ARTICLE ABSTRACTS
Anne Cranny-Francis
Sexuality and Sex-Role Stereotyping in Star Trek
Abstract.--The focus of the narrative and fan interest in the television
series Star Trek is the characterization of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. Kirk is
based on a conventional male stereotype emphasizing qualities of aggression and dominance.
Accordingly, his appeal for women viewers constitutes a reinforcement of traditional
(submissive, passive) female qualities. As an alien, Spock is signified as
"other" within the series--and this otherness is a point of recognition for
female fans who are, by their gender, so signified in and by their society. But Spock's
character is an amalgam of otherness with a conventional male stereotype, and the result
is usually an even more powerful reinforcement of traditional male and female sexual and
social roles. Considerations of the major villains of the series, Klingons and Romulans,
reveals both the different levels of complexity involved in the characterization of human
(=Klingon) and Vulcan (=Romulan), Kirk and Spock, and the sexist ideology which structures
most incidents and characters. No strong female roles are developed in the series, which
accords with the sexism endemic to it. Thus while a "liberatory potential" for
women seems to be contained in (and has been ascribed to) Spock, as he apparently serves
to associate otherness with strong, positive qualities, this idea about him is at best
misleading; for on most occasions he functions as a reinforcement of conventional,
restricted and restricting social and sexual roles, which are fundamental to Star Trek.
Lorenz J. Firsching
J.G. Ballard's Ambiguous Apocalypse
Abstract--"The Ultimate City" and "Low-Flying Aircraft"
(both 1976) clearly display the structuring principles and thematic concerns operative in
Ballard's first four book-length works of SF. In the two short stories, as in The Wind
from Nowhere and The Drowned World (both 1962), The Drought (1964/65),
and The Crystal World (1966), the fiction deals with three analytically distinct
but interrelated levels of "experience": the "exterior," involving the
protagonist's relation to his physical environment; the "intermediator,"
comprising interpersonal relationships; and the "psychic, " centering upon the
main character's state of mind and the psychological alterations he undergoes correlative
to changes on the other two levels. Typically Ballard begins with the
"intermediator" level, which he then connects with an apocalyptic transformation
of the environment. Just as typically, however, his apocalyptic vision is ambiguous,
particularly as it confounds traditional distinctions (between life and death, for
example) and otherwise leaves the reader at a loss about how to salvage meaning, or
values, in the aftermath of the destruction of the old, familiar world. This uncertainty
applies especially to the alternative that Ballard's embodiments of an
"irrationalist" world-view hold out to the reader as they affront conventional
expectations: of choosing to side with the old, and decadent, order or identifying with a
terrifyingly incomprehensible new one.
Perry Nodelman
Out There in Children's Science Fiction: Forward into
the Past
Abstract.--A surprising number of SF novels for young readers are set in
encased cities: the young protagonists of these books almost always escape the sterile,
artificial environment that is their home. and discover a world outside it that is both
closer to nature and much like our own world. In allowing youngsters who live in a
strangely exotic place to discover and admire a place which is strange and exotic to them
but quite familiar to us, the writers of these books imply some interesting attitudes
toward childhood, adolescence, and maturity. Furthermore, those attitudes may throw light
on the peculiar nature of books which belong to two quite distinct genres, SF and fiction
for young readers, at the same time.
[A response by Jill P. May, and Perry Nodelman's
reply, appear in SFS 39 (July 1986).]
Mark Siegel
Foreigner as Alien in Japanese Science Fantasy
Abstract.--Science fantasy has long been recognized as an escape into as well
as from common psychological and psychosocial situations, and collections of such works
from any particular culture are likely to reveal the subliminal preoccupations of that
society. For a nation that is occupying more and more of the world's attention, Japan
remains surprisingly enigmatic to most people. Its image as an ultimately alien,
inscrutably oriental culture is often opposed to the equally simplistic notion that,
because Japan has adopted so many elements of occidental culture, it must be pretty much
like the societies of the West. Concentrating especially on Japanese TV, I examine the
ways in which Japanese science fantasies reveal and reconcile some of the complex, often
paradoxical, cultural attitudes of the Japanese. In particular, I believe Japanese fantasy
works display characteristic patterns in the portrayal of the relationship between the
"real" world and fantasy worlds, and that these patterns reveal fundamental
attitudes about their own culture and its relationship to the rest of the world.
Tony Williams
Female Oppression in Attack of the 5O-Foot Woman
Abstract.--British and American reviewers dismiss Attack of the 50-Foot
Woman as unworthy of any serious consideration. It is arguable, however, that the
original '50s' product deserves serious examination both against the background of
American SF films of the 1950s and as it anticipates the concerns about aspects of female
oppression more fully articulated a decade later in the Women's Liberation Movement. The
film's latent content has the heroine a victim of sexual and economic oppression. But the
"camp" element and Freudian mechanisms of condensation and displacement
dissipate that significance. To recover it, we must look to the film's internal
constituents, and particularly to its dialogue. The heroine then emerges as a figure of
excess, a monstrous figure threatening patriarchal institutions and one who must
therefore, leave the frame. Male violence, paralleling the psychological violence the
heroine has encountered throughout her life, forces her departure.
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