Is Science Fiction inherently anti-establishment?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Saturday, April 19, 2008 17:10
VIEWED: 5811
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Let's see...Firefly/Serenity is, IMO.
Dark Angel? Definitely.
Stargate & Atlantis...well, generally they're establishment-friendly, but they do have their criticizing moments...
Heroes? Well, super-peeps have to save the world from terrorists within the halls of power, so I guess so.
Battlestar Galactica? Mutiny, insurrection, disobeying orders, relying on the military...kind of a mixed bag there.
Buffy? Well, the whole Initiative thing...yeah.
Sarah Connor Chronicles? Well, Skynet, so, uh-huh.
Supernatural? I don't see it there, it's mostly anti-ethereal evil as far as I can tell.
Star Trek...again, a mixed bag- the Federation can be cool or not, depending on the scripts.
Movies like Blade Runner, Gattica, Planet Of The Apes, Silent Running, Logan's Run, The Island, Terminator, Aliens, Omega Man/I Am Legend, Escape From NY/LA, Equilibrium, oh, hell yes.
Armageddon is about the only establishment-friendly SF flick I can even think of right now...
Thoughts?
Curious Chrisisall
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Is Science Fiction inherently anti-establishment?
No. But I think the majority of the writers and creators are so it shines through. But Inherently... no.
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Quote:But if the majority of writers are, then can it not be said that it IS inherently anti-E?
Originally posted by StrangeBird:
Is Science Fiction inherently anti-establishment?
No. But I think the majority of the writers and creators are so it shines through. But Inherently... no.
How many SF stories & movies & stuff portray a bright, positive, happy technological future, free from hatred & stupid politics?
Isn't SF mostly all about cautionary tales?
(?)Chrisisall
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Ahhhhh- CHOOO(bump)
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I would say that good sci-fi is inherently anti-establishment, because having something wrong with the govn't (or just having the govn't after the main guy), is part of what helps suck us into the world of the book (movie, etc.). Sure, there might be some utopia books or flicks out there, but who's gonna like them? There needs to be a problem in the works somewhere, or otherwise it's just bubble-fluff, and I don't think alot of the sci-fi readers/watchers like reading/watching bubble-fluff.
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Ummm... I think anti-E is an inherent, undeniable part of SF because that's what I personally like in my SF. 
OK - better answer. I think criticizing the establishment through sci-fi is the safest way to do it, and making a social or political messgae entertaining is like sugar-coating a pill. So it makes sense that SF is so often anti-E, but there's no rule about it.
How about Asimov's Foundation series? That seemed pretty "up with the organized government."
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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
How about Asimov's Foundation series? That seemed pretty "up with the organized government."
M4P pretty much made my point. It kinda depends on how you define science fiction. Film, probably so. But old style SF, ya know, the stuff that was actually written on paper, and intended to be read, ( the stuff that IMHO, was REAL SF.) wasn't necessarily.
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I'll counter all that with this.
If non anti-est Scifi does indeed exist then doesn't that make scifi NOT inherently anti-est?
Just making that statement for the sake of all arguments being presented. I'm really not sure myself and I'm sorta leaning towards current Scifi being anti-est by nature -current meaning the past few decades-. Fantasy though would also have to fall into the same fold.
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"When you can't do something smart, do something right." - quoting Book
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Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
I think criticizing the establishment through sci-fi is the safest way to do it, and making a social or political message entertaining is like sugar-coating a pill.
And now that I think about it, Trek's utopian future is directly commenting on our messed-up present- that's why so many peeps like DS9, or BSG, they're less threatening to us now. "Oh hey- they're just as f***ed up as we are! Cool."
Troublemaker Chrisisall
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Quote:Well, I think you’ve answer your own question. No, science fiction is not inherently anti-establishment. Certainly, the theme exists and is fairly widely employed, but that doesn’t make it a property of science fiction.
Originally posted by chrisisall:
Let's see...Firefly/Serenity is, IMO.
Dark Angel? Definitely.
Stargate & Atlantis...well, generally they're establishment-friendly, but they do have their criticizing moments...
Heroes? Well, super-peeps have to save the world from terrorists within the halls of power, so I guess so.
Battlestar Galactica? Mutiny, insurrection, disobeying orders, relying on the military...kind of a mixed bag there.
Buffy? Well, the whole Initiative thing...yeah.
Sarah Connor Chronicles? Well, Skynet, so, uh-huh.
Supernatural? I don't see it there, it's mostly anti-ethereal evil as far as I can tell.
Star Trek...again, a mixed bag- the Federation can be cool or not, depending on the scripts.
Movies like Blade Runner, Gattica, Planet Of The Apes, Silent Running, Logan's Run, The Island, Terminator, Aliens, Omega Man/I Am Legend, Escape From NY/LA, Equilibrium, oh, hell yes.
Armageddon is about the only establishment-friendly SF flick I can even think of right now...
Thoughts?
Star Trek is pretty pro-establishment. In fact, it’s so pro-establishment that it often seems to purport statism and militarism as a solution to societies problems.
Firefly is pretty anti-establishment. That’s kind of it’s whole raison d'état.
Stargate and Atlantis are also pretty pro-establishment.
BSG and Heroes are complicated. I’d have a hard time labeling either one way or the other. BSG certainly deals with the idea of establishment; it seems to center around battling between the pro- and anti- sides of the coin.
Dark Angel certainly has anti-establishment themes, but it’s much more post-apocalyptic, then anti-establishment. And in the end Max demonstrates that what she and the other transgens are after is in fact an established order.
Buffy is totally pro-establishment. Although it uses anti-establishment themes (including the teen-angst rail against the machine stuff), as a whole it is not possible to get beyond the fact that Buffy is an agent that protects, defends and preserves the established order.
Omega Man was certainly anti-establishment. The book was more complex - was it really anti-establishment or just pro-establishment for an establishment that was different from what we expected?
Planet of the Apes - anti-establishment.
Starship Troopers totally pro-establishment.
Armageddon was kind of anti-establishment, but you could probably argue it both ways, since it’s really somewhat moot in this case.
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