Approaching the Genres
Approaching the Genres
Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy, whilst separate and distinct genres, are often difficult to discuss without reference to the other because they each draw upon the same social and cultural conventions/speculations to create suspense and question 'reality'. Each of these genres can be traced back as far as myth itself, but they are all born from a combination of the human imagination, cultural progress, technological advances and, to varying degrees, disruptions in social norms. In other words, it is difficult to understand Fantasy, Horror, or Science Fiction without first considering them in relation to one another and second, considering them in relation to their social and cultural context. As we advance as a society, so too do our ideas about what constitutes Fantasy, Horror or Science Fiction texts. For instance, as little as twenty years ago, in academia, a text was generally considered to be something one physically read (in other words, on paper). However, with technological advances in television, film and the internet our culture has grown to rely on a variety of mediums to communicate ideas and creative processes. Thus, in our current cultural climate, even the word text is not free from scrutiny: today, films, television programmes, speeches and the like are all considered to be texts because each provoke the student of cultural studies to read, analyse and discuss them in relation to their own cultural context. Equally true, many of the things that were once considered to be Science Fiction (bringing back the dead or cybernetic organisms), Horror (ghostly stories), or Fantasy (magic) are no longer considered thus precisely because either our culture has evolved, or our technology has evolved, or both.
Throughout this course we will be looking at different films that either slot neatly into one of these genres, or, as is more often the case, draw upon some features of each genre, thus blurring the boundaries altogether. As well, we will do supplementary readings and be introduced to some of the main theoretical discussions surrounding Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror as a backbone to our explorations in how these ideas can (in)form and shape our cultural understanding of the real, the unreal, and the other. Finally, we will examine selected films that are representative of these genres by the decade in order to illustrate how applying both the theories and our own ideas to these films can help us understand and question our own cultural awareness. The hypothesis we begin with here is that we can map changes to cultural attitudes toward technology and gender by looking at films that are representative of a particular culture at a particular point in time (in our case, roughly, by decades beginning with the 70's). It is my further hypothesis that if we have Science Fiction at one end of the scale and Fantasy at the other, Horror sits in the middle and is drawn into either end more or less, depending on the technological fear factor at a particular moment in culture.
As we will see, whilst Horror still plays a significant role in the films at the latter end of this course, the 'fear factor' is no longer a technological one, but rather, a supernatural one.
These films I have chosen are, at times, the 'blockbusters' in Hollywood terms, and, at times, the 'complete flops' which have only become seminal in retrospect-- in and of itself this is an interesting beginning and there is something to learn from exploring what films have done well economically at a particular time.
The course begins with an introduction to what constitutes a science fiction and horror text in order to give you some grounding in the genres. (You will note that fantasy as both a genre and concept is left to introduce and discuss until much later in the course). Because many of the films we will examine throughout the course have an active awareness of gender embedded in their stories, we then move on to an introduction to feminism and a discussion of how feminist theories have developed over the last 20 years. The first half of the course concentrates on films that deal very specifically with technology. The second half of the course will concentrate on films that move away from technology and toward supernatural representations. Whilst the list of films in this course is by no means exhaustive, I have tried to choose films that are both readily available via amazon and which are either seminal in their contribution to a particular movement in popular culture or representative of a particular movement. You should, therefore, see a progression in culture and thinking from early ideas of science/horror and fantasy/horror, to the influences of gender and feminism on both culture and the genre, to the renewed interest in science with the additional cultural concern for gender and feminist ideas. You will also notice that technology plays a role much more in the earlier films than in the later.
The central questions that should always remain in your minds as we work through the course are:
Why are there less Science Fiction films today that deal specifically with the technological fear factor (and this is where the Horror element comes in) than there were during the 70s, 80s and early 90s?
Why have we currently moved, in film, more toward the Fantasy end of the scale than the Science Fiction? Is the 'horror' element within the technological fear factor simply not as present in our current cultural climate?
How does a North American sense of culture as represented within these films differ from your sense of culture in Denmark? Indeed, are these films even relevant to your understanding of technology, gender and culture? For key dates in film history, look at the excellent 'movie timeline' at http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0150210.html (from "http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/.html." Infoplease. © 2000/2005 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease)