering them to tie him to the mast so that he could not escape and yet hear the Sirens' call.
Jarvis, in our narrative, very nearly succumbs to the "dream-beast" who somehow reads Jarvis's subconscious and presents him temptation in the form of Fancy Long: "The dream-beast uses its victim's longings and desires to trap its prey. The bird at nesting season would see its mate, the fox, prowling for its own prey, would see a helpless rabbit!" (132).
And Jarvis will escape with his friend's help with an alien artifact that might well have a positive effect on humanity: "The thing had the property of hard x-rays or gamma radiations, only more so; it destroyed diseased tissue and left healthy tissue unharmed!" (157). In other words, Jarvis returns with something of positive use here, and not just for himself.
So enjoy, among other things, Tweel's mode of transportation in this still readable story from 1934.
Arthur C Clark's "The Sentinel" (1951) offers another interesting look at an alien encounter. In this narrative, however, only an artifact appears. You will have an opportunity to view 2001 A Space Odyssey later in the term, the film that grows from this short story.
As the introduction to the narrative indicates, Clark utilizes a pretty common trope in SF, the BDO, the Big Dumb Object, a familiar plot device in the genre; however, pay attention to how the author utilizes this enigmatic object left behind by an alien race millions of years in the past.
Among other things, give thought to the significance of the narrative's final lines: "I can never look now at the Milky Way without wondering from which of those banked clouds of stars the emissaries are coming. If you will pardon so commonplace a simile, we have just set off the fire-alarm and have nothing to do but wait.
I do not think we will have to wait for long" (249).
I like that the author refers to this object alien to the moon as a metallic enigma; consider, too, in your reading the significance of the story's title, this characterizing of this metallic object as a sentinel.
Consider, too, the extent to which Clark offers a rather ambivalent conclusion to the story. Just what does the alien race wait for? And why might the narrator feel uncertain about what comes?
What, for instance, do you make of the fact that those on earth take twenty years to "crack that invisible shield": "and to reach the machine inside those crystal walls. What we could not understand, we broke at last with the savage might of atomic power and now I have seen the fragments of the lovely, glittering thing I found up there on the mountain" (248).
You will find that The Day the Earth Stood Still covers some similar territory here, for the earth's use of atomic power attracts the attention of the alien race that comes to earth with an alarming offer.
And "The Sentinel" implies, you might consider, the possibility of a similar confrontation to come.
"Out of All Them Bright Stars" 1985) by Nancy Kress.
As your introduction points out, this sophisticated yet at first blush simple narrative raises important issues: "The alien of this story stands in for all those whose race, ethnicity, class, or gender disenfranchises them" (580).
Give this assertion your serious consideration when you discuss this story about an alien visitor who worries because "I make so Little difference!" (584).
As you will discover, the young woman Sally Gourley, our "ordinary Earth person" (584) placed in an extraordinary circumstance for her has no little bit in common with this blue alien--thing about how Sally feels marginalizes in her life: what power does she have? Why does she put up with her boss's racism and brutality (consider that he beats his wife, hurts Sally with his grasp)?
And as the alien says, "I seldom have the chance to show our friendliness to an ordinary Earth person" (584).
Note, for example, that the alien does not have a lot of freedom to meet with Earth people. In this context, what do the four men in suits represent? The alien does not resist the men's demand that he leave with them, for example.
You will find a similar circumstance in The Day the Earth Stood Still," for Klattu will escape, take the identity of Mr. Carpenter, and learn about humanity first hand. But the military will pursue him. As in It Came from Outer Space, the average people like Charlie and Kathy fear the alien and what to destroy what strikes them as a threat as real as what we find in The Thing from Another World.
Note, too, that the Blue Alien who calls himself John treats Sally with considerable humanity, touching her in the spot where she got bruised. Contrast that with her treatment in the hands of Charlie or the government representative. And part of the story concerns Sally's coming to appreciate what she initially refers to as an "it" to a "him."
The discussion, for example, of his name brings to mind Jarvis's attempts to say Tweel's actual name. Here, however, one feels a sense of loss when Sally asks the alien his name: "John makes some noise with his mouth, and I feel my own mouth open because it's not like a word he says at all, it's a beautiful sound--like a bird, only sadder" (582). But although John begins to explain the translation of this beautiful sound, Charley interrupts: "You get him out of here," Charley hisses. He still doesn't look at John. "You hear me, Sally? You get him out. The government says I gotta serve spiks and niggers, but it don's say I gotta serve him!" (583).
This attitude about outsiders, about others, about aliens, illegal and otherwise, informs Charley's world. And we have to ask about the extent to which this attitude of fear informs what we might call "an ordinary earth person."
You might want to discuss, too, the conclusion. What do you make, for example, of the fact that Sally remains a bit ambivalent about the difference aliens might make. In other words, if the aliens provide a mirror to Sally's world, what might change and challenge might this insight cause?
Why might Sally feel uncertain about change, as uncertain, perhaps, a our narrator in Clark's story feels about the possible arrival of aliens after the destruction of the artifact?
Science Fiction, you see, provokes thoughts about contemporary society, for after the arrival of John, Sally considers the extent to which she feels alienated, powerless. The narrative offers interesting insights about the difficulty of changing attitudes, among other things.
"Think Like a Dinosaur" by James Patrick Kelly
As with the other stories, this one won a top award, the Hugo. For your general information, fans vote for the Hugo Award and SF professionals vote for the Nebula Award.
This narrative features interesting aliens, the Hanen, whom humans refer to as Dinos. And as with previous two narratives in particular, Kelly's raises serious issues concerning just what "to balance the equation" means, especially in terms of what we see has, if you like, just human behavior.
This story also works well if you take the time to read again the first five or six pages that set the stage for the conflict that follows concerning especially the ethical issues involved--and that lead Michael to stay and not to go to the stars.
And consider, too, the price of going to the stars suggested by the description of Kamala on her return: "Kamala put her hand to my face. "It changes everything." I could feel the prick of her long nails--claws, really. For a moment I thought she meant to scar my cheek the way she had been scarred.
"I know," I said.
Kelly loves the ironic statements of the kind that conclude our story, for clearly everything has changed for Kamala, and not just, say, the direction of her life: for she has become, perhaps, very dino like in appearance, the consequence of her visit to Gend.
Your introduction mentions Tom Godwin's story "The Cold Equations," which is in the public domain; and you can read this important narrative, to which Kelly's story refers with its emphasis on balancing the equations. In fact, a look at the two forms the basis for an excellent essay.
Godwin's story stirs some controversy still on which Kelly plays, for "The Cold Equations" moved away from the more optimistic vein of SF Screening Space addresses--the final frontier gets depicted as a dangerous and cold place.
As with our story, the death of the young lady cannot be avoided; however, Kelly makes the death quite shocking, much more so than what happens at the conclusion of Godwin's story: “I’m ready,” she said. He pushed the lever up and the door slid its quick barrier between them, enclosing her in black and utter darkness for her last moments of life. It clicked as it locked in place and he jerked down the red lever. There was a slight waver of the ship as the air gushed from the lock, a vibration to the wall as though something had bumped the outer door in passing; then there was nothing and the ship was dropping true and steady again.
And while the pilot in Godwin's narrative feels terrible, note the manner in which Kelly describes the death of the "Redundant" Kamala and the effect the "impossibility" has on Michael.
The aliens, who describe human emotions as "weepy" play an interesting role that you want to consider as you read the story. How do they view humans? And what does humanity sacrifice to take advantage of the Hanen technology? Do we want to become like the dinos?
"I don't know how long it took. The thumping slowed. Stopped. And then I was a hero. I had preserved harmony, kept out link to the stars open. I chuckled with pride; I could think like a dinosaur." (715)
Well, each story raises interesting and different issues, and you will find plenty to discuss on the discussion threads for this opening week of the new term.
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