Pet peeves
Sep. 12th, 2010 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniIt's beyond my control, seeing words being misused makes me cringe and makes me want to write rants and groan. Maybe it's the teacher in me or maybe it's just my love for language ––unless it's merely a character trait –– but I get bothered by things that most people would just overlook.
It isn't that I want to denounce "cuistres" and "pédants", and I know that language evolves and that the meaning of words slips over the time, but I can't help it, I just hate it when words are debased.
I try not to say it on LJ, because it often happens there and I don't want to sound too picky or hurt my flist, but the frequent (mis) use of "meta" (as "analysis" or "essay on")annoys the hell out of me.
Lately I've been irritated by the use of "science fiction" label that can be seen in many Internet polls or lists around. Everything is science fiction now!
How many times have I seen Buffy The Vampires Slayer show up in a list about sci-fi tv shows*? I'm sorry but Buffy was never a sci-fi series. BSG, Caprica, Farscape, Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Star Trek, Fringe are sci-fi, not BtVS! Twin Peaks wasn't sci-fi either.
Lost does have a few science fiction elements in it (mostly thanks to Daniel Faraday and Dharma's experiences on time travel) yet I wouldn't call the show sci-fi and its finale, although I didn't like it, pointed it out.
Bram Stocker's Dracula has nothing to do with science fiction (if anything, the character of count Dracula precisely represents a world prior to the XIXth century's science); Stevenson's short story about Dr Jekyll isn't sci-fi either even though it's chemistry (the potion) that brings Mr Hyde out. By the way of contrast, H. G. Wells' books belong to the science fiction category. Nowadays we tend to put all fictional stories that contain or are based on imaginary stuff –– either beings or technologies or alternate universes or dystopia or supernatural elements–– in the same bag.
So what's next? Will Carroll's Alice's Adeventures in Wonderland or More's Utopia or Homer's The Odyssey be labeled sci-fi some day? What about The Bible?
As you can see, I strongly disagree with Nabokov when he said that Shakespeare's The Tempest should be termed science fiction.
Voltaire's Micromégas was a philosophical tale AND science fiction but Zadig, by the same author, wasn't science fiction, and neither were Charles Perrault's fairy tales, yet they all deal with stuff that did not exist.
Finally, it seems to me that, when we decide to mix-up various genres that contain imaginary stuff, we forget, in the process, that, by definition, everything in a fictional work is the product of imagination, the characters to begin with. In every book or movie or tv show, it's a whole universe that is made up. Art is the science of fiction, but not necessarily science fiction.
But it isn't only a matter of misused words and books or tv shows. I think we live a time of "confusion des genres". It's a plague in our western societies and my biggest pet peeve.
I see it all the time in my job. People mix-up History and Remembrance (and there begins the battle between memories, and the clash of lobbies ensues) or History and Commemoration. Sometimes it's just laziness and ignorance, sometimes it's pure manipulation.
Not only it annoys me, but also I believe it can be dangerous.
*PS: Once more David Lavery's blog shows that I am not alone. That said, The X-Files was a show that did mix up genres, covering its tracks, to the point that it's very difficult to label it. Some episodes were pure sci-fi, others pure fantasy, others pure thriller. As a whole, the series navigated by the stars between sci-fi ocean and conspiracy waters (can I make up a word like conspira-sea?). But its parents, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, started with the genre mix-up. Perhaps it's the tv version of the American Melting-Pot.
It isn't that I want to denounce "cuistres" and "pédants", and I know that language evolves and that the meaning of words slips over the time, but I can't help it, I just hate it when words are debased.
I try not to say it on LJ, because it often happens there and I don't want to sound too picky or hurt my flist, but the frequent (mis) use of "meta" (as "analysis" or "essay on")annoys the hell out of me.
Lately I've been irritated by the use of "science fiction" label that can be seen in many Internet polls or lists around. Everything is science fiction now!
How many times have I seen Buffy The Vampires Slayer show up in a list about sci-fi tv shows*? I'm sorry but Buffy was never a sci-fi series. BSG, Caprica, Farscape, Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Star Trek, Fringe are sci-fi, not BtVS! Twin Peaks wasn't sci-fi either.
Lost does have a few science fiction elements in it (mostly thanks to Daniel Faraday and Dharma's experiences on time travel) yet I wouldn't call the show sci-fi and its finale, although I didn't like it, pointed it out.
Bram Stocker's Dracula has nothing to do with science fiction (if anything, the character of count Dracula precisely represents a world prior to the XIXth century's science); Stevenson's short story about Dr Jekyll isn't sci-fi either even though it's chemistry (the potion) that brings Mr Hyde out. By the way of contrast, H. G. Wells' books belong to the science fiction category. Nowadays we tend to put all fictional stories that contain or are based on imaginary stuff –– either beings or technologies or alternate universes or dystopia or supernatural elements–– in the same bag.
So what's next? Will Carroll's Alice's Adeventures in Wonderland or More's Utopia or Homer's The Odyssey be labeled sci-fi some day? What about The Bible?
As you can see, I strongly disagree with Nabokov when he said that Shakespeare's The Tempest should be termed science fiction.
Voltaire's Micromégas was a philosophical tale AND science fiction but Zadig, by the same author, wasn't science fiction, and neither were Charles Perrault's fairy tales, yet they all deal with stuff that did not exist.
Finally, it seems to me that, when we decide to mix-up various genres that contain imaginary stuff, we forget, in the process, that, by definition, everything in a fictional work is the product of imagination, the characters to begin with. In every book or movie or tv show, it's a whole universe that is made up. Art is the science of fiction, but not necessarily science fiction.
But it isn't only a matter of misused words and books or tv shows. I think we live a time of "confusion des genres". It's a plague in our western societies and my biggest pet peeve.
I see it all the time in my job. People mix-up History and Remembrance (and there begins the battle between memories, and the clash of lobbies ensues) or History and Commemoration. Sometimes it's just laziness and ignorance, sometimes it's pure manipulation.
Not only it annoys me, but also I believe it can be dangerous.
*PS: Once more David Lavery's blog shows that I am not alone. That said, The X-Files was a show that did mix up genres, covering its tracks, to the point that it's very difficult to label it. Some episodes were pure sci-fi, others pure fantasy, others pure thriller. As a whole, the series navigated by the stars between sci-fi ocean and conspiracy waters (can I make up a word like conspira-sea?). But its parents, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, started with the genre mix-up. Perhaps it's the tv version of the American Melting-Pot.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 08:19 am (UTC)Buffy in one respect is totally sci-fi, it posits an alternate magic-filled world in which demons, vampires and gods exist, and that there is but one girl in all the world to fight against them. That is sci-fi. Yes, it uses what we see of the world around us in this day and time as true, but BtVS is no less allegorical than the original Star Trek was in its day. A story does not have to project into a future time, deal with unkown/new technology or with outer space to be sci-fi.
However, BtVS deals with xenobiology in one respect, that vampires and earth-bound demons grew up alongside man (after the 'old ones' - the real demons - went away) and that interdimensional places and portals exist, such as the hellmouth. The whole Whedonverse (BtVS & Angel) for that matter is science fiction. And that is why at its heart BtVS is sci-fi. Because rather simply, if you create a new universe, that's sci-fi. Just because it uses elements and themes which are more often than not associated with horror or fantasy in the heart of other writings does not keep BtVS from being science fiction.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 06:47 pm (UTC)Frankestein is sci-fi since it's based on the idea that a scientist, Dr Frankestein, can create life using his knowledge, technology and natural forces. It isn't that different from Caprica.
In many genres the horror just goes along for the ride, as you say. I guess that it's only when a work is first and foremost meant to scare people that we can put it in the horror category stricto-sensu.
alternate magic-filled world in which demons, vampires and gods exist, and that there is but one girl in all the world to fight against them Precisely this hasn't nothing to do with science. The Buffyverse deals with Mythology (hence the onld ones and Glory)and magic not with the way mankind can change the world (or the experience of time)thanks to scientifical skills or interact with alien nations because of their scientifical knowledge. Fictional science (Ted, Maggie Walsh's experiences, the Buffybot) can happen in the Buffyverse but it isn't the stuff the verse is based on, its rules aren't of fictional science.
I'm sorry but I can't forget the word "science" in "science fiction". Words matter.
If we follow your idea of sci-fi every fictional work, all the literature is sci-fi, because they all create a new universe that exists only within a book or a film. It's more obvious when there's supernatural stuff or space organization involved but it's true for any work. Artists are demiurges.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 03:51 am (UTC)No, you have to create a universe that operates differently on some scientific issue. Thus xenobiology - demons, etc., a past (what you claim as mythology) which was completely different than our own but was considered real, and the use of magic.
When I first started writing a response to you I was going to agree that Buffy was not Sci-Fi. I had a couple of paragraphs in support of your position written out. But then I was watching "Helpless" as I wrote. And even in that episode I couldn't see the separation with Sci-Fi.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 10:51 am (UTC)I am not convinced. :- )
If you follow your way of think–– that is xenobiology allowing us to say it's "science", it applies to fairies, gods, sirens, centaurs, angels etc (all mythical and fantasy beings that exist in religions and foklores)so it works for all Mythology books and fairytales. It's a bit too stretching for me.
It makes sense for Doctor Who that is based on the idea of xenobiology (The Doctor himself belongs to another species) and time travel, but not for Buffy. The shadowmen weren't scientists when they made up the first slayer. Vampires aren't aliens, they aren't another "race", they are basically magically-animated corpses of former human beings that a demon got to possess. Demons and old ones like Glory, the key itself, refer to the origins of the verse, before the rule of mankind, which is exactly what Mythology means. It's very close to what Tolkien did when he created Middle Earth and told the story of the first ages in The Silmarillion.
But I concede that BtVS flirted with sci-fi a few times (Ted, the Initiative storyline, Warren's robots), and that Ats, and now the comics, seem to mix genre up more and more...
no subject
Date: 2010-09-14 06:57 pm (UTC)I suppose you do, since it's a completely invented universe.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 10:31 am (UTC)Because rather simply, if you create a new universe, that's sci-fi.
It's basically what Tolkien did.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-16 06:14 pm (UTC)I just watched an interview of Joss Whedon in which he keeps giving examples of sci-fi movies (Logan's Run, The Matrix)and keeps calling them...fantasy!
http://play.sydneyoperahouse.com/index.php/graphic/joss-whedon-interview.html
Looks like, for him, everything is fantasy. And now, as I think of the meaning of the word "fantasy", it's actually something to which I could subscribe more than to "everything is sci-fi". In a way, everything is fantasy indeed.