Over the course of the nearly 40 films in the franchise, Godzilla has been depicted with varying degrees of anthropomorphism, and viewers have been encouraged to adopt varying degrees of identification/sympathy with the monster. Drawing upon Levinas’s ethics of the face and comparing the franchise with the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–96), this essay argues that these variations, and especially the innovative presentation of the monster’s accelerated evolution in Shin Godzilla (2016), constitute a radical challenge to anthropocentrism that is as sophisticated as it is unexpected.
{"title":"Eye of the kaiju","authors":"Timothy S. Murphy","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.14","url":null,"abstract":"Over the course of the nearly 40 films in the franchise, Godzilla has been depicted with varying degrees of anthropomorphism, and viewers have been encouraged to adopt varying degrees of identification/sympathy with the monster. Drawing upon Levinas’s ethics of the face and comparing the franchise with the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–96), this essay argues that these variations, and especially the innovative presentation of the monster’s accelerated evolution in Shin Godzilla (2016), constitute a radical challenge to anthropocentrism that is as sophisticated as it is unexpected.","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135198115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article reads the fantasy behind depictions of sterility in sf film and television, focusing in particular on Blade Runner 2049 , Orphan Black , and Children of Men. Historically contextualized by climate change on the one hand and the extractive logic of racial biocapitalism on the other, sterility apocalypses are a part of an emergent biopolitics of reproduction that seek to enclose the living labor of the body – not just at the level of the cell or the tissue, but at the source of generativity itself, here metonymized by sexual reproduction.
{"title":"Generativity without reserve","authors":"Rebekah Sheldon","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.16","url":null,"abstract":"This article reads the fantasy behind depictions of sterility in sf film and television, focusing in particular on Blade Runner 2049 , Orphan Black , and Children of Men. Historically contextualized by climate change on the one hand and the extractive logic of racial biocapitalism on the other, sterility apocalypses are a part of an emergent biopolitics of reproduction that seek to enclose the living labor of the body – not just at the level of the cell or the tissue, but at the source of generativity itself, here metonymized by sexual reproduction.","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135198118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:If the Anthropocene is the unconscious of the art, literature, and media of our time, then sf films that are not overtly about climate change will nonetheless express Anthropocenic concerns. In Marjorie Prime (2017), an intense inward focus on the domestic bourgeois subject replicates the defining foundational error of what Amitav Ghosh calls the "serious literary novel," the feature that prevents it from properly addressing climate change. It ends with all the humans gone and three AI/holograms talking to each other against a backdrop of weird weather. The Tomorrow War (2021) establishes a series of parallels between alien invaders and climate change, but nonetheless unthinkingly depicts suburban life, a key driver of fossil fuel consumption, as a utopia to be preserved. In The Purge (DeMonaco 2013), the armored suburban home, situated within the context of settler colonialism, becomes a microcosm of the nation state in the era of climate destabilization.
{"title":"The Anthropocene unconscious","authors":"Mark Bould","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.15","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:If the Anthropocene is the unconscious of the art, literature, and media of our time, then sf films that are not overtly about climate change will nonetheless express Anthropocenic concerns. In Marjorie Prime (2017), an intense inward focus on the domestic bourgeois subject replicates the defining foundational error of what Amitav Ghosh calls the \"serious literary novel,\" the feature that prevents it from properly addressing climate change. It ends with all the humans gone and three AI/holograms talking to each other against a backdrop of weird weather. The Tomorrow War (2021) establishes a series of parallels between alien invaders and climate change, but nonetheless unthinkingly depicts suburban life, a key driver of fossil fuel consumption, as a utopia to be preserved. In The Purge (DeMonaco 2013), the armored suburban home, situated within the context of settler colonialism, becomes a microcosm of the nation state in the era of climate destabilization.","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135197536","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Joel and Ellie’s excellent adventure","authors":"Gerry Canavan","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.18","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.18","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135197793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Index to volume 16","authors":"","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.21","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135198304","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ovid’s Metamorphoses gave Medusa little agency, which has prompted numerous feminist reclamations of the gorgon. The tension around agency shapes Matthew B.C.’s feminist horror movie Medusa (2021), in which Carly Beacon transforms into a serpent-like creature after being bitten by a snake. Evoking simultaneously the gender-ambiguous figures of monster and final girl, Carly acquires increased power and autonomy as she kills her pimp and violent johns. However, her agency is undercut by both a lack of choice about being bitten and a failure to resolve the cultural conditions driving prostitution and drug addiction. Medusa troubles Carly’s empowerment by reinforcing her lack of choice and ignoring the failure to change larger socio-cultural conditions – raising questions about what genuine feminist liberation might mean.
{"title":"Medusa’s choice","authors":"Phillip Zapkin","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.17","url":null,"abstract":"Ovid’s Metamorphoses gave Medusa little agency, which has prompted numerous feminist reclamations of the gorgon. The tension around agency shapes Matthew B.C.’s feminist horror movie Medusa (2021), in which Carly Beacon transforms into a serpent-like creature after being bitten by a snake. Evoking simultaneously the gender-ambiguous figures of monster and final girl, Carly acquires increased power and autonomy as she kills her pimp and violent johns. However, her agency is undercut by both a lack of choice about being bitten and a failure to resolve the cultural conditions driving prostitution and drug addiction. Medusa troubles Carly’s empowerment by reinforcing her lack of choice and ignoring the failure to change larger socio-cultural conditions – raising questions about what genuine feminist liberation might mean.","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"126 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135198854","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"About the contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.20","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135197834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Originally released in 1998, Nakamura’s anime series Serial Experiments Lain anticipates many social transformations that have occurred in the decades since its broadcast. The series highlights the ways in which cognition and consciousness are transformed as technical assemblages through interaction with the internet. This change in cognition can be characterized in part by a bifurcation of Cartesian identity; individuals develop more than one sense of self, with different identities offline and online. The series articulates this bifurcation of Cartesian identity both by its emphasis on the fantastic, a narrative and visual style that makes it unclear where the Wired ends and the “real world” begins, and by updating the narrative figure of the “double” for the digital age. Individuals grapple with their own digital “doubles,” versions of themselves that exist online with disregard for the emotional needs of their friends. In doing so, the series helps formulate a general understanding of the social problems posed by the formation of digital identities. What does friendship mean when individual identity is divided between online and in-person personas? This bifurcation in Cartesian identity leads to the “empathy problem,” which is loss of empathy from technology use in conjunction with a rupture in the continuum from empathetic understanding to sympathetic compassion. The empathy problem is an innate byproduct of two competing desires among internet users: the desires for privacy and visibility. This problem has amplified other concerns that have been stressed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including loneliness and depression. Although technological developers hope to mitigate the current psychological problems of digital spaces through increases in synchronous telepresence, particularly amid the rise in remote work, this paper argues the empathy problem is a byproduct of these two competing desires, due to the differential in representation these competing desires produce. As such, the empathy problem is a foundational issue that will continue to challenge individuals working and acting in digital spaces.
{"title":"Toward a general theory of digital identities: Overlooking Serial Experiments Lain","authors":"S. Holmes","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.4","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Originally released in 1998, Nakamura’s anime series Serial Experiments Lain anticipates many social transformations that have occurred in the decades since its broadcast. The series highlights the ways in which cognition and consciousness are transformed as technical assemblages through interaction with the internet. This change in cognition can be characterized in part by a bifurcation of Cartesian identity; individuals develop more than one sense of self, with different identities offline and online. The series articulates this bifurcation of Cartesian identity both by its emphasis on the fantastic, a narrative and visual style that makes it unclear where the Wired ends and the “real world” begins, and by updating the narrative figure of the “double” for the digital age. Individuals grapple with their own digital “doubles,” versions of themselves that exist online with disregard for the emotional needs of their friends. In doing so, the series helps formulate a general understanding of the social problems posed by the formation of digital identities. What does friendship mean when individual identity is divided between online and in-person personas? This bifurcation in Cartesian identity leads to the “empathy problem,” which is loss of empathy from technology use in conjunction with a rupture in the continuum from empathetic understanding to sympathetic compassion. The empathy problem is an innate byproduct of two competing desires among internet users: the desires for privacy and visibility. This problem has amplified other concerns that have been stressed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including loneliness and depression. Although technological developers hope to mitigate the current psychological problems of digital spaces through increases in synchronous telepresence, particularly amid the rise in remote work, this paper argues the empathy problem is a byproduct of these two competing desires, due to the differential in representation these competing desires produce. As such, the empathy problem is a foundational issue that will continue to challenge individuals working and acting in digital spaces.","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"7 1","pages":"51 - 74"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76569022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Generally speaking, the sf genre historically manifested in Turkish cinema through low-budget adaptations of Hollywood narratives with local characters and stories. After the 1990s, however, Turkish cinema explored original narratives, especially sf texts where the comedic and dramatic modes dominated. Moreover, an increasing number of original sf and dystopian films have been produced in Türkiye in the last decade in accordance with increased technology and the globalization of the contemporary moment. This article analyzes the dystopian films Girl with No Mouth (2019), The Antenna (2019), and In the Shadows (2020) to discuss the historical relationship of Turkish cinema with sf in the context of the genre’s cinematic language regarding technology, culture, utopia, dystopia, and disaster. As a result, the features of the concept of the “retro dystopia” and its relationship with these films are revealed.
{"title":"Retro dystopia in Turkish cinema: A mouthless girl in the shadows speaks through the antenna","authors":"Özgür Çalişkan","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.7","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Generally speaking, the sf genre historically manifested in Turkish cinema through low-budget adaptations of Hollywood narratives with local characters and stories. After the 1990s, however, Turkish cinema explored original narratives, especially sf texts where the comedic and dramatic modes dominated. Moreover, an increasing number of original sf and dystopian films have been produced in Türkiye in the last decade in accordance with increased technology and the globalization of the contemporary moment. This article analyzes the dystopian films Girl with No Mouth (2019), The Antenna (2019), and In the Shadows (2020) to discuss the historical relationship of Turkish cinema with sf in the context of the genre’s cinematic language regarding technology, culture, utopia, dystopia, and disaster. As a result, the features of the concept of the “retro dystopia” and its relationship with these films are revealed.","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"16 1","pages":"115 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42823343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"About the contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.3828/sfftv.2023.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/sfftv.2023.13","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42550,"journal":{"name":"Science Fiction Film and Television","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135049629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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