June 18, 2015

 Our mythic imagination reflects our desires for mastery, magical or scientific
 Our mythic anxieties shape our resistance tp innovation and mastery


Fantastic fiction shapes the public’s thinking about emerging technologies
 Frankenstein, Brave New World, Matrix,
Gattaca become shorthand for commonsense objections
 Fantastic fiction depicts social and philosophical issues in abstracted form, more often with implicit bioconservative messages
 Utopias are boring, and complex futures take more work
 Radically transformed humanity is hard to empathize with
 We need more sophisticated pop culture images of the future

 The audience
 The evolving demographics of fantasy, SF, horror fans
 The expanding demographics of fantastic fiction in television, film and games
 Socio-political trends
 Anxieties about immigrants, minorities, foreign threats
 Anxieties about technology and personal identity
 The expansion of liberal democratic citizenship

 Massification of fantastic literature, film and TV in 1980s
 Literary SF is more sophisticated than film and TV
 Literary SF more subcultural, film/TV SF more popular
 Film and TV have become darker and more complex
 My Favorite Martian, Mork and Mindy, Alf vs
X-Files, Babylon Five, Battlestar Galactica

 Aliens
 Machine minds
 Animals modified for intelligence
 Post-humans
 Other intelligent species from Earth

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 None of the top 25 grossing films of 1965 had non-human intelligence or future biotech
Guardians of the Galaxy – aliens
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – posthumans, aliens
The Hobbit pt 3 – non-human intelligent species
Transformers: Age of Extinction – machine intelligence
Maleficent – non-human intelligent species
X-Men: Days of Future Past – post-humans
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – uplifted animals
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 – post-humans
Godzilla – non-human intelligent species
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – uplifted animals
Interstellar – robots, aliens
How to Train Your Dragon 2 – non-human intelligent species
Lucy – post-humans



Kiser and Drass (1983): # of utopian novels goes up with depressions and “hegemonic decline” in UK & US, 1883-
1975.
Io9 analysis of Dr. Who’s revolutionary aspirations:


Annalee Newitz’ study

 If negative Other images reflect xenophobia we would expect them in more xenophobic groups and times
 Since SF fans are more liberal, more positive depictions in lit than film and TV

 Liberal democracies define citizenship based on psychological capacities, not physical characteristics
 This expands citizenship to non-human persons
 Withdraws citizenship from embryos and the braindead
The Measure of Man

 SF consumers were more opposed to animal experimentation especially for “higher” mammals
Hughes, James.
Aliens, Technology and Freedom:
Science Fiction
Consumption and
Socio-Ethical
Attitudes Futures
Research
Quarterly, Winter,
1995, 11(4): 39-58.
Figure 1: Science Fiction Consumption and Opposition to Use of Animals in Medical Experimentation
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
High SF Consumers
Low SF Consumers
0% fish rats birds cats dogs wolves chimps bears dolphins

 Cult favorites (Lord of the Rings,
Evil Dead)
 Elite vs. mass influence (Lovecraft)
 Cumulative down list volume (monster movies)
 Extraordinarily positive Others, applications of tech
 Boundary definitions (supernatural creatures, talking cartoon animals)
 Minor characters versus major characters
(Gremlins)
 Plot twists (silvers in Sarah Connor Chronicles)

 Novel technology causes evil, unintended consequences
 Deadalus & Icarus
 Evil scientists
 Dr. Faustus
 The desire for longevity mastery or intelligence is evil, has unintended consequences

 Most images of people who want more life are negative
Only sanctioned salvation can provide immortality, otherwise its evil

 The desire to reanimate the dead will have bad, unintended consequences
 Dr. Frankenstein is willing to unleash those consequences in the thoughtless pursuit of scientific mastery
 Does it inform our thinking about cardiac defibrillators or organ transplantation?

 The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896)
 Planet of the Apes (1963-2017)
 Splice (2009)

 State managed eugenic inequality
 In-vitro fertilization?
 Free genomic choices in a democratic society?
 Birth control, sexual freedom
 Safe happiness drugs
 Have Prozac, sexual freedom and reproductive choice robbed us of humanity or distracted us from political struggle?

 Promethean tech heroes
 Wells’ Things to Come (1933, 1936)
 Millennialism & utopian future
 Verne, Bellamy, Gernsback, Star
Trek
 Loyal servant

 Genetic engineering and cognitive enhancement are banned
 Limited use of the transporter
 Medical use explored in one episode
 AI is rare, and has a
Pinnochio complex

Gattaca (1997)
 Its not evil to help parents have healthier kids
 That future could fix his heart
 Lying to NASA so you can die in space is not heroic

 Doppelgangers, evil twins and stolen identities
 Sleeper (1973)
 The Boys from Brazil (1978)
 The Sixth Day (2000)
 Star Wars: Attack of the
Clones (2002)
 The Island (2005)
 Never Let Me Go (2010)
 Cloud Atlas (2012)
Why would clones have fewer rights, or be more manipulable, than other humans?

Blade Runner (1982)
 Is the creation of genetically enhanced people evil?
 Or is corporate power, racism and the intentional engineering of subservience?

Jurassic Park (1993-2015)
 Cloning a mammoth or a
Neandrathal?

 1963: "Electrical self-stimulation of the brain in man." by Dr. Robert
Heath.
 1972 : Epileptic self-stimulated thousands of times for hours;
“protested each time the unit was taken from him, pleading to selfstimulate just a few more times...”
 Terminal Man (book 1972, film 1974)
 Sleeper (1973) – Orb, Orgasmatron

 Flowers for Algernon (1959, Charly 1968)
 Awakenings (1990)
 Lawnmower Man (1992)
 Limitless (2011)
 Lucy (2014)

 Robocop (1987)
 Wolverine
 Captain America
 Countless others
 Is the problem militarism or the enhancements?

 Orginal vision of cyberpunk: to break with utopian and dystopian visions, and depict a gritty future
 Beyond the demonized or valorized Other to the complex and gritty Other
 For culture creators and audiences to be as sensitive to biopolitical tropes as they are now to racist images