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Why 'Sci-Fi' doesn't fly
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by mardoux | April 13, 2007 at 02:34 pm
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The following is an excerpt from Jason Silverman's excellent piece about the label "Science-Fiction" and why the big wigs behind TV, film and books don't want the label applied to their work.
His point is interesting and extremely valid, I think--I avoid the "sci-fi" section in bookstores and movie rental joints like the plague, but I love Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica on an almost pathological level. And it's not a coolness thing, either, it's just an aversion to what I feel sci-fi has come to mean. Which, apparently, is what the bigwigs think it means, too.
Even when clearly appropriate, film studios and publishers avoid the phrase "science fiction." So do the novelists, film directors and editors in their employ. McCarthy's book, which is about to become a blockbuster -- Oprah Winfrey will tout it on an upcoming TV show as part of her book club -- is just another example of how the powers that be dodge the term, especially when it applies to "serious" fiction or cinema.You won't find the words "science fiction" in Random House's bio of Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author China Miéville. Instead, he's called the "edgiest mythmaker of the day." Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep? It's classified as comedy, drama, romance and fantasy, but not sci-fi, at Amazon.com.
Even Battlestar Galactica, the flagship show of (hello!) the Sci Fi Channel, keeps a distance. "It's fleshed-out reality," explains executive producer Ronald D. Moore in the sci-fi mag SFX. "It's not in the science-fiction genre."
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 14:46 on April 13th, 2007
Interesting article! I think that sci-fi is at its best when it reflects our own reality; Phillip K. Dick seems to have predicted pretty much everything we're going through now: digital identity, security, etc.
at 09:46 on April 14th, 2007
SF often extrapolates trends to make a point. As for precognition, I think John Brunner or J. G. Ballard anticipated all the current shit more than Dick. But SF is about a sense of wonder and a good story (as opposed to plot) rather than prediction.