Human Evolution as a Science Fiction Theme

In light of the human origins and evolution section we are currently covering in my Anthropology of SF class this semester, I thought I would work on this as a piece to prep for lecture this week.  Human origins and evolution are often seen as themes in works of science fiction. This current , brief, blog highlights some of how such themes are utilized. 

ABSTRACT
Seven benchmarks of human evolution are used to develop a framework to classify the literature of Science Fiction (SF). This Human Evolution Framework provides a set of tools by which SF themes are: (1) used to communicate the relevance of SF; (2) organized under a structure that distinguishes SF themes from SF subgenres; (3) applied to categorize SF literature in databases, enabling further quantitative research such as trends analysis or gender issues; and (4) recognized as future speculation on ancient concerns stemming from humanity’s evolution as a species.
The framework is evaluated against four other analyses of theme for interdependence, broadness of scope, and rationale. Additionally, this framework provides a justification for implementing Gunn’s Metaphor of Change, and organizes SF themes into units based on the human evolutionary benchmarks. Tool Development maps to Machine Intelligence; Exploration of Surroundings to Space Faring; Encountering Others to Extraterrestrials; Imagining of a Spiritual World to Inter-Dimensional Travel; Personal Transcendence to Trans-Human; Formation of Societies to Newtopia; and Modification of Habitat to Devastation.

INTRODUCTION

This article integrates previous discussions of theme into a system to classify the literature of Science Fiction (SF). Its aim is to provide a set of tools by which themes are: (1) used to communicate the relevance of SF; (2) organized under a structure that distinguishes SF themes from SF subgenres; (3) applied to categorize SF literature in databases, thus enabling further quantitative research such as trends analysis or gender issues; and (4) recognized as future speculation on ancient concerns stemming from humanity’s evolution as a species.
Due to its speculative nature as a literature of ideas (Barthell, 1971), SF emphasizes theme above other literary devices (Gunn, 1975; Klein, Goimard & Iokamidis, 1974). SF is described as the literature of change, because its themes concern future transformations and their consequence on humanity (Gunn, 2005). If current environmental trends go on, what will the repercussions be for food production? What if humans developed telepathy? How would it affect society?
Wolfe (2011) points out that commonly used descriptors of SF mix terms of classification with terms of theme. The resulting confusion between theme and subgenre is pervasive and spans from advice to SF writers (e.g. Gilks, Fleming & Allen, 2002) to literary criticism collections (e.g. James & Mendlesohn, 2003). The discussion of theme is absent from collaborative works like Bould, Butler, Robert and Vint (2009) or Gunn (1988) and from curricular design aids like Booker and Thomas (2011) or Sawyer and Wright (2011). Given its importance to SF, a renewed systematization of theme is warranted.
As the literature of change, SF looks to where humanity is headed, implying a parallel to where it came from. This paper will show that SF themes trace much further back in time than post-Renaissance inventions and explorations (Gunn, 1975) or utopias (Vonarburg, 2012). They reflect evolutionary stages of mankind, relating to matters of import to early humans as far removed as 2.4 million years ago, up to the time 5000 years ago when their world finally becomes ours.

HUMAN EVOLUTION FRAMEWORK

In order to use Human Evolution as a basis for thematic analysis, key benchmarks in this evolution must first be detailed.
Seven key benchmarks in human evolution
Tools. Tool making was long considered the benchmark that defined the beginning of genus Homo, some 2.4 million years ago in Africa with Homo habilis (Kimbel, 2009). While the onset of stone technology currently antedates habilis by 200,000 years, the sparse fossil record leaves Homo as the front-runner for first widespread tool use (Roche, Blumenschine, & Shea, 2009). In any case, the definite co-occurrence of tools and early humans becomes unquestioned by the time Homo erectus appears half a million years later (Plummer, 2004).
Setting. African Homo erectus, variously known as Homo ergaster, is the first hominin morphologically equipped to walk and run over long distances, and adapted to foraging for food in varied ecosystems (Plummer, 2004). And walk they did. H. erectus, the first early human to disperse out of Africa, explored settings as far removed as the Caucasus, Indonesia and China (Antón & Swisher, 2004).
Others. Jump forward an order of magnitude to 200,000 years ago, and hominins in Africa evolved into anatomically modern Homo sapiens (Tattersall, 2009). As evidenced by mitochondrial DNA, they migrated out of Africa between 70,000 and 40,000 years ago (Soodyall & Jenkins, 2005). They encountered others, human-like species such as the H. erectus descendants in Asia, and the Neanderthals in Europe, eventually replacing these others altogether (Klein, 2008).
Dimension. By 50,000 years ago, H. sapiens had become behaviourally modern humans (Klein, 2008). They exhibited an increased reliance on symbolic thought, as attested by personal ornaments such as shell beads (d’Errico et al. 2009), and burials with grave offerings (Pettitt, 2002). The latter is early evidence of belief in an invisible dimension, the realm of the spirits (Lewis-Williams, 2005).
Essence. As early as 30,000 years ago, the representation of entoptic phenomena in cave paintings attest to the onset of shamanism (Winkelman, 2010). Ethnographic studies suggest that ancient shamans achieved altered states of consciousness in order to communicate with spirits on different planes of existence (Lewis-Williams, 2002). In the eyes of their people, shamans thus transformed from ordinary humans to beings with supernatural powers.
Rules. The end of the last ice age saw the unrelated innovations of sedentism and domestication of plants ultimately result in true agriculture, for instance 10,500 years ago in the Middle-East (Pringle, 1998). Over the next two thousand years, the intensification of agriculture led populations to concentrate into villages and towns, larger-scale sedentary communities that enabled the diversification of labor, the necessity to manage social relations, and the emergence of some form of authority to enforce rules of behavior (Watkins, 2009).
Habitat. Intensive agriculture led to radical modifications of the environment, notably irrigation and terracing (Watkins, 2009). Despite the increase risk of infectious disease in higher density populations (Cohen, 2008), the capacity to produce surplus staples proved so advantageous that towns became city-states such as in Sumer 5000 years ago (Matthews, 2003). The development of cities exacerbated ecological impacts such as the clearing of woodlands, the provisioning for clean water, and the accumulation of waste.
Scientists may debate the details in that sequence of events (see Scarre, 2009, and references therein for key controversies), but there is general agreement that hominins evolved into early humans, who created and used tools, spread to other continents, to be later replaced by a more evolved model, who thought about spiritual dimensions, sought to master them by transcendence, invented agriculture and urban life, and greatly increased its environmental footprint.
Advent of writing: Evolutionary benchmarks in the written record
The advent of writing allowed humans to document and transmit ideas outside their own memory. Writing answered the need for accounting and commemorating events, but was soon used for literary creations in the broadest sense (Walker, 1990).
From myths and stories of later records, we observe that the key benchmarks of prehistory carried over to historical times. To wit: Daedalus and Icarus (tools), The Voyage of Unamun (setting), Homer’s Odyssey (others), The Egyptian Book of the Dead (dimension), The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (essence), and Plato’s Republic (rules). As history progressed, so did the writings on the same topics: Da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus (tools), The Travels of Marco Polo (setting), The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor (others), Dante’s Divine Comedy (dimension), Le Morte d’Arthur (essence), and Thomas More’s Utopia (rules).
Writing allowed civilizations to record the state of the world, including changes brought about by inventions and explorations. By and large, however, they spanned generations, or centuries, even within the Roman Empire, the Islamic Golden Age, or Imperial China. Change was documented, yet its pace was hardly noticeable within the average human lifespan (Gunn, 1975).
Acceleration of change: Evolutionary benchmarks extrapolated
The European Renaissance began five centuries of gradual innovation, a momentum that culminated with the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19^th Century. Historical change had gone from imperceptible to conspicuous: the future will be different (Gunn, 1975). Thus science fiction emerged, just as change and its consequences clamoured to be addressed.
SF picked up the contemporary versions of the age-old preoccupations – inventions, explorations, and others we meet, invisible dimensions and how to master them, the societies and environments we live in – and projected them in to the future.
This is best understood by applying what will be called the Metaphor of Change. The idea, as first put forward by Gunn (1975), is that an SF theme “incorporates a basic aspect of change — something new has been introduced in the experience” (p. 242). Gunn’s own examples are discussed in detail in the next section, but he clearly implies an experience that is contemporary with the storywriter.
Starting instead from the experience of early humans, the Metaphor of Change spans from prehistoric to future times. Thus, we progress from stone implements to intelligent machines (tools), from reaching the next valley to exploring the cosmos (setting), from encountering other tribes and hominids to meeting aliens (others), from divining the future to time travel (dimension), from shamans dealing in the supernatural to mutants with superpowers (essence), from loose-knit bands of people to finely structured utopias (rules), and from waste accumulation within village walls to radioactive wastelands (habitat).

Figure 1. Science Fiction Themes Mapped to Human Evolutionary Benchmarks

Figure 1 illustrates this derivation of SF themes from humanity’s path as a species. Scanning left to right, the top sequence of boxes outlines the seven benchmarks of human evolution. The earliest humans to appear on the scene, Homo habilis, exploited tools. They evolved into Homo erectus, who moved out of Africa to occupy Asia and Europe. When newly evolved Homo sapiens did the same, they met the descendants of these older species, and replaced them. Now capable of symbolic thought, H. sapiens wondered about supernatural dimensions. In order to master these, they sought to transcend their own essence. Later, they learned agriculture, and concentrated in cities. Finally, the intensive exploitation of resources modified their environment.
The middle series of boxes identifies each benchmarks’ keyword: tools, setting, others, dimension, essence, rules, habitat. This is followed by their modern extrapolations, then lists of the resulting SF ideas, then the corresponding SF themes in the last sequence of boxes.
Additionally, scanning downward from the top, each column emphasizes the progression from the benchmarks to speculative equivalents. For example, substituting stone tools for future tools results in the most sophisticated of all machines, the robots and A.I.s. Modifying human essence no longer produces shamans but supermen, and the mutant species that may replace Homo sapiens.
In order to determine the validity of using human evolution as a new framework to identify and discuss SF themes, we now evaluate other studies of theme in the corpus of SF literature.

EXISTING SCHEMAS FOR SCIENCE FICTION THEME ANALYSIS

Several schemas have been proposed over the years to analyze/synthesize the themes in SF. The four selected herein represent different approaches to the problem.
The first is an insider’s view. In an interview filmed in 1974, SF authors Gordon Dickson and James Gunn discuss theme in SF, listing eleven in all. Their combined experience as active participants in the vast conversation of written SF brings a semi-historical perspective to the subject, one that remains essential to the understanding of the SF genre. Gunn later published a definitive version of the list (Gunn, 1975). (Another insider’s view is found in Del Rey, 1979, although the proposed list of themes appears somewhat idiosyncratic, with themes like Biology and Stargates).
The second is the anthologist’s view. Using SF extant works in English, many of them classics, senior French editors Gérard Klein, Jacques Goimard, and Demètre Iokamidis put together a multi-volume anthology showcasing the themes of SF, (Klein et al., 1974), with each volume including an essay dedicated to its particular theme. (Such a dedicated thematic endeavour remains unique to this day).
The third is the structural approach. In a book-length analysis, Gary K. Wolfe presents SF as the means by which a technological society deals with the tension between the known and the unknown. Wolfe (1979) summarizes this conflict with five icons: the Spaceship, the City, the Wasteland, the Robot, and the Monster. The strength of this imagery, and how easily we recognize it as SF, suggests a direct link to the genre’s main themes. Inasmuch as the notion of archetype can be applied to genre fiction, Wolfe’s icons provide archetypal images of science fiction. (For a more recent, if less structured presentation of SF icons, see Jones, 2003.)
The fourth approach is multidisciplinary. Author, translator and teacher Élisabeth Vonarburg (Vonarburg, 2012) uses myths, history, and psychoanalytical concepts to derive four clusters of themes, which encompass two-dozen subthemes. While these clusters are somewhat heterogeneous, her text also emphasizes how SF subthemes often merge into each other. (Articles on the psychoanalytical aspects of SF may be found in Thaon (1986), which includes contributions from J. Goimard and G. Klein.)
A. Theme in Science Fiction: A discussion between Gordon Dickson and James Gunn
In 1974, James Gunn interviewed Gordon Dickson as part of SF in Films, a series comprised of twelve 20-minute interviews of well-known authors discussing specific topics important to SF literature. The Dickson interview dealt specifically with themes in SF, as follows:

• Far Traveling: the wonders of the Earth and the universe.
• Wonderful Inventions: the wonders and dangers of science.
• Progress: hope and faith, in science and the future; includes utopia.
• War/Armageddon: future wars, also a final war, perhaps resulting in better humans.
• Cataclysm: total destruction by other means (asteroid, collapse of food chain, etc.) .
• Super Powers: strange talents, a superior ability in one or many individuals.
• Superman: superior in all ways, so almost unlike man.
• Man and Alien: completely unlike man; invaders, also aliens providing guidance.
• Man and the Machine: the wonders and dangers of machines (Robots) .
• Man and Environment: man versus the environments he constructs, or finds elsewhere.
• Man and his Society: society itself as antagonist, with man either bearing it or altering it.
• Man and the Future: the future history of mankind, which opens infinite possibilities.

Note that the theme of Superman is missing in the opening credits list, but it is discussed on camera as a separate theme, and is formally included in Gunn (1975).
To a large extent, the themes flow from one to the next, partly because Gunn structures the interview to highlight natural sequencing. Wonderful Inventions is linked to Pandora’s box, from which comes both despair (War) and hope (Progress). Super Powers describes almost inhuman abilities, leading to Man and Alien, the truly inhuman. In that last segment, Dickson points out the purpose of many an alien environment in SF is to be dominated by the protagonist, a meaning very similar to that assigned to Man and his Environment – which one of the two will dominate – that suggests there is some overlap between themes. The mention of several H. G. Wells novels in six categories, along with more recent treatments by contemporary authors, also hints at the staying power of the themes listed.
Gunn presents the same list in the Appendix of his 1975 history of SF, Alternate Worlds, except for minor rewording and the addition of Man and Religion. Dickson uses the expression “the wonders of science, the wonderful inventions” in the interview. The film’s editor chose to list the latter as a theme, and Gunn settled on the former in the book, also shortened the film editor’s War/Armageddon to simply War. The book makes the interdependence of certain themes much clearer: Man and His Society is defined as “similar to Progress, except…” (Gunn, 1975, p. 242). The same goes for how Man and the Machine resembles The Wonders of Science, as Man and his Environment does Cataclysm, and Superman does Super Powers.
Another interesting difference is how Dickson and Gunn define Man and the Future as a thought experiment that takes a contemporary problem, and puts in a completely fresh context. Since this is precisely how they defined science fiction itself at the onset of the interview, Man and the Future becomes a catchall. The definition given by Gunn in Alternate Worlds does restrict its meaning to a variant of Progress. By either route, however, this would obviate Man and the Future as a theme unto itself.
In their treatment of Wonderful Inventions, Dickson and Gunn cite two novels they later ascribe to other categories: The Invisible Man, later in Super Powers, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, later in Far Traveling, though it is unclear whether the novels’ main themes are being changed, or new themes added. Furthermore, the discussion gives a sense that either Progress or Armageddon is the usual outcome of Wonderful Inventions. Finally, to define the latter as the wonders and dangers of science is another way to say it is about consequences, and this surely applies to most of SF, rendering Wonderful Inventions a questionable theme unto itself.
Many of Gunn’s SF themes from Alternate Worlds result from his application of the previously described Metaphor of Change: Far Traveling stems from changing the scene, Man and Alien from changing the cast, Super Powers from changing their abilities, and Wonderful Inventions from changing the tools. Substitute the latter for props, and the metaphor of a play on stage comes to mind. However, the success of this metaphor quickly unravels, as detailed below.
War/Armageddon would result from changing the weapons or nature of war, except that weapons are specific tools, particular props for the play, as it were: there is no more reason to single these out than for having côté cour and côté jardin as distinct types of scene. As for changing the nature of war, Armageddon is just as easily derived as a subset of Cataclysm (changing the physical conditions). Progress would be the outcome of changing change itself. However, the acceleration of change is what led to science fiction in the first place, so we are once again faced with the dilemma of a meta-theme that could conceivably apply to all of SF (except for utopia/dystopia, which are specific outcomes).
These last themes exemplify the problem with the Metaphor of Change as used in Alternate Worlds: the apparent success with scene, actors, abilities, and tools indicates some principle should be at work, yet the uselessness of themes one would extract from changing costumes or lighting reveals the metaphor in and of itself to be insufficient. A rationale for its application is missing. Which conceptual objects can the metaphor be legitimately applied to in order to yield valid SF themes? If changing man’s beliefs yields Gunn’s theme of Man and Religion, should we envisage a change in social conventions, or political systems, or the laws of physics? (Or love, for that matter, a topic from which much literary ink continues to flow.)
As pointed out earlier, several themes in Alternate Worlds may also be paired: Man and His Society with Progress, Man and the Machine with The Wonders of Science, Man and his Environment to Cataclysm, Superman with Super Powers. Gunn further confirms this by applying the change principle to only one member of each pair, another clue that one theme subsumes the other.
With Progress and The Wonders of Science already deemed too general, and Superman defined by Gunn as a subset of Super Powers, this group yields four themes: Man and His Society (includes utopia/dystopia), Man and the Machine, Man and his Environment (Cataclysm), and Super Powers (Superman). Adding Far Traveling, Man and Alien, and Man and Religion, the Dickson and Gunn/Alternate Worlds list is synthesized to a total of seven major themes that can be considered truly independent of each other.
B. Science Fiction anthologies by Gérard Klein, Jacques Goimard, and Demètre Iokamidis
From 1974 to 1976, the twelve-volume collection La grande anthologie de la science-fiction was published in France. The editors’ avowed intent was to exemplify the major themes of SF using stories, sixteen per volume on average, selected to cover a wide range of possibilities on that particular theme, and with a five to fifteen-page introductory essay tracing the theme’s link to history or literature, and its importance in the SF corpus. The anthologists were quick to point out that many stories addressed more than one theme, making the choice of the volume in which it appears an editorial decision.
There is a dialectic aspect in the selection and ordering of texts, which is made explicit in each story’s introduction. For example, the Time Travel stories are presented in order of increasing complexity, making this collection a practical treatise on the subject. The second half of its Table of Contents reads: “The Man Who Came Early” (by Poul Anderson), “Dark Interlude” (Mack Reynolds and Fredric Brown), “Vintage Season” (C. L. Moore), “Experiment” (Fredric Brown), “Me, Myself and I” (William Tenn), “Hindsight” (Jack Williamson), “The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway” (William Tenn), “Time Patrol” (Poul Anderson), “Of Time and Third Avenue” (Alfred Bester), “All You Zombies” (Robert A. Heinlein).
The twelve volumes are as follows:

• Extraterrestrials
• Robots
• Astronauts
• Mutants
• End of the World
• Machines
• Planets
• Powers
• Tomorrow
• Time Travel
• Wrong-Way
• Galactic

The Wrong-Way theme relates to humour. By the anthologists’ own admission – in the general introduction to the series, reprinted in each of the twelve volumes – this is a mixture of the other eleven themes, not a theme unto itself. Cultural biases may explain why humorous stories must be segregated from the others, so as not to contaminate serious analysis. This general introduction also makes clear that the anthologists consider the eleven subjects to be the most representative themes of science fiction, the ones that give it unity as a genre.
The singular advantage of Klein et al.’s framework is that there are sixteen stories, which serve as exemplars of any given theme, functioning in essence as an extended definition. More than any essay or volume label, the stories demonstrate the multiple facets and vast scope of the particular SF themes.
With the initial success of the with twelve volumes, the editors published another twenty-four between 1983 and 1985, all prefaced according to the new topics they were meant to exemplify:

• Parapsychological
• Survivors
• End of Time
• Ecological
• Invaders
• Space Travel
• Medical Doctors
• The Divine
• 4^th Dimension
• Immortals
• Automatons
• Supermen
• Creatures
• Future Societies
• Strange Worlds
• Rebels
• Untrue
• Paradoxical
• Mirages
• Year 2000
• Catastrophes
• Future Wars
• Mechanical
• Sex Fiction

The general introduction to the series has disappeared, leading one to conclude that these twenty-four new volumes either develop the original major themes, or explore related subthemes. Indeed the titles and contents of many volumes suggest immediate pairings to that effect: Powers with Supermen, Automatons with Machines, Space Travel with Astronauts, Extraterrestrials with Invaders, Rebels with Future Societies, Survivors with End of the World, and so on.
Examining the tables of contents, as reflected in the volume titles, elucidates less obvious themes. The End of Time, nominally about the ultimate fate of humankind in the very far future, often implies that eons alone will provide the necessary impetus for the transformation of humans, a subject matter similar to Mutants.
Ecological stories are, as the title suggests, about the environment we unwittingly damage as we modify it to suit our needs. They are modern Catastrophes of the slower kind, with pollution or global warming replacing a nuclear End of the World as the immediate threat. The Mirages theme contains stories that question reality or explore other dimensions of space. Most stories in the 4^th Dimension volume do the same, with a few using time as a fourth dimension, à la Einstein, and therefore relating to Time Travel. The Medical Doctors theme is about life and death, and science’s push to extend one and prevent the other. This puts it in the realm of transforming humans, the same category as stories about Immortals.
The volume on The Divine deals with our relationship to it, although it also contains stories about local gods, meaning very powerful aliens. As for the even more unusual volume titles, Untrue contains more humorous stories, and Sex Fiction encompasses future sex, not with aliens but in different social contexts.
A comparison of the volume titles with their actual contents also reveals a stated intent that quickly gives way to a more creative, some would say loose, interpretation of the anthologists’ own guidelines. Naturally, this does not alter the value of any given story.
Eliminating duplications/subcategories and the two multi-themed humour volumes, the 36 categories of the Grande Anthologie are reduced to nine thematic groups (the original eleven titles are underlined):

• Extraterrestrials – Invaders – Creatures
• Robots – Machines – Automatons – Mechanical
• Astronauts – Space Travel – Planets – Strange Worlds – Galactic
• End of the World – Survivors – Catastrophes – Ecological – Future Wars
• Powers – Mutants – Parapsychological – Supermen – Immortals – End of Time – M.D.s
• Tomorrow – Future Societies – Rebels – Year 2000 – Sex Fiction
• Time Travel – Paradoxical
• 4^th Dimension – Mirages
• The Divine

C. The known and the unknown: Gary Wolfe’s icons of Science Fiction
In a book-length analysis published in 1979, scholar Gary K. Wolfe proposes five “icons” of science fiction based on the images generated and popularized in the developmental period of SF as a literature – defined as the 30s through the 60s, the same period used by Klein et al. These symbols evoke the essence of science fiction to the public at large.
Wolfe writes that the function of SF is to “provide technological society with a ritual methodology for action” (p. 4), meaning one that is related to, but not strictly bound by, the scientific method. In this view, SF is indeed a tool that familiarizes the strange, with icons that illustrate specific aspects of this opposition between the known and the unknown. A barrier isolates the two, much like the threshold in Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey. Unlike its function in the Campbell (1968) monomyth, however, the barrier isolates us from hypothetical worlds, not mythical ones, and is either a puzzle to be solved or a factor that helps contrast cultures.
Three of the five icons are “images of the environment”: the Spaceship, the City, and the Wasteland. The other two are “images of humanity”: the Robot, and the Monster.
The Icon of the Spaceship represents the entry into the unknown. From the novels of Verne and Wells to the illustrations that graced the covers of countless magazines and books, to movies such as Destination Moon, the Spaceship has always been more than transportation, it also functions as a portable habitat, a world in miniature. If only because space is a far harsher environment than the sea, the spaceship is a mini-world in ways sailing vessels were not, as evidenced in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Icon of the City represents the subjugation of the unknown, with the City providing a controlled environment in which to live. One paradox is that the Spaceship is surely the most controlled place of all, though environment-sized ships would become cities, a point paralleled by Blish’s decidedly un-metaphorical Cities in Flight novel series title. The City does play an iconic role in SF, Fritz Lang having paved the way in Metropolis. However, its environmental control is arguably a surface feature. The underlying societal control – which allowed cities to arise in the first place – is the most potent quality of the City, as it cannot possibly survive without the kind of structured behavior that maintains it. In SF literature, Asimov’s planet-sized city, Trantor, typifies this parallel between the physical city and its underlying social control apparatus.
The Icon of the Wasteland represents a re-emergence of the unknown and focuses less on the cataclysm itself than the survivors, starting anew. This is viewed from the perspective of a society fallen from civilization, which makes the Wasteland the other extreme of the control spectrum, a total absence thereof. The Wasteland is the most iconic form of a ruined environment, and the cinema of the fifties provides the clearest examples, from War of the Worlds to This Island Earth. Of course, more subtle means of devastation than Armageddon have also been explored, for instance in No Blade of Grass.
The Icon of the Robot represents the image of technology in Wolfe’s view, although the same could conceivably be said about the Spaceship. Wolfe points out that robots commonly symbolize slavery, this from their first appearance in the 1921 Karel Čapek play R.U.R. to their modern version in Star Wars. Wolfe’s Robot icon also comprises A.I. and machine self-awareness. Note that Klein et al. venture further by having a separate volume for Machines, of the black box kind, those that evoke Clarke’s Third Law, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Clarke, 1973, p. 21).
The Icon of the Monster represents images of human transformation, and inasmuch as cinema has fed us a steady diet of monsters, many of whom are human-derived mutants, the Monster does encapsulate the concept of otherness. Unfortunately, intelligent aliens are subsumed in this same category. Whereas a transformed human immediately poses the question of its continued humanity, the lack of which equals monstrosity, an alien leaves room for more subtle aspects of otherness, as is clear from a monster-less story like Sturgeon’s “A Saucer of Loneliness”, or the Chanur novels by C. J. Cherryh.
Undeniably, Wolfe’s five icons relate to the themes found in SF, yet three of them do not really encompass enough to qualify as themes. For one, the City requires the underpinnings of societal constructs. Without roles and rules, the necessary maintenance of a city-sized man-made environment is impossible. Secondly, the alien that behaves as a Monster is but a single type of the many aliens found in SF. Thirdly, the vast thematic possibilities of far travels and space exploration are not entirely accounted for by the icon of the Spaceship, as neither can the richness and complexity of exotic lands of Earth’s past centuries be properly represented by ancient sailing vessels.
In other words, while Icons are truly representative of the imagery of SF, their use in lieu of themes carries with it the risk of becoming over-simplistic. (Their very effectiveness as icons may also explain the difficulty writers encounter when tasked to translate the subtleties of great SF literature into a screen version palatable to the uninitiated and aficionado alike.)
D. Élisabeth Vonarburg’s Psychologie (sauvage) des grands thèmes de la science-fiction
In a recent essay on the psychological resonance of SF themes, author and teacher Élisabeth Vonarburg presents four thematic clusters: Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Otherness, and Utopia, which deal respectively with space, time, living beings, and societies (Vonarburg, 2012). Each comprises several “motifs” (subthemes), defined as a set of setting, situations, characters that give a specific flavour to the broader cluster, as detailed below.
ELSEWHERE

• Plausible Space: realistic, science-based conjecture, such as living on Mars.
• Symbolic Elsewhere: similar settings used for personal/mythological concerns.
• Voyages: the ship as access to elsewhere, especially other star systems.
• Vital Adventure: heroic survival, à la Crusoe (i.e. To Have);
• Metaphysical Adventure: initiation journey, à la Galahad (i.e. To Be).
• Other Dimensions of Space: 4^th dimension, macro/microcosm as atoms.
• Inner Space: bio/socio/psychological, stories about human foibles and desires.

ELSEWHEN

• Witness Other Times: passively, the past and future never change.
• The Time Machine: events change in principle (despite Wells’ avoidance of such).
• Temporal Paradox: at its worst, the risk of self-cancellation. Some solutions:
  • Circularity: trips to the past are already included as loops in the time stream;
  • Elasticity: the time stream exhibits resilience, and self-corrects in the long run;
  • Time Patrol: guardians use this elasticity to correct deviance from history.
  • Parallel Universes: the traveller switches to another potential present.
• Alternate History: in which some crucial past event had a different outcome.

Vonarburg goes on to detail the psychoanalytical, or personality growth implications of time travel to the past: knowing future events gives power and gratification – megalomania; meeting oneself in the flesh wreaks havoc in the formation of Ego – narcissism; going to the past to bed one’s own mother is a twist on Oedipus – incest, as is killing one’s father – patricide. She adds the conundrum of free will: the circularity variant’s unchanging past means tragic determinism; elasticity of the timeline suggests the Marxist view of interchangeable individuals; and a Time Patrol implies totalitarianism.
UTOPIA

• Utopia—tomorrow: the perfect society, usually set in Earth’s near or far future (there is an infrequent Utopia—elsewhere variant set on other worlds).
  • End of the World: collapse of civilization, with survivors, reconstruction, and an eventual better world. (Note that the subsuming under Utopia is unusual, as most assume a rupture with prior social order, whereas utopias are in continuity with it.)

OTHERNESS

• Extraterrestrials: invaders or guardians, with a strong first contact subtheme.
• Mutants: physical, i.e. monsters, or psychic, as in super/post-humans with powers.
• Androids: organic artificial humans (a divine lèse-majesté for daring to create life).
• Cyborgs: humans with mechanical parts, less sacrilegious than mutants/androids.
• Robots: fully mechanical (after Asimov, monster robots become perfect humans).
  • Artificial Intelligence: sentient computer variant, with modern subthemes:
    • Virtual Reality/Cyberspace: otherness via an avatar;
    • Virtual Immortality: survival by download of personality in a machine.

The grouping together of Extraterrestrials and Mutants parallels Wolfe’s icon of the Monster. However, the implication that Androids and Robots tread on the divine ground of creating life or perfecting humanity seems a more relevant psychological tenet than their Otherness.
It is notable that psychological analysis elicits few actual SF subthemes overall, beyond the implication for free will embedded in the various solutions the time travel paradox. The growth of personality parallel emphasizes using knowledge of the future to gain power, meeting oneself in narcissism, and living the Oedipus story as incest and/or patricide, all of which are time travel plot points, none of which is a thematic variant in Vonarburg’s list. Furthermore, the wish for power is not limited to time travel; all super power stories use a fictional device that fulfills it.
When psychology does yield subthemes, as with Elsewhere, the result is not SF-specific, and could apply to all of fiction, a point Vonarburg makes herself. Metaphysical Adventure and Symbolic Elsewhere tell us more of the intent of the story’s author than what SF is about, a point Vonarburg also highlights in the Inner Space subtheme. To argue this from another perspective, if the psychological resonance of time travel does not of itself yield themes, why should space travel be any different?

Table 1: Comparison of the Four Schemas for Science Fiction Theme Analysis

Having already synthesized the thematic lists of Dickson and Gunn, and Klein et al., and having restructured the icons of Wolfe and pruned the thematic clusters of Vonarburg, we may directly compare these results, shown in Table 1, and observe there are nine resulting groups of themes to compare. The next section will show how the new Human Evolution Framework does account for the first six groups as bona fide themes, and additionally resolves the last three groups into a seventh and final theme.

DISCUSSION

In order to develop a structure that systemizes SF themes, promoting debate and further analysis, these four schemas must be integrated with the Human Evolution metaphor into one cohesive and easily communicable framework.
Direct comparison of the four schemas
The original list of themes from the Dickson and Gunn interview, as finalized in Gunn (1975), was synthesized above into seven groups, shown in the first column of Table 1. This first list serves as a reference point, with the other three sorted to match. The consolidated list of Klein et al. is presented in the second column (the original eleven volume titles are underlined). The icons of Wolfe (1979) are listed in the third, with the alien version of the Monster separated from the transformed human, a subdivision from his original text that allows a direct correspondence with similar themes from other authors. The thematic clusters of Vonarburg (2012) are in column four, also segmented according to her own subthemes.
Line by line, Table 1 reveals a mutual thematic similarity among all the authors. For example, the vast scope offered by Gunn’s theme of Far Traveling and the wonders of the cosmos is matched by Klein et al.’s grouping of Astronauts, Planets, Galactic, Space Travel and Strange Worlds, all reasonable candidates for subthemes of Far Traveling, as are Vonarburg’s Plausible Space, Travels, and Vital Adventure, and Wolfe’s Spaceship icon.
The same goes for Man and the Machine, echoed in Klein et al.’s Robots, Machines, Automatons, Mechanical, also in Wolfe’s Robot, etc. In fact, the same can be said for the first six rows of themes in Table 1. There are minor variations, for instance Vonarburg’s Mutant is not always endowed with Super Powers, and Klein et al. do list both as separate entities, but they form a group that can be labelled as modified humans, the equivalent icon from Wolfe.
Nonetheless, the overall impression from Table 1 is one of kinship, and whether a given group of themes is labelled Far Traveling, Machines, Society, Wasteland, Mutant or Aliens seems less relevant than finding their obvious commonalities.
This broad agreement, the fact that six comparable themes are present in all four schemas, is a remarkable result in view of the rather different approaches each one exemplifies. It is all the more significant because only Wolfe provides an actual method for his framework, one that was never designed to derive SF themes per se. The other three provide little theoretical justification for their proposed schema.
Comparison to the Human Evolution Framework
The genus Homo is defined by its widespread use of tools. Tracing the evolution of these tools, we progress from stone implements to intelligent machines. Taken as a group, this is the theme variously called Man and the Machine, Robots, and so on. Note that this defining principle is inclusive: Automatons are tools; Androids are tools; Cyborgs are tools.
Over time, Homo erectus spread to the Asian and European continents, as Homo sapiens later did to the entire world. We advance from reaching the next valley to exploring the cosmos, and address the same issue of setting. From the Spaceship itself to the Strange Worlds encountered while Far Traveling, all variants from other schemas are accounted for.
In expanding his horizons to encompass all continents except Antarctica, Homo sapiens encountered previous migrations of early humans, eventually replacing them. The notion that we meet others grows from encountering different hominins to meeting Aliens. The idea is present in all four schemas.
As exemplified by shamanism, H. sapiens sought control over the mysterious forces driving the natural world by transcending themselves. So we grow from shamans dealing in the supernatural to Mutants with Superpowers. This quest is present in the stories of myth and proto-literature, as well as their modern equivalent of modified humans as Monsters. Once again, the suggested term of human essence is broad enough to incorporate all subthemes.
The invention of settled life and agriculture eventually resulted in the first cities, division of labor, social complexity, and attendant rules of behavior. Change these rules, and we progress from loose-knit bands of hunter-gatherers to finely structured utopias. Man and his Society (Gunn), comprises Utopia (Vonarburg), usually from the point of view of Rebels against the majority in Future Societies (Klein et al.). As with previous themes, societal rules stem from a specific benchmark that remains general enough to comprise all the related subthemes proposed in other schemas.
The higher-density living conditions in the cities, coupled with the needs of intensive agriculture, greatly increased humanity’s environmental footprint. Modify the habitat, and we progress from waste accumulation within village walls to ecological wastelands. Whether from Cataclysm (Gunn) or slower Ecological forces (Klein et al.), the result is the End of the World (Vonarburg). This result is either a Wasteland (Wolfe) or a place in which Survivors (Klein et al.) start anew. Extremes of habitat comprise all the variants listed before.
Therefore, the Human Evolution Framework not only accounts for these six major themes, but it provides a rationale for their presence.
Integration of time travel, other dimensions, and the divine
The first six benchmarks take place in a concrete world readily accessible by the senses: tools are in hand, the ground explored is beneath the feet, shaman may be touched. Not so for the realm of the spirits, which is entirely invisible. To wonder about the forces behind the natural world, or the fate of the dead, is all in the mind.
Time travel is filed by Gunn under Far Traveling, whereas Wolfe considers the time machine a Spaceship-equivalent that grants access to another kind of unknown. Vonarburg disagrees with both, arguing that it concerns causality much more that exotic locales, a potent reason to treat it as a separate theme. A similar line of argument applies to stories in her macro/microcosm subtheme, also grouped by Gunn under Far Traveling. Vonarburg segregates this type of story as well, this time under Other Dimensions of Space. Instead of yet another strange land to visit, this becomes another facet of the invisible, literally another dimension. Klein et al.’s Mirages and Vonarburg’s Other Dimensions of Space are therefore linked to their own version of Time Travel. All takes place outside the “normal,” visible universe of three-dimensional space ruled by one of time, moving one-way past to future.
Moreover, shamanism is considered to be the Upper Palaeolithic stage of proto-religion (Rossano, 2006), so that themes such as Klein et al.’s The Divine and Gunn’s Man and Religion now fall under the same label, not of beliefs – though of course they are – but rather under the benchmark of invisible dimensions.
Access another dimension, and we progress from divining the future and the realm of the gods to time travel and alternate realities.
In effect, the Human Evolution Framework accounts for all nine rows of Table 1 by combining the final three into a seventh and final major theme.
In addition, it provides the missing criteria for the application of Gunn’s Metaphor of Change to full effect. The SF theme of aliens is obtained by changing not the actors but the others; stories about religion are derived not from changing the beliefs but the dimension; Far Traveling comes from changing not the scene but the setting, and so on.
Thus, the themes of SF are now recognized as future speculation on age-old concerns stemming from humanity’s evolution as a species, organized here in a structure that facilitates the integration of subthemes, since every such item from other schemas may be accommodated.
The Human Evolution Framework’s broad definition of theme obviates the requirement implied by Wolfe (2011) for one-to-one correspondence between theme and subgenre. Thus, the framework provides a tool with which to discuss the complexities in the interrelations between these groupings.
Ideas are the raison d’être of SF literature. The incorporation of a set of discrete themes into repositories such as the Internet Science Fiction Data Base (www.isfdb.org) would facilitate quantitative studies of these ideas, by using story themes as computable data. For example, does the influx of women writers over time influence the prevalence of some themes over others? At which level of granularity do historical trends become detectable in SF literature?
Lastly, this framework provides an improved entry point to communicate SF to the uninitiated, by presenting concerns broader than television’s spacetime fantasies, killer robots or ill-conceived aliens and mutants. What ends up on television only looks like science fiction (Gunn, 2006), but this particular media increasingly defines SF to the public at large (Stableford, 1996).

CONCLUSION

This paper has shown how the seven benchmarks of human evolution permeate humanity’s stories, spanning from early myths and proto-literature to modern Science Fiction. It has also illustrated how four different approaches to theme in SF exhibit such similarities as to immediately suggest six major themes. Moreover, it has demonstrated that the few remaining themes that may on the surface appear unrelated partake of a single, seventh one.
Whether these seven themes are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive is beyond the scope of this paper. However, the application of the seven evolution benchmarks to speculation about the future does provide a rationale for the suggested existence of seven, and only seven, major themes of SF:

• MACHINE INTELLIGENCE: intelligent tools, including their interface with humans.
• SPACE FARING: humanity traveling and living in the cosmos.
• EXTRATERRESTRIALS: non-human intelligent life, evolved on other worlds.
• INTER-DIMENSIONAL: different spacetimes, such as time travel and alternate realities.
• TRANS-HUMAN: humans modified by intrinsic mental powers and/or physical alteration.
• NEWTOPIA: society restructured via new rules and social constructs (continuity is implied).
• DEVASTATION: wastelands and survivors, post-cataclysm or otherwise (rupture is implied).

Main thematic categories by no means imply that stories should be confined to a single one, especially in longer forms. For example, 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968) incorporates six themes as major story elements: the HAL-9000 computer (tools), the Moon and Jupiter Mission sequences (setting), the four black Monoliths, known from the novel version to be products of superior alien minds, the Star Gate sequence, a clear candidate for other spacetimes (dimension), the final Starchild as a transformed human (essence), and his use of newfound abilities to stop a nuclear exchange (habitat), a final scene from the book that was left out of the film.
The Dawn of Man sequence ends with what is arguably the most famous match cut in cinema history. A prehistoric man throws an antelope thighbone up in the air, which instantly becomes an orbital satellite two million years later. One may argue that this precisely illustrates the contention that the seven major themes of science fiction originate from the evolutionary benchmarks of humankind.



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Cultural Themes in Batman Part II

It has been a bit of a while since I last posted a blog, but thus is life - thus is life getting in the way of sitting down to blog.  I wanted to get something posted this week though and decided to complete some thoughts on Batman.  I will blog again as soon as I am able. Hopefully it will be more regular once again.  Thank you ! Now, onto the second part of exploring Batman.

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT

 

The media can be an overwhelming entity in the world today. There is always a television or radio on somewhere wherever we may be at any given time that plays an important role in shaping our perceptions of the world. What follows is a brief look at the cultural impact specifically of The Dark Knight Rises.



 

The Dark Knight Rises

Cultivation theory argues that as more people watch TV and it consumes a greater part of their lives, they will soon begin to feel as though the portrayed world is reality. The movie The Dark Knight Rises is a great opportunity to analyze the theory with respect to a piece of media that has gained widespread notoriety. In showing how this movie is a paradigm example of the implications of cultivation theory, it will first be important to go over some core assumptions and concepts in order to relate them to the movie. Then, specific examples from the movie, society and our values will be discussed to reflect how there is a strong relationship between this form of media and the people who watch it. In performing a cultivation analysis of a specific piece of media, the new release of the hit movie The Dark Knight Rises is a great example of how the media fosters a sense of belief in perceived cultural values and directly impacts people’s behavior on a micro level.

Some core themes and the overall plot of The Dark Knight Rises correlates directly to concepts related to cultivation theory and communication. For instance, it is important to realize that Gotham City is reflective of the American city lifestyle where money, greed and crime are rampant. Also, villains like the Joker and Bane in the final movie reflect the notion of mass terror, fear and chaos upon a city of innocent civilians. Surely, this is indicative of a “mean world” syndrome in which there is a very cynical mindset regarding the actions, motivations and mentalities of people in the world. The movie fully emphasizes that there are individuals in our world that use chaos and terror as an end in itself, rather than a means for money, power or influence. Again, this is very indicative of a culture of fear that cultivation theory posits. Even more, the fact that a masked, fictional vigilante is the only one who can stop the villain shows that the police force and traditional forms of justice do not apply. This skews reality because it represents a world in which people are powerless and only fictitious heroes have the capacity to control the evil nature of people.  Surely, this also reflects the attitude of fearing walking alone at night because the world is portrayed as being dangerous. 

Our Fascination with the Dark Knight

It is also important to consider why people chose to consume this type of media: because it validates existing values and beliefs. The culture of fear is not limited to just movies such as this; in fact, it is a ubiquitous facet of media in general. While news outlets like CNN and others deliver both first and second order effects (facts and values and assumptions), movies only foster the latter. For example, according to Barry Glassner (1999), author of The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, even statistical data is skewed to represent how dangerous the world is. In citing an example of a Washington Post story of a 1991 shooting, the author lamented that the core message was “you were told that the streets of America were more dangerous than a war zone” (Glassner, 1999, p. 23). This represents a second order effect in which the values and assumptions are warped to represent a culture of fear. Post 9/11, this was even more true as the threat of terrorism was emphasized heavily in the media. 

Similarly, The Dark Knight Rises touched on these same themes by fostering a second order effect related to terror, fear and exaggeration. Within the movie, there was a bombing of a football stadium in which the police was trapped, the citizens were subject to a nuclear bomb explosion and no one could leave. While this was surely used as theatrics in order to build the plot, it nonetheless reinforced values of a powerless group of citizens who were at the mercy of a threat by a small handful of individuals. This kind of media is even more influential for heavy viewers that are exposed to this theme more frequently. Moreover, given that violence in the media is also present, it is no wonder that the same themes of fear and the “mean world” syndrome are evident. Just as the citizens of Gotham City were not comfortable with leaving their homes out of fear from gangs and prisoners roaming the streets, similar news stories on a daily basis plague the media. This all comes together in developing a mainstream theme of fear in society that may be unwarranted and heavily exaggerated. The Dark Knight Rises only adds credibility to this argument by portraying the same themes.

Entertainment Gone Wrong 

The cultural implications of such themes in the media and the respective movie have been cited as directly evident in recent events. For example, we can see clear evidence of a hypodermic needle paradigm with the case of the theatre shooting in Colorado during the showing of The Dark Knight Rises. In one of the most serious shootings in American history, the media flocked to the scene to discover why the young man was motivated to open fire on harmless individuals. Cited news reports stated that the shooter colored his hair orange to imitate the Joker, a character from a previous Batman film that had a penchant for the same type of behavior. While for other instances the influence of this type of media may be small or not quantifiable, in this case it is clear and blatant. This reflects the notion that heavy television viewers have a higher tendency to engage in violence. CBS Local News (2012) published an article that reflected on how older Batman comic books explicitly featured a movie theatre shooting scene as a form of inspiration for the killer. Surely, the argument that the movie, characters and villains of The Dark Knight Rises inspired the young shooter were critical points that the article mentioned. To that extent, it is reasonable to argue that media like this has a strong capacity to influence people on a micro level to carry out acts of violence that they have witnessed on the big screen. This relates back to cultivation theory’s theme of a warped reality in which the perpetrator would not be caught and punished for his actions based on the course of events in a movie. However, this tragic case clearly exemplifies that the shooter’s perception of reality and his actions were not indicative of the reality that the media fostered.

However, some limitations regarding the application of cultivation analysis should be noted. For example, while the movie was a reflection of a Hollywood production, it is easy to analyze it from the perspective of an objective story. It should be taken into account that the fictional movie was meant to entertain people and follow a story line from previous movies. Nonetheless, it is still reasonable to apply the theory and its concepts from the standpoint of broader themes such as a culture of fear because there is evidence that this is not an isolated incident in the media. Moreover, the direct use of an example where the movie inspired violence based on false perceptions of reality is also applicable because it reflected a tangible means of testing whether the theory was supported through observable behavior. 

As we have seen, movies like these clarify and exemplify cultivation theory in terms of false perceptions of values, violence, and the real implications of it. Core themes of the movie reflected a society that lived in a culture of fear where masked vigilantes are the only ones capable of bringing villains to justice. Society and its own police force is powerless to stop the inherent terror brought on by villains who only want to see evil and terror as an end in itself. This reflected core concepts such as “mean world” syndrome and an overwhelming culture of fear. Media like this is consumed because it validates and justifies existing values that society is already exposed to as being main stream. For example, the mass media’s tendency to exaggerate tragic events and glorify the dangers of daily life were core facets of Glassner’s (1999) argument that Americans have irrational fears brought on by the media. The movie also endorsed similar themes related to such warped perceptions. Finally, the theatre shooting of 2012 was evidence that exemplified how such influence has real world consequences that are tangible. The shooter’s perception of violence, terror and the way in which terror was carried out was similar to previous Batman movies where villains like the Joker did not have to succumb to police or real authority in the world. Given this evidence, cultivation theory offered a strong framework for understanding how movies like The Dark Knight perpetuated themes of fear, inclination towards violence and a false view of reality. 



 



Batman and Culture

I had not realized it had been so long since my last post. The con season as well as the end of a long fall semester got the best of my time though.  But, I am back with a post on the cultural significance of Batman tonight.  I tried to come up with a running theme or themes, but have found I tend to write according to my mood and what I am tuned into at the time.  So, with that, I will move forward with Batman !

Cultural Significance of Batman

Since the conception of Batman in 1939 the face of popular culture in the United States and the rest of the world has greatly changed due to many technological advancements, because of these advancements the face of Batman as a cultural artifact has changed as well, reflecting those changes and benefiting our culture by giving people a common idea of how powerful a superhero that is merely human can be while remaining the original conception of Bruce Wayne, a business man, and Batman, his secret identity. The artifact of Batman can be found all over the world. In the United States specifically it would be hard to go shopping at a mall without having an encounter with at least one piece of Batman memorabilia. With his two sided nature, Batman can identify to any normal person with a job and an agenda for helping mankind, which is generally an inherent quality of all humanity.

Batman the artifact significantly functions as a cultural sign by having a great amount of symbology from the symbol of a solid black bat in front of a circle of light to the idea that Batman the artifact is symbolic of a hero and good having the ability to overcome evil. Popular culture is very aware of all of these symbols of Batman. Batman even has his own song, “nananana, nananana, Batman”, which is seemingly imprinted within our culture so that if you sing the Batman song the majority of people will know exactly what your referring to. As culture and technology have changed from the time of Batman's first conception the portrayals and depictions of Batman have changed as well. When Batman was first created he was created as a detective in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), in a time period commonly referred to as the “Golden Age” of comics when many of the comic superheros and villains were being created. When Batman was first created he did not yet have all of the villains, weapons, and experience that the character has now. The personification of Batman, like society, has grown since his first conception. This becomes extremely obvious if one looks at the capes that Batman used to use in the original television show, and then then looks at the body armor suite that he wears in The Dark Knight (2008).

The bat itself can be seen as a symbol of darkness and mysticism as the bat flies only at night and is blind, relying on its ears to navigate through the night by hearing echoes and using them to judge the shape and distances of objects. Batman is a sign of someone reaching for that darkness and mysticism for the greater purpose of good. Because of this darkness, Batman creates fear in his enemies and dares the criminals to be not, or face his bat strength and wrath. Not only can Batman and all of his symbols be seen as cultural artifacts, but the villains that he overcomes as well. For example, the Joker, one of Batman's greatest nemesis represents the idea of someone being overly comical, and not taking life seriously enough, which batman overcomes, showing that life is not all fun and games which also represents some of the inner workings of Batman because if he were to not take life seriously he would not be the super hero that he is. There are many other villains that Batman has to overcome, including, Two-Face, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, and Penguin, to name a few. Batman functions as a sign of all these things and as an icon of American culture.

According to Barry Brummett there are three types of meanings; indexical, iconic, and symbolic (Brummett, P8). The artifact that is Batman has cultural meaning in all of these ways. Batman has indexical meaning by representing the entire sub-culture of comic book heroes, and superheros. Not only does Batman represent the comic book sub-culture, he also represents the idea of a hero in general, going back to stories told in parables and mythos of a hero that has the ability to overcome intense opposition. Another indexical meaning of Batman is that he can be his association with a bat, anytime someone sees a bat it can be likened to Batman, and vice versa.

One icon of batman of course is his own symbol of a bat with a circle of light behind it, which has changed numerous times from the time of its first conception, this icon has the cultural meaning of giving help to those in need, as a giant spot light is shined into the sky with the Batman symbol in the middle of it whenever his help is needed, this icon also represents Batman himself. The image of Batman himself has an iconic meaning to the culture and has always been changing from the first drawings to the most recent movies and comics. The actual icon of Batman is always changing, but the meaning to the culture has always been the same. Batman will always be a superhero that can overcome tremendous trials and tribulations in order to benefit the good of mankind.

All of these are also symbols of Batman that give meaning to his entire entity. Batman has symbolic meaning in every aspect of his being, if one looks at it from any perspective, they can see that there are symbols throughout all of life, including Batman, so many it would be impossible to mention or process them all. According to Barry Brummett, “everything is a sign of something else” (Brummett, P8). For example I could say that the symbol of batman having a black cape means that he has an underlying desire to be dark and mysterious, one could also say that the cape represents his swiftness and agility in the darkness in the night, further, one could just say that his black cape is symbolic of a the wings of a bat, in any case the symbol of Batman's cape has meaning. There is also the symbol of Batman being a bat and a bat has the meaning of being is seen as scary to some people including Batman the character, according to the storyline of Batman Begins (Nolan, 05), and this is why Batman chose to be a Bat so that he would seem just as frightening to his enemies.
 

    Another aspect is the  normal societal self, we also have a secret self that we are not necessarily open to everyone about, and like Batman, everyone is  a product of  culture and change with mculture as well as create the culture around us. This is why Batman can be considered a great example of an artifact of popular culture. The reason that so many people are into Batman is very complex, yet understandable. One can understand how all of these people would be interested in Batman, but would have to ask them the question of exactly why they like, or relate to this cultural artifact. One would think the appeal of Batman comes from the ways he kicks his enemies butts and is not a bragger about it, or how he has two balancing sides seemingly black and white, maybe the way he always ends up getting the girl, or maybe people are even more interested in the characters that Batman fights against, regardless, Batman has a great appeal and deserves respect as one of the most popular artifacts of our modern society.

Throughout all cultures one will always find artifacts of great significance and influence. In our culture the artifact Batman has ultimate significance and influence. Batman the personified character has undergone subtle change many times in physical appearance and has manifested into something much greater than the original, which is indicative of the changes within our culture. Even the characters that have played Batman in the Batman movies are direct representations of the popular culture of the time, for instance, in the late 80's Batman was played by Michael Keaton, and recently Christian Bale. Although the face of Batman has literally undergone many changes, the idea of Batman being a well off business man with a secret super hero facade and his commitment to justice has remained. With all of his existence in popular culture one can understand how Batman was manifested by popular culture, and at the same time must understand that Batman has had just as great of an affect on popular culture itself. As our culture grows Batman will continue to change and manifest as the same old superhero with new, modern characteristics, thus Batman will always have just as great of an influence on culture as culture has on Batman. All of this will pave the way for superheroes at heart and popular culture into the future.

Nolan : http://www.batman-on-film.com/batman-coolness_Bat-Films_Nolan-Bale-BEGINS-CRose_7-4-13.html

Brummett: Rhetoric in Pop Culture.  2014.
 

Planet of the Apes Part II - "Racial" ( ethnic ) Conflict

The language of the ethnic or "racial" "other" as depicted by the apes is an old and well adaptable tactic.  Throughout the 1990's , and even to some extent today, racial profiling continues, many instances depict the perpetrator as a violent animal, even suggesting gorilla or ape- like. This was the case in  a courtroom in New York as prosecutors described a 1992 white male  accused in the shooting at Jefferson High School who had killed two African American students. It has been habit for some time to portray accused killers as non human animals in some fashion, in order to place emphasis on their violent nature.  Rodney King was likened to a "monster" by Los Angeles police, as they attempted to justify how he was brutalized.  The officer actually described the trip into an African American neighborhood on a domestic dispute call as being like a scene out of "Gorillas in the Midst". Also in 1992, a high ranking mental health official of the Bush administration linked inner city violence to the aggressive nature of male rhesus monkeys.  There is a definite, historical pattern, one that solidifies Apes as a good reflection of human behavior towards one another as humans in contemporary society.  Apes reflect the hatred humans have for one another , for those of other ethnic groups, and reflect that hatred between groups that exists even on subtle levels.

Just as Apes first appearance on the US cultural landscape was preceded by and coincided with the increased awareness of "racial" conflict and a need for cultural responses to make sense of it, public discussion of "race" and of current and historical racism in the US has substantially increased since the 1990's. This has been further heightened by such incidents as the Treyvon Martin shooting in 2012 and the racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri during the summer/fall months of 2014.  There is a continued need to review these strong messages in Apes, since "racial" violence remains a staple component of US culture with respect to both domestic and foreign affairs.  The Rodney King trial also illuminates the great ongoing need for attention to the messages in Apes via the entire dehumanizing process King was subjected to during the trial of the officers who were accused of the beating, followed by their acquittal. This all speaks to the persistence of "racial" bigotry, oppression, and violence that still dehumanize and deform the culture overall. 

The old standby of scapegoating continues to be reinvigorated as white fears of being overrun by foreigners and minorities continue to be fanned while the powerful and wealthy, still quite dominant white hands that manipulate the economy remain largely invisible, all this despite the election of an African American president in 2008, for he has also been victimized and demonized out of fear.  Biased motivated crimes against cultural outsiders like African Americans, Hispanics, even homosexuals , continues to rise.  It is no secret that "race" is still a deep cultural problem, a problem that has demanded increased public attention.

The stories the US has told throughout its history , the actions it has taken regarding "race" demonstrate how difficult it is for its people to believe , or even imagine otherwise.  That there is reason to fear difference, that difference must be eliminated. The fictional stories written in books, movies, or for television, and the real life stories written on the streets, the courtrooms, and voting booths are all a part of the limiting mythology and a history that maintain that differences cannot be accepted and must lead to the end of that which is different. 

Like all contemporary mythos though, Apes provides an opportunity to rethink human history, the culture of the US, and human experiences past and present, and encourages critical thinking about different possibilities, the reimagining of the culture, and to transform present realities.  Such mythos aids in the development of what is possible.  If humans can make the implicit meanings and values explicit, if they can recognize as choices that is taken for granted and identify the hidden political assumptions, then that which is disguised fiction can aid in the future rejection of assumptions and to the embracement of new ways of thinking and of doing. Apes as contemporary myth is a means to cultural change via its timeless messages regarding "racial" conflict. It is time to begin to rewrite the stories that depict the political realities of today and alter the future for the better.

Given that the language of the Apes saga has not been exhausted and given that there is both an increased recognition of "racial" problems and a need for cultural responses to them, then it should come as no surprise that the Apes sage continues, and continues to be remade in order to maintain the mythos and spread it throughout the culture as a whole.  There is a great need to continue to illuminate the meaning and messages of Apes as it continues to act as a viable vehicle with which to explore the dangers of ongoing "racial" conflict. 

Exploring Politics in Planet of the Apes Part I -The Originals

Politics in the Original Planet of the Apes: An Overview

 

I have been aching to do some writing on Apes , particularly now that I am prepping my first convention presentation on this subject. So, my next few blogs will be focused on a series of Planet of the Apes discussions and the relevant social themes. This first part begins with the original films.

 

It was 1968 when Planet of the Apes was first released in theaters. It immediately captivated audiences across the United States. The film was hard hitting with political issues reflective of the times in which it was produced.  As Apes has evolved, so shall this multipart blog that will feature the social themes within each production and how each has been reflective of the times in which they were produced. I shall continue to look at how Apes represents a form of contemporary myth in that even the original text and film are still just as relevant today as they were in the 1950's or 1960's respectively, when each was created.  Many themes within those original works are still applicable to the world today, in 2014.  In this first part of a series of Apes blogs, reflection of those original times is covered. 

 

The original Planet of the Apes film was such a success in theaters that shortly after it's release, a Saturday morning cartoon series was launched, though short lived, it spawned great interest in an array of Apes merchandise.  Apes also had one of the most iconic images of any film, the rotting and partly buried Statue of Liberty in the end scene of the film.  The original film led to four additional sequels as well, each maintaining devotion to social and political issues of concern to the US at each given time of production. Primary issues center around "race" and social class structures.

 

Planet of the Apes held appeal to many because of the science fiction element that represented the human obsession with life on other planets.  In this original film that depicted such life, but not life as would be expected. This turn in primate evolution was captivating and a fine depiction of how humans have treated other life on their own world, including the treatment of other humans deemed of lower social class. All of this was rooted in the novel by Pierre Boulle in 1963 entitled "La Planete des Singas ( Monkey Planet ).  An interesting note regarding the first film, Rod Serling had done the original draft of the script, polished by Michael Wilson, and worked with to bring political concerns to light by Eric Greene ( film historian ). They wanted to use the apes to depict the human condition.

 

 

The film explored social and political themes of the times. The original and all that has followed have continued to be quite laden with political issues.  The original, of course, reflective of the Vietnam War and the dozens of social movements of the 1960's, but yet remains relevant to the overall idea of war and inequality today.  This may be one reason the Apes films have continued to be popular draws, as they remain powerful narratives of the human condition.  Much of what is dealt with in these original and remade films is reflective of the fragile nature of social class and Democracy.

 

An interesting note about the original film is that it has been said that the chimps , organs, and gorillas all sat together during off times or meal times, very reflective of the human habit to associate with those who are more like ourselves. In terms of the primate breakdown occupationally:  chimps were the scientists and intellectuals, orangs were the politicians, and gorillas were the military.  Humans were slave labor or lab specimens. 

 

In this alternate society, the chimps would handle all the scientific studies and the treatment of humans. However, just as the case in our own world, the chimps and their work did not gain the respect they sought.  Scientists were looked down upon, particularly by political figures such as Dr. Zaius.  Overall, science has not had the respect it perhaps has deserved over the decades, even over the centuries. In addition, the treatment of various primate classes in Apes, as well as the treatment of humans, is reflective of the hot bed racism searing through the 1950’s and 1960’s ,some of which still exists today in various forms.  There are always groups within the infrastructure to be looked down upon, and always groups within society to be looked down upon. 

 

In the original Apes, one of the more important scenes deals with politics and justice in a trial that was investigating the relationship between Zira and Cornelius and their association with Taylor.  The other apes were attempting to figure out why he spoke and felt he had been a mutant creation of  science to act against the other apes.  Despite the fact that it was said all apes were created to be equal, it is evident they are not.  This scene and the overall films also reflect McCarthyism.

The McCarthy era was ushered in via  a heightened fear of communism in the US. McCarthy blamed the increase in communism on subversives who had infiltrated the government at all levels to share secretive information.

 

Apes, in fine science fiction mythological fashion, does a fine job of presenting controversial materials without being attached as controversial since it has been disguised in a fictitious narrative, but a narrative of great cultural significance with respect to the human condition and the future of humanity.  This is especially true with how Apes has been reflective of how people in power have continued to view those who are not in power.  This aspect alone makes for timeless narrative. Have humans really changed in nearly 50 years? The messages of Apes are still relevant.

 

Not only the original, but each sequel, and even the short lived television series, held political messages within.  In Beneath the Planet of the Apes one storyline focused on the Forbidden Zone , where gorillas were headed in order to wage war against the mutant speaking humans and the strange on goings in that area.  They feared a revolt  uprising if the mutants were able to reach others.  Also, along the way, a  group of chimps is seen with protest signs protesting war, reflective of the political and social tides certainly of the 1960’s.

 

In Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Zira and Cornelius are escapees from their own world, one that was destroyed due to hate. They attempt to adapt to the humans in the time of 1972 in which they are thrown back to.  At first, they are poorly treated, like zoo and lab specimens. Soon they become welcome guests. The tables turn once again though with the news that Zira is pregnant.  Humanity turned in fear of one day being dominated by the new off spring  and the idea that non human apes would breed and become as intelligent, one day taking over the Earth.  This is reflective of how our own society has continually treated new groups or new ideas, and has reacted to the idea that military intervention would be needed to destroy any perceived of threats of anything different. Humans become aggressive in this film until Zira and Cornelius are killed and their son, Caesar sent into hiding.  Much of the film revolves around the idea that one day humans will do great things such as end pollution and population expansion.  It was clear that this was a human world and humans would not allow non human apes to conquer it. This is still how humans react to anything perceived of as a threat to those in power, or to anything that is different from the accepted norm.

 

In Conquest of the Planet of the Apes , 1973,  the story progresses down a darer path.  It was set in a city that represented a futuristic police state. Humans all wore black to denote a more rigid and unpleasant society.  The apes are slaves, but with Caesar’s leadership rise up in revolt, similar to the well known Watt Riots in 1965. In 1972 no one would dare release a film about the Watt Riots, but mask it in a science fiction thriller, and sure the messages would get out to the public. 

 

The one thing well written science fiction does well is use actual events and history and create a story that masks messages under aliens and future times.  This allows messages to be viewed and received by the masses and allows those messages to be processed with the hopes of altering human paths that are negative and bringing about more positive behaviors and ways of thinking in order to better the human condition and the human future. 

 

In future blogs, the Apes films will continue to be explored with respect to their ongoing relevance as contemporary myth.