I love sci-fi and today as I was reading a book for class, I began to realize why I like some sci-fi films and abhor others. Parker Palmer referred to one of humanities deepest fears as "having a live encounter with alien 'otherness'." The other authors reflected on how some films encourage this fear of otherness, like Alien and Independence Day, while other films encourage playful and transformational encounters with alien-like beings, like Star Wars, ET and I would also suggest Battlestar Gallactica(my favorite sci-fi series:). I think this would even shed some light onto the culture of the "Con" community(those who attend events such as Dragoncon and Comicon, etc.), which find a home in the freedom to express yourself in a diversity of ways and play with different roles in a world which exists within our own. I just had to giggle at the complexity of how this approach to sci-fi seeks to destabilize the norms in our society of what it means to be human. Do we fight against that which is alien to us? Or will we seek to discover each other's gifts and live together in community? Thought for the day...
1 comment:
Just read your blog comments on iphone/Steve Jobs and Sci Fi. I like what you are writing. The Sci Fi one makes me also think of star trek. When they came out with star trek it was a strike at the issues around treatment of women and other races. How could one compare Spok to a Chinese or Japanese person but later it became clear that is what they were doing using Sci Fi as an outlet to comment on how society handles these issues----poorly--sometimes myself included.
Love you, Keep up the good work, DAD
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