5 Responses so far

1. 1. Elijah on Jun 25th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

   Always an interesting question. I’ve had similar questions about both fantasy and historical fiction with a medieval or medieval-like setting, what with my being Jewish (what with the burning us alive, torturing us, etc).

   I think it’s easy to have a disconnect with something that seems cool (say, top hats and steam power, or swords and armor, or whatever else) and the reality that surrounded those trappings. But, this will probably seem like less of a problem as more and more genre writers address race in these settings, or don’t even address race but just HAVE characters who aren’t white now and then.

   Also, the picture at the top of Jha’s post is pretty effing cool.

2. 2. Steve Burnap on Jun 25th, 2009 at 6:53 pm

   One of the issues I have with criticisms of Steampunk with regards to the Victorian England is that they tend to call Victorian society “repressive” or “racist” or “sexist” without regard to its place in the greater scheme of history. In its place, compared with the societies that came before it and other societies that existed in time with it, Victorian England was enlightened.

   More importantly, many of the ideas that we now take for granted in regards to workers rights, or the rights of people of all colors or sexes were really born in the Victorian era. Yes, lots of shitty things were done by the Victorians, but this was also the era that saw the general abolition of slavery and the birth of the women’s suffrage movement.

   There is a tendency to read Dickens and be appalled at the way workers were treated without realizing that the very fact that authors were drawing attention to the way workers were treated, something that was a marked contrast from earlier eras.

   This is doubly true when you consider that Steampunk is really channeling the works of men like HG Wells or Jules Verne, who where pushing many of those notions that would become the modern norm into to common consciousness and that it is in many ways glorifying not the sorts that were the Victorian ruling class, but the sorts who were opposed to those ruling classes.

3. 3. Catherine Shaffer on Jun 26th, 2009 at 7:28 am

   I had some thoughts along these lines when reading a Darkover book by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The book was not her best, and ended up belaboring feminist issues in a plotless manner throughout the entire book. Argh. But it got me thinking about how writers use medieval, renaissance, and victorian settings while completely ignoring the sexual politics of the day. It is quite common to throw female characters into roles they could never have attained in, say, a historical renaissance period. The putative reason for this is to tell a post-feminist story–to NOT belabor the point through the entire book that women are oppressed and can’t do anything. And I do get that. But it seems to me you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have feudalism without oppression. I mean, think about it. And it’s true you can’t have Victorianism without classism and racism, because these WERE the prevailing ideals of the British empire of that time. Is it okay for a writer to build a world that resembles a world from our history, but without the social baggage? I would say yes, but that there needs to be a reason for it. I worry about a sff literature that is erasing a history of oppression because we are all so enlightened now we don’t have to worry about it.

4. 4. Wyman Cooke on Jun 26th, 2009 at 8:19 am

   “Many steampunks don’t feel weirded out by PoC wanting to participate in their subculture, and a few welcome them (for reasons I personally find suspect)”

   I wish she’d spelled this out a little more clearly. What reasons does she find personally suspect?

5. 5. Bea on Jun 26th, 2009 at 9:05 am

   It’s my belief that speculative fiction has always allowed an easier forum to address bias in a setting that is once removed from the reality of every day life allowing the reader to objectively view the implications of such bias.

   In the Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan you see the effects of racial and cultural discrimination against a culture not dissimilar to Gypsies as well as a pseudo-religious zealotry that is comparable to the Crusades and the Inquisition. Honestly, this series has so many elements that are comparable to the injustices of our histories, they would be too many to list, but there are many.

   Again in Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker, classism and the effects of immigration and racism are subtly worked into the plot.

   In J.K. Rowlling’s Harry Potter series, a reader is faced with a purebred elitism and the battle against racial cleansing and the reemergence of the movements leader lest the movement gain more following.

   Although Balttlestar Galactica was a tv series, the show is probably one of the best examples of being able to use speculative fiction as a way to present racism classism, religious intolerance, and sexism (as well as a slew of many other social responsibilities) in a way that allowed the viewer to objectivly see all sides of an issue without having his/her personal views of opinions instantly being challenged.

   It is my belief that the reader/viewer can then make parallels between the insights gained from reading/watching and what ever real world equivalent that would apply.

   It is then up to the writer as to which aspects of a historical period to follow as it had been and which aspects to change either: because he/she chooses to makes it the way it should be, or to show the way it was was to highlight the way it should never be.