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Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction

2019; Penn State University Press; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/utopianstudies.30.1.116

2154-9648

Hoda M. Zaki,

Gothic Literature and Media Analysis

carrington places race and racism at the center of his densely written analysis of science fiction, fantasy, utopia, and other forms of popular culture. He moves easily between a broad range of forms, which include memoirs, television series, comic books, novels, novelizations, fandom and fanzines, and short fiction and fiction circulated on the Internet. Popular culture helps us to construct notions of identity and race, and for carrington many constituent groups, notably fans, develop its key concepts and values.Speculative fiction (SF) is for carrington a framework that links these various forms of popular culture. Here, SF is a genre different from literature, as it is situated closer to, and is more deeply influenced by, market forces. Genre, another key concept in the text, creates meanings across a variety of media, and it “refers to the ways in which meaning making takes place on similar terms across media. Genre is not a property intrinsic to a text … but a condition and a product of interpretation” (7). For carrington fans and readers contribute to the construction of meaning: “Every interpretive act … is an act of authorship, and every act of authorship … is an act of interpretation” (9). SF reflects reality, but more importantly for carrington, it mediates between it and other domains. To understand how race and racism are shaped in this form of cultural production is therefore important. SF helps shape our understanding of the world and “of how racial power functions in social situations” (12).Although SF has a participatory tradition, it has not been inclusive of minorities. carrington characterizes science fiction has having an “overrepresentation of White people's experiences” (16), and in so doing, he is making clear that whiteness is both racial and partial. Black writers are alienated from SF because they are continuously confronted with their marginalized status not only within SF's literary conventions but also in a variety of social structures that organize economic, scientific, and cultural production.carrington's examination of black SF does not focus on the works of Samuel R. Delany or Octavia E. Butler, although he utilizes Delany's critical contributions on paraliterature. Rather, carrington looks at connections between Afrofuturism, surrealism, Otherhood, and haunting. In looking at SF as operating in overlapping domains, carrington makes a signal contribution in his discussion of race, fanzines, and fan communities. In his first chapter, “Josh Brandon's Blues: Inventing the Black Fan,” he tells the Carl Brandon story. Science-fiction author Terry Carr used “Carl Brandon” as a pen name to write parodies of works authored by popular writers, such as Poul Anderson. “Brandon” cleverly reversed both style and plot using fan idiom. In 1956 Carr “self-identified” Brandon as black in a complicated story that includes McCarthyism, fan membership in fan organizations, and fan rituals. Brandon's true racial identity was revealed in 1958, and his fans, refusing him a literary death, paid tribute to him (and his black identity) by imagining him alive and sedated in an asylum. While much of this account is hilarious, if not poignant, carrington makes the point that in the final analysis this discourse around “race” took place among participants who were all white.In another chapter, “Space Race Woman: Lieutenant Uhura Beyond the Bridge,” carrington discusses 1960s space exploration, the space program, and the feminist movement by examining the place Nichelle Nichols occupied in the intersection of utopia, race, gender, sexuality, and science. He uses Nichols's memoir Beyond Uhura:Star Trek and Other Memories (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1994) to show how she viewed her role in the television series and the ways in which she struggled to give her job greater meaning and more security. carrington suggests that Nichols was relegated to keeping the “home” of the bridge functioning while the other members of the crew were actively exploring new and exciting worlds (74). Furthermore, he demonstrates how the Black Arts Movement and its aesthetic were appropriated by the series to signify her blackness. Regarding the segment of “Plato's Stepchildren” where the forced interracial kiss takes place between Uhura and Captain Kirk, carrington provides a new interpretation by using Nichols's memoir. While many have interpreted the kiss as a gesture of resistance to racial segregation, Nichols saw it as exploitative and humiliating, if not fetishistic.Other chapters in the text examine comics and science fiction (X-Men and Icon, among others), SF novelizations of Star Trek and Deep Space Nine, and fan fiction. carrington's analysis depends on a variety of critical works ranging from utopian studies and feminist theory to literary criticism and critical race theory. More importantly he approaches SF as one who was an active member of SF fandom, and he utilizes his experiences in fandom to excellent effect. carrington's work provides a high standard for how critics should analyze the overlapping fields of utopian thought, speculative fiction, popular culture, fandom, and their connections to market forces. His work furthers our understanding of how race and speculative fiction are intertwined and the complex ways in which they impact each other.