James Wallace Harris asks the intriguing question, Has the Universe Gotten Too Big for Science Fiction? But I think his reasoning is built upon a deeply flawed and limited definition of science fiction that can’t help but exclude things that fit squarely within the genre, like the recent films District 9 and Moon:
District 9 uses outer space aliens as a metaphor for a story about immigration xenophobia and racism. And even though District 9 opens with a magnificent flying saucer orbiting perfectly over Johannesburg, South Africa, with max-gnarly alien aliens, I still don’t consider it science fiction. Why? Real science fiction is about exploring the cutting edge of reality, and District 9 uses its aliens like other movies use angels or dragons to tell a fable. More than that, District 9 models its action after video games rather than modern science fiction magazine stories – but does District 9 model the emerging post-modern SF magazine stories?
District 9, he says, “uses science fiction as a metaphor for human xenophobia, rather than being speculative fiction about first contact with a non-human intelligence.” But I’d suggest that most if not all science fiction uses its subjects as metaphor. The genre is not, strictly speaking, a predictive tool; despite its name, it need not be defined solely by an ability to scientifically (much less accurately) speculate on the future, on technology, or on alien physiology and human contact with same. Because of its futuristic trappings of spaceships and aliens and intelligent machines, I think we sometimes forget that good science fiction is like any good fiction: ultimately it’s about us, as people, here and now.
I’m willing to go as far as Ursula K. Le Guin, who suggests a distinction between the more scientifically minded SF and the more anything-goes sci-fi, but I think that’s a fine line, and that they’re more like twin aspects of science fiction than two independent, mutually exclusive genres unto themselves. And even Le Guin admits of SF that “some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors.”
I have not yet seen District 9, but I hesitate to exclude it from science fiction simply because first contact with a non-human intelligence might actually play out differently, or because it looks at how we might treat an alien species more as a metaphor for how we have treated our own. Maybe it’s a different type of science fiction than some; maybe it’s more sci-fi than SF; or maybe it just (to borrow a phrase from Harlan Ellison) uses some of the furniture of the genre. But does that mean it isn’t science fiction, that it should be cast out from the umbrella of that name?
I think we’ve moved past the point where it’s the “science” half that wholly and completely defines the genre.
Moving on, I’m not at all sure I understand Harris’ reason for excluding Moon from science fiction — even if, unfortunately, I’ve not yet seen that film either. Harris writes:
Science fiction has always been about the future, it always embraced modernism, showing absolute faith in science with the relentless belief that we will eventually comprehend reality. Ivy League intellectuals have always considered the SF genre to be a literature for dreamy adolescents, so maybe it’s just taken science fiction a bit longer than the rest of the literary world to grow up and face the post-modern world of uncertainty.
I don’t agree with that definition of the genre — be it sci-fi or SF — at all. How is science fiction that looks inward, or that speculates on a less than gleaming and perfect future, or that acknowledges the uncertainty we all understandably have about the future — which by its (or at least our) very nature is unknowable — how is any of that suddenly not science fiction? I think the genre can absolutely shake off the embrace of modernism, doubt the infallibility of science, and throw into question our ability to understand reality. Moreover, I think it has an obligation to do so, above and beyond any “sensawunda” its stories might sometimes provide. Science fiction can celebrate science, positivity, and a gung-ho spirit of adventure and exploration. But that’s not all it can do, and I think we’d severely handicap the genre by imposing on it such a narrow definition.
That’s why, for instance, I think David J. Williams is wrong when he suggests that Mundane SF is dead simply because he personally finds it boring. Or that the confusingly named SFFE was wrong when they suggested that positivity and enthusiasm should be championed above all else. (To the point where it was implied that the alternative wasn’t just bad science fiction, but genuinely unethical.) I think the genre is a lot more accommodating and expansive than some people, or their definitions, would allow. I think there are lots of different types of science fiction, and stories within the genre that slip in and out of those different types, that adopt certain elements (or pieces of furniture) to tell interesting and important tales. Rather than narrow our focus and say things like, “This isn’t science fiction, because it doesn’t do…”, maybe we should embrace the wide variety of things the genre does do. Maybe we should expand our definitions.
I think the genre, and certainly we its readers and viewers, would be richer for it.
In reality, science fiction is a catch-all term that people use to point to all kinds of stories. I understand quite well I can’t define SF by my terms, I’m only lamenting that SF has moved beyond what I used to seek in reading science fiction.
I don’t believe science fiction is meant to be predictive, but I do think it’s meant to be speculative. The War of the Worlds speculated about one kind of aliens Earth might encounter, whereas ET imagines another kind. I don’t think the District 9 creators where really thinking about outer space aliens at all when they thought up their story.
Not to give away the story in Moon, I was disappointed that the makers of that movie were suggesting that humans wouldn’t want to work and live on the Moon. Of course, it served their gimmick, which was science fictional, but it’s foundation suggested that space wasn’t for people.
Science fiction used to be the literature that championed the human exploration of space. What I’m starting to see is some writers are realizing that space might not be for humans, and are writing a different kind of science fiction. That’s cool. Especially when it’s speculative about the future. Most modern SF ignore space exploration as a serious subject, and uses past science fictional ideas as settings for science fictional fantasies. Most SF in the movies is comic book adventure. No speculation, just escapism.
Science fiction is often a warning about the future, and sometimes it’s meant to inspire us to build better futures, but now it’s mostly about how to escape the present. District 9 was a quality film that was meant to make people think about now. That’s a very subtle distinction.
Think of it this way. Would District 9 inspire kids to study hard and get a job at NASA? Or Moon?
I think there’s a difference between “speculative” and “inspirational.” I think you can argue that science fiction ought to be the former, but I don’t think it’s under any obligation to be the latter. A future where people don’t want to work on the moon may be lamentable — that’s a matter of opinion, even if it’s one I might tend to share — but it’s not inconceivable, and I don’t think the act of positing that particular “what if” takes something outside the realm of science fiction.
Personally, I’m more interested the places where the boundaries between genres break down and/or slide into one anothe — what’s oftentimes referred to as slipstream. That’s maybe just a matter of personal taste, but I don’t see that much of anything’s gained by narrowing our definitions. I think, if you want more inspirational science fiction, or science fiction of any type, by all means champion it, but don’t exclude the rest from the science fiction club.
Thanks for the reply, though! There was a lot of food for thought in your original post, even if I tend not to agree with the meat of it.