Dark and Wet (Floodland)

And now, back to your regularly scheduled Fearful Symmetry. Also I have a Patreon where you can get posts early, see my Quickfire reviews of movies, and request monthly articles.

This panel does feature Baphomet's abs.

What does Goth sound like? The aesthetics are pretty obvious: lots of dark clothes, pale make-up, a fascination and desire for death. But what does Goth music sound like? What unifies their musical tastes? My Chemical Romance’s Welcome to the Black Parade, for example, starts out with a mournful piano, playing one note at a time, while Gerard Way sings nostalgically about his childhood. When he makes note that the memory was of his father taking him to a marching band, the drums kick in, tapping to introduce the parade. At times, you can hear the ghost of a guitar.

Way’s voice grows more and more angry as the full band unearths itself from the marching band it was performing as. The beat of the marching band can still be heard, but it is now more a counterpoint to the punkish stylings the band is more well known for. Way’s memories scream at him, as befitting the concept of the album, which tells the tale of a young man dying of cancer having his life flash before he dies.

The tone of the lyrics shifts as the punk rock overtakes, being less mournfully nostalgic and more reassurance that once the subject of the song is dead, the chorus sings of how those who loved him (“when I was… a young boy…” makes it clear the subject is a him) will remember him long after his shot time is done. ‘Don’t be hateful,’ they say, ‘it’ll kill us all. Be defiant to the end, but don’t be cruel.’ The tone of the song shifts again, dropping the punk rock in favor something more akin to a Freddie Mercury solo, wherein the music mostly drops and the vocals take center stage.

We return to the viewpoint of the dying man, as he accepts his death. Way shouts the lines with the defiance of a man on the edge of the precipice, an anthem for the dead. He never waivers from his celebratory anger at the inevitability of death; this isn’t a whine about how he doesn’t want to go. Nor is it a sneer at the possibility that this could ever end cut down by the cancer growing within him. Rather, Way conveys the sense of acceptance that this is the end for the dying man while still trying to cling onto life, even if there’s a sliver of a chance.

As the vocals conclude their monologue (and the chorus of those who loved him singing of their memories once again ends), the song breaks down into a chaotic apotheosis of all that has come before. The tune of the guitar that haunted the marching band section now haunts the concluding notes. The monologue of defiant acceptance is contrasted with the full band singing it rather than Way, who instead belts, “We’ll Cary On!” to the world. As the final notes of Way’s near falsetto vocals die down, we left with a single discordant strum of the guitar to lead us into the beat of the marching band’s drums before the song ends with an ominous thud, akin to the firing of a canon.

Conversely, there’s bauhaus’ Bela Lugosi’s Dead. The song stars with the tapping of a drum, more akin to the ticking of a bomb than a marching band. Behind it, a rickety old machine is being winded up. We can hear it shake and the gears turn. The song has an organically mechanical feel to it as the strum of the bass perfectly comes into the tune strumming one note, once in a while. As the song progresses, the strumming becomes more and more frequent. The pace of the song also begins to increase as the machine starts to scratch the music like lightning in an old science fiction movie strikes the world with impossible imagination and terrible implications for what is about to occur.

The guitar invades the song, like the air horn alert in the event of nuclear war. Everything echoes in the song, as if we are wandering in the tomb of a long dead king. The tune of the song starts to shift from its haunted opening to something more poppy. Nearly three minutes in, Peter Murphy’s vocals are finally heard. His voice also echoes, like he was recorded in the other room. The sound of Murphy’s voice acts as a counterpoint to the lighter music the instruments have transformed themselves into. His voice is almost monotone: we can hear the emotions within it, but they never waiver in tone. They always keep their cool demeanor, never breaking down into anger or sadness even when Murphy starts to shout the lyrics.

As Murphy repeats the line “Bela Lugosis’s Dead,” the music starts to get harder and harder, leaning back into its original configuration. It is at this point that Murphy starts to shout the lyrics, starting with repeating the phrase “UNDEAD. UNDEAD. UNDEAD.” The mechanics of the instruments start to loosen out and fall apart, much like an ancient spider web does when someone crashes into it. When all that remains are the bass (stronger than it was before, and yet starting to slow down with the rest of the song) and the ticking of the drums (the sole consistency that exists throughout the song), Murphy returns, singing like he’s a ghost and this song is his mansion. The song starts to put itself together again, acting as if it never fell apart in the first place.

As Murphy’s vocals die out, so to do instruments begin to fall apart. Some linger on to close out the song while others whither away into nothingness. Sometimes, we can hear Murphy’s mechanical voice say “Undead”. The guitar sometimes strums out a shrieking howl and the bass keeps the tune of the song for as long as it can, but it to dies out. In the end the drums are sole thing that survive to the end of the song. Time marches on even as the rest of us go away.

And then, of course, there’s Floodland, which was the cause of my questioning in regards to the nature of Goth Music. While I was listening to the album, I noticed a shift in the sounds of the various songs. Sure the mood of the sounds were very melancholic and the lyrics were accurately “None More Goth,” but there were songs (specifically Flood I and II and Never Land [A Fragment]) that felt like they came out of a lost John Carpenter soundtrack, 1959’s a piano ballad, and This Corrosion starts out with this austere choir before diving into a more discordant industrialism. In short, nothing that sounds remotely like the other examples of Goth music.

So then, what unifies the three? What unifies the pop punk of Black Parade, the mechanical formalism of Bela Lugosi, and the chaotic industrialism of Floodland? Is it simply an aesthetic of people dressed in dark clothing singing songs of long dead ghosts that can sing any kind of song? Well, no, no it isn’t.  The key comes in the form of the content of their songs. Consider: Welcome to the Black Parade is about a dying man reminiscing about his youth as a cornerstone of his acceptance in regards to him being dead, Bela Lugosi’s Dead is about lamenting the loss of one of horror cinema’s greatest actors, and numerous songs within Floodland (In particular Dominion/Mother Russia [which juxtaposes Ozymandias with Chernobyl] and Never Land [A Fragment] [about the fleeting memories of Earth from the perspective of a space faring civilization who has long since abandoned it]) deal with the haunting of the past, present, and future.

Indeed this is reflected in the songs themselves as they all, in their own ways, sound haunted. Floodland and Bela Lugosi’s Dead are fairly obvious in this regard, as both invoke an echo in their vocals to place them outside the realms of the instrumentals, which sound eerie even without the echo. Welcome to the Black Parade, however lacks this echo and instead invokes this haunting via shifting the nature of the space throughout (a Shining to the other song’s House on Haunted Hill). And it is here lies the key to the unifying theory of Goth Music: it isn’t so much that there’s a unifying sound to the work, but rather that the song itself feels haunted.

Consider the term “Goth” for a moment. Aside from referring to a specific group of Germanic people between the 3^rd and 5^th centuries, Goth derives itself from the term “Gothic,” which refers to a form of literature that deals with the monstrous, be they supernatural in nature or otherwise. The first Gothic story, The Castle of Otranto, tells of Manfred, a lord who becomes obsessed with marrying Isabella, a much younger woman than his wife, and will murder anyone who gets in his way, even his own family.

The genre evolved to include more supernatural elements such as vampires (Dracula), alchemical zombies and mad scientists (Frankenstein), and ghosts (Sub Rosa) while still keeping core elements of the genre intact. Primarily, by the end of the gothic tale, the goodies ended up besting the baddies, even if such a victory ends up being bittersweet (The Castle of Otranto ends with Theodore, the protagonist, becoming king and marrying Isabella but at the cost of Matilda, Manfred’s daughter and Theodore’s love interest [and who said fridging was a 20^th century invention]). Even in the most “realist” telling, there is a sense of the unreal to the narrative, as if it is haunted by something wrong.

It is this aspect of the Gothic that immediately jumps out when looking at Goths. Their interest in death, the apocalyptic, and the mystical all stem from a desire to be haunting. It follows then that the sound of Goth Music ought to sound like that of a genre being haunted by an aesthetic. Pop songs about the inevitability of death, industrial music about the undead, and John Carpenter’s synths used to tell of the collapse of civilization.

Apocalypses rise up again and again when reading about Goths. This does not necessarily mean the end of all life as we know it. Rather, many scholars have read the genre of Apocalypse as being about massive changes that upend the societal structure. This aspect of the apocalypse is kept alive in many Goth works: the band Seeming has written numerous songs about the desire to end the world starting with themselves, The Wicked and the Divine tells of how the system of the rise and fall of Gods finally starts to collapse, and Crimson Peak ends with the wealthy industrialist family dying. Indeed The Castle of Otranto itself tells of the usurpation of a cruel lord in favor of a better one.

To be Goth, and indeed Gothic, one must have an appreciation for the apocalypse that one wishes to wrought into the world. Equally, given the genre it derives itself from, said apocalypse must also contain a way for those who aren’t cruel and vicious bastards to get away better than they were previously. Though this does not necessarily mean that they get away scot-free. There can be those who were lost because of the apocalypse we writers and artists have wrought upon our created world. There can be the pangs of nostalgia for the world as it once was, inspiring more Gothic songs. The protagonist can even die due to their own vices.

Gothic are neither happy stories nor are they sad ones, or even that frightening of ones. Rather, they are the tales the end of worlds from the perspective of those who have little to lose when those worlds end, but enough to miss them when they’re gone. Even when they end up on top of those who had everything to lose in the wake of an apocalypse, there is still the bittersweet taste of what could have been. The Gothic story isn’t interested in the injustice that has been solved, but in those caught in the crossfire during the ending days. And in the wreckage of cruelty, they find nostalgia. The pain of returning home.

(Next Time: You’re The Ghost That Lingers In My Past…)

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[Photos: The Wicked and The Divine #6 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie]

Fight Every Fight Like You Can Win (Love Is Everything. Risk Your Life to Elope!!)

First things first: this memo talks about spoilers for the episode of “Dirty Pair,” Love Is Everything. Risk Your Life to Elope!! As such, it’s recommended that you watch the show before you read this memo. Sadly, there are no legal ways of watching the series as the numerous video-sharing sites that typically showcase anime legally (such as Hulu and Chrunchroll) do not have the series on their sites for free (here’s the link to the YouTube page with the episode, available if you pay $16.99 for the season pass, though the OVAs and films are available on YouTube for free). As such, either buy the DVDs (which are surprisingly still in stock) or watch it on extra legal video sharing sites like KissAnime (episode 7, if your source lacks the name).

Now that that’s out of the way, we should perhaps begin with an article by Cheryl Morgan entitled “The Future of Gender Is the Present for Trans* Characters in SciFi Novels.” In this article, Morgan talks about the history of trans* people in both the real world and in fictional ones. She talks about how the majority of genre fiction tends to have issues when it comes to dealing with people of alternative gender performance ranging from keeping them within stereotypes of gender performance (Steel Beach), outright disgust at the very concept (The Transexual Empire), and relatively decent portrayals (Triton). The article ends optimistically, with a desire to see what new stories might come. However, the works Morgan cites are entirely from western cultures, what about the works from Eastern Cultures about trans* people?

Enter “Dirty Pair.” “Dirty Pair” began as a series of Hard Sci-Fi short stories in various Japanese magazines written by Haruka Takachiho. The series chronicles the adventures of a pair of trouble consultants (basically space cops) by the names of Kei and Yuri who go under the name “The Lovely Angels.” However, because they are so good at their jobs that they can find a secret arms deal while searching for a missing cat then accidentally blow up the entire government because they were complicit in this cruel and illegal system, they are given the disparaging nickname of “The Dirty Pair.” Kei, the narrator of the stories, talks very much like the narrator of Jelani Wilson’s 22XX: One-Shot, where the narrator is preoccupied with thoughts of a significant other. But where Wilson’s Sasha Sangare is very much in line with the heteronormative relationship of pining for the girl next door, Takachiho’s Kei is simultaneously hitting on you the reader (regardless of what your gender is) while also talking about how much she most assuredly doesn’t want to make sweet passionate love to Yuri. The characterization of the Lovely Angels is typically read as being a Tomboy/Girly Girl dynamic, however if you pay attention you’ll notice that’s actually a performance done by the characters for the benefit of the audience (Yuri has a very verbose use of French and Kei can get a bit focused in physical appearance). The stories deal with themes of performativity, karma, and big as all fuck explosions. Also, they have a pet cat named Mughi who is from a species of hyper intelligent cats from the short story Black Destroyer. In short, it’s the greatest Star Trek series ever made. (No, I am not explaining that. There are some rabbit holes one should dive into without assistance.)

A few years after the first of the novels for the series was released, Sunrise began work on two OVAs (one of which is amazing, but has an unnecessary rape scene and the other is Project Eden, which is the kind of film that should one should only watch the first 20 minutes of and ignore the rest) and a 25 episode series. For the seventh episode of that series, we have Love Is Everything. Risk Your Life to Elope!!

Rather than go through the story shot for shot, as the episode is not the kind that is based on its visuals (though there are some interesting ones), I’ll give the base outline. Clicky Goldjeff (because Japan), son of an intergalactic cruse line mogul, was kidnapped on the day of his wedding to several women (because Japan (also holy shit, the wedding. He is literally being chained and dragged to the alter by the women out of a skyscraper sized cake while men dressed like Playboy bunnies hand out drinks to the rich people watching)) by a woman named Joanca. Allegedly, she kidnapped him for a large sum of money, which the Lovely Angels are meant to deliver. They hate this case because it’s a really crap case where everyone is crap both to each other and in general. Clicky’s a sycophant, Joanca’s a user out only for herself and a perpetual liar, and the elder Goldjeff is misogynistic dick head. There’s no one likeable.

And then, the penny drops. As it turns out, Joanca and Clicky genuinely love each other and want to be with one another, much to the dismay of the elder Goldjeff. The mogul sates his reasoning quite plainly: Joanca’s a transwoman. This is immediately followed by our protagonists siding with Joanca and Clicky, citing that 1/10 people in the universe identify as trans* and such viewpoints are “old fashioned.” Even the elder Goldjeff respects the gender identity of Joanca, never misgenders her, and yet is still a reactionary because she “used to be a man.” The show, which need I remind you came out in 1985, just showed a utopian future where even the reactionaries accept all gender identities. Better than Star Trek!

Morgan ends her article with the question as to whether or not trans* people will even be a thing in the future, to which “Dirty Pair” answers, “Yes. Yes you will still exist. You will still matter. And you will still be as beautiful as you are now. Yes, there will still be those who hate and fear what they almost understand, but so long as you are loved, and you are indeed loved even if you can’t feel it on your arms, you can soar through the sky like an angel.”

Discussion Question:

-I mentioned briefly that the show deals in the themes of performativity. Kei dons on disguises of alternate gender types including flower girls, black hatted cowboys, and bartender at a dingy bar where you’re more likely to get stabbed in the back than anything else. Indeed, the episode in question explores the ways in which people appear to one another, with several characters acting as a surface level interpretation of other characters and showing specific aspects of themselves to others. How do these themes of performativity tie into the way Dirty Pair handles gender? 

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We Secede From Entropy and the Myth of a Noble Past (Memo 2)

The book opens with Revolution Shuffle by Bao Phi, which tells the story of a nameless duo of Vietnamese Americans living in a zombie apocalypse who decide that the racist and oppressive government that rose out of the ashes of the apocalypse is not that great and probably should be torn down. Tananarive Due’s The Only Lasting Truth is the final entry of Octavia’s Brood and a transcript of a lecture about the work of Octavia Butler, her career as a writer, and how the theme of change permeates her work. And finally Outro as written by Adrienne Maree Brown closes out the book with a summation of the themes and ideas that appeal to Brown in regards to Visionary Fiction. In short, all three of these entries are tied into the concept of change and its relation to the world they are told in.

Unlike with the previous memo, this selection of short pieces has a thoroughly optimistic outlook. Although that might be due to the way I read the concept of change as my personal philosophical worldview is tied directly with the inevitability and necessity of change. We, as a species (and, indeed, all species), are built on change simply due to our need to move and grow, be it because we are acted upon by other forces or of our own volition. If I were to answer Sarah Hannah Gòmez’s rhetorical question I used in the previous memo of “Where are all the people of color in dystopias” using the selections included in this memo, the answer this time would be “In the margins, working diligently to free themselves and others from oppression and burn the system that opts to demonize them instead of fixing systemic problems.”

Indeed, that’s essentially the thematic through line of Revolution Shuffle to the point where it essentially becomes the explicit plot with lines like “And so the government classified it as a terrorist act, without evidence, without even an idea of what caused it” (10) and “Zombies. Brown people. On any given day, the armed guards were prepared to shoot either.” (8) This causes the metaphor the genre typically provides of “…the Other/alien [in] the form of the racial or cultural Other, from Africans, to indigenous populations, to the Roma, to die Gastarbeiter, to women, to the LGBTQ communities” (Calvin, 3) to blur into becoming what it represents.

Typically within zombie narratives, the horde is meant to represent the aspect of society that is causing ruination ranging from generic “Barbarians at the gates of Rome” used in Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, to the specific “Consumerism” as is the case in George A. Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” and, most fittingly, the “Black People” usage of the zombie archetype as seen in D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation”. Despite the text explicitly stating that the majority of the zombies were once living white people, the story explores the anxieties of society typically seen within the context of the zombie genre seen in the Griffith example, though obviously with a less racist ideology. The story shows that, when people are desperate for a scapegoat, they will always go for whatever fits within their worldview, no matter how baseless the claim is. And, for a lot of people, even myself at times, this includes people who look different.

However, more the optimistic (and thematically tied to the theme of change) take on the genre that Revolution Shuffle uses comes in the form of the nameless protagonists of the piece. For they take on the role of the most generic of zombie narratives: “Barbarians at the gates of Rome.” This is a phrase I have heard thrown around whenever someone wants to defend the barbaric actions of countless Empires, especially the European ones, in that they had to be cruel monsters who subjugated the lesser races, for there were barbarians at the gate. This is naturally horseshit, as the way Empires work hinges upon expansion that displaces the indigenous cultures that live in the surrounding area that we call barbarians. In some cases, we as culture (because America, despite its claims of revolution, was founded upon the blood of Empires and natives) have imprisoned and enslaved countless “lesser people” for “their own good” so they might not “join the barbarians” with the obvious example being the Japanese Interment Camps that Phi was no doubt thinking of when creating his short story. As such, the nameless duo replies to this worldview with “Fine, we’ll be the barbarians at your Empire’s gates. And we’re gonna tear them down.”

The ending lines of the story imply that this act of youthful rebellion will “…turn into something like a revolution.” (14) And it is this concept of revolution that is one of many types of change explored within the text. For what is revolution, if not a massive change heaped upon a society? Indeed, many have argued that the apocalypse is simply what a revolution looks like from the perspective of those who have the most to lose in the face of this. Maybe that’s why the most generic of zombie apocalypse narratives has them as Barbarians at the gates of Rome.

Moving on, The Only Lasting Truth explores the work of noted author Octavia Butler, and in particular the novel Parable of the Sower. In it, the lead character of the novel, Lauren Olamina’s core belief system hinges on a singular concept: “…the only lasting truth is change.” (262) The full text of the belief talks about how we are all inevitably changed both by ourselves and the world around us, whom we in turn change. “Attitudes are in need of change to prevent the dystopia in our book, moving away from the class system—again, the hierarchy—of rich, poor, haves, and have nots” (268) which is essentially my worldview written down by someone else years before I even conceived of it. For as a utopian, I believe that for a utopia to avoid becoming dystopic, it needs to have people question the way things are, so as to prevent a system where, say, a single child spends their entire life suffering to teach the “perfect” society that there is such a thing as pain (Le Guin, 3). A society that refuses to change is a dystopia. However, contextually speaking, this philosophy that gives the speech its title first appears within the speech after Due relates to us that Octavia Butler is dead.

Throughout the memo, I have talked about the positive aspects of change and the ways in which it can benefit us in the future. However, I am aware that there are some negative connotations with the concept, from the degradation of the human body to the rise of Fascism in Democratic societies. The speech itself mentions a bit of skepticism on the part of Butler, by featuring a selection of Parable of the Sower in which two of the characters discuss the implications of change being worshiped as a God (269-270). But at the same time, there’s an importance to the concept of change, as Due argues Parable of the Sower “…quite literally sets out to change the world by forcing the readers to consider what a powerful force change really is.” (267) But then, isn’t that the power of art: to change people?

That’s at least what Brown seems to argue in Outro. When she talks about the way in which stories can teach us how to fight in this cruel world we find ourselves in, Brown specifically highlights Parable of the Sower. She talks about how Olamina, with only “… her bag, her knowledge, and her dreams” was able to create a new community of her own that “…[adapt] constantly to ever-changing conditions. Exploring these and other examples of Butler’s work—in addition to studying other aspects of emergence—creates a solid foundation for changing the way we strategize on our path to justice.” (280)

In the end, change is a complicated idea. It is both a concept that can be used for good and for ill. It is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We can refuse to bend the knee to the ever-crashing wave of fascism. We can inspire those who come after us with a song in our hearts and a fury in our eyes. And we can change the world with something as simple and basic as an idea. For we are a machine that kills fascists with love, kindness, and a willingness to admit we need to change.

Discussion Questions:

-Throughout this memo, I have discussed the concept of change as a broad concept encompassing topics from the heat death of the universe to basic movement. However, many have argued that a definition of change that is applicable to the world at large is necessarily based around social constructs. Others, like Octavia Butler, have argued that change is based in the very nature of the universe itself. Do you agree with either of these claims, and if not, what aspect of change would you hinge it off of?

-In the final paragraph of the memo, I argue that the act of change is a method in which we can fight off the coming threat of fascism, as the core of fascist ideologies is a desire for things to remain the way they are or go back to how they used to be. However, I also argued that the very threat of fascism is in and of itself an act of change within a social environment as it is a novum upon a democratic society. How does this seemingly paradoxical way of thinking work out as a coherent thought, if it even does? Is change an inherently forward moving concept?

-Not brought up directly within the memo proper, but still conceptually important, is a quote from Due’s article: “Yet we hope that the work we create is the planting of a seed. And most of the seeds we plant will have no impact beyond entertainment—if that. But one, perhaps one, might actually help change the world.” (267) How do you respond to this quote after reading the memo before you? Do you find it to be overall an optimistic outlook? I can’t answer it for you. Interpretation, after all, necessitates changing a text’s meaning from mere letters and into something more.

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My Legion Of Multiracial Babies Will Be Intersectional As Fuck (Memo 1)

So as I said in the last post, this blog is going to be split up into Acts. I did this mostly because things came up that required me to take a long break in between the Batman RIP entry and the next one. So that there's still content in between the weeks, I'm going to post a series of Memos I wrote for a Science Fiction and Feminism course I took last spring. The first two look at various short pieces from Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories From Social Justice Movements (which can be purchased here). While the third looks at something a lot of you should be familiar with... one of the blog's ghosts, if you will. Fearful Symmetry will return in 2018. You can support me on Patreon here. Thank you for indulging me this far, and I hope you see this through with me.

22XX: One-Shot by Jelani Wilson is a short story about Sasha Sangare’s attempt at escaping from The Institute after the military decides his nanotechnological experiments would be extremely effective in a military context while thinking of the genius next door he never said “I love you” to. The excerpt from Levar Burton’s Aftermath deals with Dr. Rene Reynolds, a scientist working on a neural net project that could save countless lives, being kidnapped by a group of people known as “Skinners” who seemingly wish to take her dark skin and use it to prevent a bunch of rich people from getting skin cancer. Finally, “Star Wars and the American Imagination” by Mumia Abu-Jamal is an essay about the political context and subsequent implications of the original Star Wars films. Suffice it to say, none of these works paints a bright picture about the future and our place within it, though Abu-Jamal’s essay is more about our present than what is to come.

It would be extremely easy to take this memo in a pessimistic direction, highlighting how the marginalized will always be marginalized because society is structured to marginalize said groups. How, given these works, the answer to Sarah Hannah Gómez’s question “Where are the people of color in dystopias” is “We killed them all, and those who are left are being used as cattle to make us live longer because America is already a dystopic nightmare and most people don’t notice because the “important” people are all white so no one cares.” Indeed, there is some truth to that answer, as evidenced by the rise of Nazis to positions of power in both law enforcement (see Ferguson, MI) and politics (see President Bannon), but that isn’t what Gómez is asking about.

Her article explicitly rejects the common use of people of color to experience, for lack of a better term, “Black Suffering,” wherein the reader experiences “…a nearly white world with the usual Noble Savage and Magical Negro to guide and humanize the protagonist and ultimately sacrifice themselves for [the white protagonist]” (Gómez). Equally, Gómez rejects the other typical approach of science fiction to just simply cast the characters colorblind while still writing them as if they were white. So then, the question remains: what archetypes and stories can people of color live within the context of a science fiction dystopia.

Going in the order they’re presented in the book, 22XX: One Shot focuses on two characters: Sasha Sangare and his friend Herb. The narrative in which the characters reside is a pretty basic genre mash-up of “The dumb-dumb militaristic government wants to use our brains for smarts and will kill us for it” and “Nice guy can’t bring up the courage to say he loves the girl next door as she dates a mutual friend”. These narratives are reflected in how the characters are portrayed: Sasha is essentially a mad scientist, willing to test brand new experiments on himself, regardless of the danger. However, his positionality within the narrative, as demonstrated by his narration (written in the style of classical fan fiction in works such as Paula Smith’s underrated and misunderstood satire “A Trekkie’s Tale”, Tara Gilesbie’s infamous “My Immortal”, and Haruka Takachiho’s highly influential The Great Adventure of the Dirty Pair that typically reveals more about the narrator/focal character than she would want it to) repeatedly, is that of the “romantic comedy lead”. Herb, meanwhile, is relegated to the role of “Generic Doctor Who Companion” (wherein the character exists to say “What’s that?” or “But that’s impossible!” before the clever person explains the plot to them) and never deviates from said role. Both of these roles and narratives are ones typically reserved for white people (in fact, if you exclude expanded universe material, only two people of color have played companions on Doctor Who), but at the same time, there are some problematic elements to them.

More directly seen is that the main focus of the narrative is that of a nice guy complaining about how “his” girl is going out with someone else, and he never shuts up about it, even in the life or death situation Sasha finds himself in. The short story, in turn, frames this mindset in a “boy shucks, ain’t I hopeless” mentality. This ignores the level of privilege such narrative situations typically have, as it assumes the male lead deserves to be with “his” girl without allowing the girl, Delia, to have a say in the matter (not that she gets any lines or even appears in the story to begin with). And given the genre mixing the short story is playing with, this can also lead to the narrative to be framed in terms of “Jock vs. Geek”, which has been a very problematic trope within the sci-fi community to the point where literal Nazis have co-opted segments of nerd culture by preying upon the implied assumption said mentality has of “I don’t play sports-ball, therefore I’m as oppressed as any other marginalized group” (Lovell). Fortunately, the short story doesn’t seem to be engaged with that narrative, and heartily subverts it by focusing more on the antagonistic corporal’s mechanical features over his physical prowess and, ironically, focusing on how compromised our lead is with the whole “mooning over the genius next door while in danger” aspect.

In the excerpt from Aftermath, we primarily follow the plight of Dr. Rene Reynolds. Now typically the narrative of a black woman literally being coveted by white people for her flesh would be problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which being an example of the “damsel in distress” trope, but the excerpt subverts this in a number of ways. For starters, for the majority of the excerpt, we are given the narrative primarily from the perspective of Dr. Reynolds and focused more on her intellectual interests than her kidnapping and torture. In addition to this, by the end of the excerpt, Reynolds turns out to be alive and well and is saved not by a white man, but by fellow person of color, Leon. "I know it's not the most feminist idea to be a woman in a tower wanting to be rescued,” actress Kerry Washington said of her role as Broomhilda in the movie Django Unchained, “but for a woman of color in this country, we've never been afforded that fairy tale because of how the black family was ripped apart [during slavery], I really saw the value of having a story that empowers the African American man to do something chivalrous for the African American woman, because that hasn't been an idea that has held women back in the culture — it's something we've never been allowed to dream about." (Sperling)

As for “Star Wars and the American Imagination”, we start to have some complications with this approach to the three texts. Most obviously, this is not a narrative set within a dystopian society; it’s not even a piece of fiction, but an essay exploring the political implications of the Star Wars franchise. However, the unspoken aspect of the essay is the implications of the Empire (who, need I remind you, are Imperialistic Space Nazis) presented within the Star Wars films as being a metaphor of what America is: the Empire is a dystopia. This would then make Mumia, whose first person account of his experiences and positionality with Star Wars open the essay, the protagonist of a dystopian story calling itself America. As such, it is telling that he focuses upon the past of America, claiming, “Americans, like any people, are subject to delusions” (256) in relation to the long and awful history of slavery and our willingness to ignore the evils that historical figures like Jefferson did while proclaiming themselves to be “rebels”.

This theme of rebelling is prevalent within the POC narratives presented within this selection of chapters. Each story presents different methods of the characters rebelling against their dystopic landscape, whether it’s by critiquing the claims of History, freeing the tortured marginalized slaves from the “progress” of “scientific research”, or simply escaping into a different genre entirely. This is also a typical narrative within dystopic fiction of the goodies rebelling (whether they are successful is up to the author), but then, the white protagonists of those stories seemed to be fine with the torture, subjugation, and humiliation of the marginalized before they themselves were targeted.

Discussion Questions:
 -What are some other stories featuring people of color that don’t rely on their relationship to a white -protagonist?
-Are there alternative forms of rebellion that a character could enact beyond escape, critique, or save and how can they be implemented into future stories?
-What are the roles of non-antagonistic white people within POC Sci-Fi stories?

Additional Works Cited
Sperling, Nicole. "'Django Unchained' Was More than a Role for Kerry Washington." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 31 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2017.

There’s Only One Rule That I Know of, Babies— (The Basilisk Murders)

Relatable.

I never expected to write about Andrew Hickey so soon. I was sure I was going to get to him eventually, but I figured I’d have talked about him in the blog proper rather than in a spin off post. I suppose I should introduce him, if only for the readers who aren’t in the same blogging communities I swim in. Hickey is a science fiction critic whose work ranges from analyzing the unintentional implications of American comics by Scottish writers to exploring the historical importance of The Monkees to leaving various projects about Cerebus incomplete.

In regards to my personal history with the author, he was one of the first critics that made me rethink how I view fiction and the world around me. Given the blogging circles he walks through, as well as the book this post is about, one could argue he was my Red Pill into the world of postmodernist critics. Unfortunately for those invested in “rational” narratives, I somehow did not discover those other authors through him (especially irritating given the article Hickey wrote on sentient universes [an article I remember giving me an idea or two] directly links to one of those author’s blog). But that’s life for you: coherency was never an option.

Recently, he’s written some fiction works (primarily within the science fiction genre, though he has written a Sherlock Holmes pastiche focusing on Dr. Watson that I’ve heard good things about), which while not as good as his critical work, still have a level of quality to them. Indeed, there’s a sense that Hickey’s getting better book-by-book. And while I prefer his previous book (Destroyer), this remains the case with his most recent book, The Basilisk Murders.

Given the preamble I gave to this post, one would not be surprised to see me compare the book to Philip Sandifer’s upcoming (and brilliant) Neoreaction a Basilisk, as both books explore the same snake. However, while there would be humor in that, the books are radically different enough in genre, style, and worldview (Hickey is very much an optimist, while Sandifer [as he presents himself within the text] can be best described as the cynicism of someone who walks down the streets during a downpour unable to remain dry while occasionally pointing out houses on the street) that such a comparison would be tenuous at best.

No, the book The Basilisk Murders ought to be compared to is Warren Ellis’ Normal. Both are locked room mysteries based around a group of highly intelligent, highly unsociable, and slightly mad geniuses being trapped in the same place while a series of unexplained murders happen around them. The only person willing and able to solve the mystery is a person who isn’t the typical detective. There are differences between the works, most notably in the solutions to each of the mysteries. While Normal opts for a more science fiction answer (and a technology the Basilisk Murders offhandedly scoffs at), The Basilisk Murders opts for a more human killer.

It is this difference in solution that highlights the core theme of The Basilisk Murders. More than the jokes at the expense of mathematicians, the befuddlement at wanting to live forever in a computer, and the disgust at the racist rhetoric espoused by rational people, the book has one clear idea it wants to explore: how do you interact with other people? This perhaps most shown with the relation ship between Sarah, our narrator and protagonist, and her wife Jane. Recently, they’ve been having a fight and Sarah feels like her relationship has been falling apart. Being around these tech people has gotten her in the unhealthy mindset of acquisition. Additionally, her ex girlfriend is one of those people and Sarah’s beginning to contemplate if she was responsible for that relationship falling apart as well. I won’t spoil her conclusions on the matter; suffice it to say things aren’t as simple as a math formula.

Hickey’s prose is phenomenally readable, to the point where I’ve had to force myself to stop reading. The book’s wit works wonders, though dies down as the body count begins to rise (though it sadly uses up it’s best joke in the opening chapter). While not up to the standards of quality of his critical work (though Chapter 24 does get the book close to that point), it’s still a good read with its heart in the right place. For no one is an island and sometimes you just need to come in out of the rain.

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[Photo: Doom Patrol #19 by Grant Morrison and Richard Case]