Link to Joe’s post on Ramirez (Afrofuturism/Chicanafuturism)
I know I wasn’t scheduled to blog this week, but I’m posting this to make up for a blog I missed. It occurred to me that I forgot to actually blog for Le Guin; stress and jet lag translated into a 16-hour nap that made me forget I was supposed to write something. Anyway, here’s something regarding Ramirez’s essay that I found interesting.
In my response I will be discussing the optional reading assigned for this week, social text periscope: speculative life. I know that probably that I should’ve blog on Tropic of Orange, or at least the other required readings. But, I enjoyed reading most of the articles which pop out by clicking the link. Having said that, I will be discussing the ideas of Andrea Hairston in her article “Disappearing Natives: Notes for Future SF&F Stories.”
I really enjoyed reading Hairston’s article, as she opened my eyes more on SF and its role in the world we live in. Hairston points out, along with other issues, how the popular SF film narratives are dominated by a hetreosexual white male heroes. She also explains how this issue is only an extension of silencing and oppressing the Other, only this time by using media. Her claim is absolutely true, I have never thought of it before. SF films, especially the blockbuster ones are dominated by white males as protagonists. Hairston mentions the film Source Code, where the protagonist is Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), as an example. I believe that, whoever is responsible for promoting the heterosexual white male to be the standard social norm, is using the SF films, since they are hugely admired nowadays to solidify this notion. Also, to add on Hairston idea, the film Avatar, which was a huge success worldwide, fell to the same thing, since the protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Washington) is a hetreosexual white male. He is “torn between following his orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.” There are also many examples of SF films where the protagonist are the same as Captain Stevens, and Jake Sully. Hairston is right when she says “ Imagine Gyllenhaal dropping into the body of an old Chinese lesbian. Would that be a blockbuster?” If that is even possible, the next logical question is WHEN? It seems that in terms of SF blockbusters films we are really behind in identifying the other. After the reading the piece, I am optimistic that things will change soon. Especially when Hairston mentions at the end that she and other SF female writers are aiming to “create a bridge to alternate realities with ‘Native’ protagonists.”
Also another good point that Hairston makes is the idea of how technology in most films is portrayed as anti-human. And that most heroes must defeat whatever type of technology in order to succeed. Technology, Hairston claims is viewed as enslaver, and that the protagonist must defeat it, if HE wants to be free. She also refers to Source Code as an example. This idea seems a bit absurd to me, especially the world that we live in now. Technology is involved in every aspect of our life. “To be anti-technology is to be anti-human.” In the end, after reading the article I came up with the conclusion that SF films is way behind SF literature in terms of bridging the gaps.
Thinking about Turings and such. This is going up much later than I intended because of an issue I was having with my Blogger account.
Thought this might also be a useful footnote for anyone working on a disabilities angle for their final project. Otherwise, just interesting.
We saw the ad she references in this, but I thought it might be useful for other’s projects.
In “Aye, And Gomorrah,” Samuel Delany continues his experimentation with the issue of sexuality. Here, he comes with an entirely novel context. And I think that the construction of that context in such a short story reveals Delany’s genius.
The story is spun around encounters between “spacers” and “frelks,” two types of creatures with specific sexual perversions. The abnormality is not understood in the beginning, but as we go on reading, the backstory gradually unfolds itself. Spacers are people who have undergone a process of “alteration.” They are understandably prepared to undertake the mission of setting up and maintaining the infrastructure on the moon, Mars and the satellites of Jupiter, building water conservation units, programming mining computers, etc. The aim of this neutering is enabling them to endure the huge amount of radiation beyond the ionosphere. Their equipment for that mission has required that they were neutralized at a very early age, when they are still children. We learn that the whole business was unjust and sad. It was a process of exploitation. They are chosen from children whose sexual responses are retarded at puberty. No idea is given how they are sorted in the first place—tests were made, maybe? They were changed into spacers because, we are told, the authorities wanted to “cut down the kids back then—especially the deformed ones” as a solution to the Population Explosion crisis.
An unnamed spacer gives an account of a handful visits he and his fellow spacers—the “platoon”—make to some cities, mostly European and American. We are not given any clue of how these creatures move from one place to another. But we become aware that it is a swift and delicate movement. They just “come down” in a city, and then “go up.” Only once or twice do we know that they take, when on earth, the bus or the monoline. That is not the issue, anyway. And it is hard to say that their descending may be because they are looking for fulfilling their pseudo-sexual desire. Nevertheless, their contacts center mainly on this issue. It is worth mentioning here that their descending is depressing. Whenever they are met by people, spacers feel that they are unwanted. “Don’t you think that you … people should leave?” they are told. They are supposed to be up, doing “that good work for the government.” While on earth, spacers are known by their blue uniforms, a fact that even some people make use in disguise to hunt for frelks.
As a result of their sterilization, spacers are dispossessed of the capability to have sex. That is the essence of their plight. They are neither males nor females. Their sex is not known to people, since their puberty was prevented from occurring when neutered. The invention of the spacers has entailed the emergence of another “type” of people, namely frelks. Frelks are the only people who find sexual attraction in spacers. They are also described as people with “free-fall-sexual-displacement complex.” Their existence depends on that of spacers. Their desire for sexual contact with spacers constitutes the realm of conflict in the story. Spacers, the sexually abnormal, are objectified by the way frelks look at them, even though frelks show empathy; they are the only people who talk about the alteration with regret. The encounter of the two is characterized by immense disappointment and dissatisfaction. “I want something,” says a frelk girl to the unnamed spacer, “But, you are not the one who will give it to me.” The complicated nature of the encounter continues until the end. A resolution is never suggested, and the spacers have to go up.
Octavia Butler is one of the outstanding black feminist writers who write science fiction toward a utopian society. However, Butler’s short story “Speech Sounds” can be read as a depiction of a dystopian or anti-utopian society that represented by misery, violence, and disorder. Butler seems to be criticizing her own society through her depiction of the society in her story that Rye is a woman that has the ability to speak among other people who are not able to communicate with each other because of the illness that Butler describes as pandemic.
A pandemic, as represented in this story, is a disease or a condition that influences the population. Butler describes this disease as, “A new virus, a new pollutant, radiation, divine retribution….The illness was stroke-swift in the way it cut people down and strokelike in some of its effects” (96). This disease affects people’s communication and Butler represents Rye, the protagonist, as a woman who has the ability to speak. It seems that Butler wants to represent Rye’s ability to speak among the others who cannot as a way to emphasize on a dominant woman presence in the society. Without having Rye’s ability to speak, women’s voice may not be heard. Butler also wants to show the reader that language is important to a culture and without communication and human speech the breakdown of the social structure will affect people’s lives as seen in the story.
Butler’s “Speech Sounds” can be read as a feminist work in which only women are able to speak. As a matter of fact, usually people are heard in the society as long as they speak and language is the tool of those who hold the power. It could be argued that Butler is giving Rye a role to hold the power by her ability to speak. However, she was not able to speak in a society where isolation is prominent theme between people. Butler describes Rye by saying that “Illness had stripped her, killing her children one by one, killing her husband, her sister, her parents” (95). The isolation has accompanied the illness that had unpredictable feelings of frustration, jealousy, and caution of mistrust others. Therefore, Rye did not speak for several years because if her voice is heard she will be in a threat of being killed.
I believe that Butler as an African American women is criticizing her own society that time in which black women were not able to present their voice in a white male dominant society. It seems that Butler is portraying that African American women were not given the option to hold the power. Therefore, we can see in the story that when Rye identifies that the two children are able to speak she decides to abandon them to protect and teach them. She may not have the power to speak in public, but she has the power to protect the children from the jealousy and violation in that society.
At first I was sure that I’ll write my response on Reeve’s article, but I couldn’t resist myself writing on Bloodchild after reading it, so I apologize for that. Like many of Butler’s stories the first theme that stands out is the reversal of gender roles. This is clearly evident through T’Gatoi’s character- Tlic- and how she is depicted as a strong and powerful female character. While, the human Gan on the other hand, is inferior to T’Gatoi. But there are tons of novels that address the same theme of reversing gender roles.
Having said that, Butler’s story, I believe, is unique in two aspects in terms of gender roles. The first is that Butler wasn’t content about the idea of reversing gender roles without complicating them, and portraying them differently. I am referring to the fact that males are the ones who should deal with pregnancy. Butler didn’t just stop at this, she wanted to picture males while giving birth, and give thorough details on how such a procedure is performed. It is debatable whether this portrayal is considered to be unconventional or not. Nonetheless, this innovative technique on the reversal of sex roles has an immense effect. Butler wanted to create a drama by making males go through pregnancy, labor, and finally delivery. She wanted males to experience the agony that females go through while giving birth. Also to feel the sacrifice that women make when they decide to bear a child. In other words, Butler wanted to remind men of the dilemma and difficulties that women experience when they decided to bear a child inside of them. The scene where the male Terran gives birth can raise the awareness of gender equality by remembering that women in our world do sacrifice themselves for the better of the society.
The other important aspect that I would like to mention is the fact that the Tlic, even though they are superior to humans in the novel, they are still dependent on them and cannot live without the Terran. They cannot reproduce without the help of humans. Butler wanted to demonstrate that this is exactly true in the world that we line in. But with one major difference. Which is that the Tlic appreciate the sacrifice that humans are doing to them, while in real life this isn’t the case. In our male-dominated societies it seems that they assume bearing a child is one of requirements that women should perform. Men are dependent on women, not just in reproduction, but they don’t appreciate this nor admitting it. Butler is implicitly attacking men for their role in not appreciating their dependence on women. To sum up, I appreciate Butler’s strategy, through using male pregnancy in raising the issue of gender equality. She cleverly used pregnancy in questioning how men believe that they are independent. But also I believe that it is wrong to think that men are only dependent on women for reproduction, it only can serve as reminder that men wouldn’t survive alone.
#futures862: tweets about our class
American Futures 