In the past few weeks a collusion of cultural events had me reflecting on SF's popularity and uses.
Last week, I went to see Ridley Scott's new film, Prometheus. I'd looked forward to it, being a fan of his films and hearing that this was a prequel to Alien, which is perhaps my favorite horror film. But by the time I went I'd read some tepid reviews that reduced my expectations. Expectations can play such a large role in one's enjoyment of a film.
Given this preamble, I liked the film, especially its stunning beginning, with its cinematography and music. But it's not on the level of Alien. And though it's not literally a prequel to that film, Prometheus ends with the familiar critter emerging in all its evil fury.
The film is scary, but one scene in particular steals the show. I won't give it away, but Noomi Rapace is great in portraying the strength and suffering of the movie's heroine. Rapace, who played the lead in the Swedish trilogy of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, is one more of the heroines Scott is known for.
Earlier in the month, I received the June 4 & 11 issue of the New Yorker, "The Science Fiction Issue." It included four short stories (regular issues include one), plus six short reflections on SF by SF writers, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Margaret Atwood and Ray Bradbury, who died on June 5 at age 91. Several of these writers address the prejudice they've felt against SF by the literary community. Le Guin begins her piece thus: "For a long time, critics and English professors declared that science fiction wasn't literature." She goes on to argue that SF "can be imaginatively demanding and intellectually complex" and considers it "ungrateful for a writer to write science fiction and deny that it's science fiction."
Both she and China Méville caution against prejudice either direction--from SF readers toward other literature and vice versa. Atwood, though, makes a distinction between SF as fiction, and fiction as reality, while Karen Russell calls for reading for enjoyment, whether it's SF or literature.
William Gibson writes that SF told him, "Things might be different, … and different in literally any way you could imagine, however radical." This was a game-changer for him.
What is it about SF that's so popular today? I don't know. For me, though, it has to do with the fact that SF often deals with big issues in interesting ways. Prometheus, for example, is concerned with the question of the beginnings of humanity and asks, Where did we come from? And, as an article in Pacific Standard about astrobiologist Kevin Hand, who served as a consultant on the film, says, "It makes a better film when the makers get the science right."
Maybe people just like good stories, and SF provides some of those. Of course, there are bad or boring SF stories, just as there are bad stories in other genres.
Sometimes, perhaps, we need to get out of our usual context in order to see our world more clearly. SF is one way to do that. And it can be fun as well.
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