SciFi Culture Clash

There are other lists, though, and sometimes they reveal a great deal about the person or culture that generates them. Take SFX magazine’s recent “best characters in science fiction” list. This list was actually the result of a poll of the scifi film and TV mag’s readers, but the result is as interesting for what wasn’t on it as for what was. Here’s the list:

1. Dr. Who
2. Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
3. Buffy
4. John Crichton (Farscape)
5. Aeryn Sun (Farscape)
6. Han Solo (Star Wars)
7. Willow (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
8. Darth Vader (Star Wars)
9. Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel)
10. Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings)

Now, even if you didn’t know where the magazine was based, the mere fact that the good Doctor won should be enough to tell you that it’s the UK. Yes, I know Doctor Who is popular around the globe, but it’s only in Britain that he attained the stature of cultural icon. But look at the rest of the list: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape, Star Wars. All good American product. But would they have placed so high (or low) on a list generated in the US? Unlikely. And what about the characters and shows that would certainly have featured on most American scifi fans’ lists? Where was Star Trek, for example? And what about the show that booted Farscape off the SciFi Channel’s line-up – Stargate: SG-1? Han Solo and Vader were the only entries from Star Wars? Gandalf was the only interesting character in Lord of the Rings?

But look at the list again. What’s missing? How about any character that’s a member of the organized military structure of … well, anywhere? Is there a single character on this list that wears a uniform for a living? No. And there’s your cultural significance right there.

If there’s one thing people in America love, it’s organization and the military. Oh, sure, they like to present themselves as rebels and spend big chunks of their youth wearing shades and pouting, but when it comes right down to it they like control and the feeling that they’re being “looked after” (Exhibit A: The Patriot Act).

The result is that there are people in the United States (quite a lot of people, actually) who will blithely tell you that Heinlein is their favorite scifi author. These same people will look vaguely confused when you point out that the guy was a totally unredeemed fascist.

You may have noticed that there isn’t a single character from Starship Troopers on the UK list.

Of course, that’s not to suggest that they don’t go for some militaristic scifi over there. Star Trek has always been popular. But it’s not on the list. Perhaps it’s all that obeying orders, always deferring to the senior officers thing. Even though there’s much more second-guessing than would ever be tolerated in the Navy of any country today, the impression in Star Trek is of a “Federation” that works for the greater good and in which everyone knows his (or her) place.

How dull is that?

In the UK they don’t like obeying orders. They go for the iconoclasts; they like the underdog who battles the system (even if he/she loses). Winning isn’t what is important, it’s the struggle. Look at who is number two on the list: Spike. Spike started out as an evil character on Buffy, and regularly got himself kicked around the soundstage for his trouble. Then he sort of reformed, but no-one’s really sure how reformed, so he’s still an outsider, making sarcastic comments about the action from the sidelines. A sort of Wildean Greek chorus.

Which brings us to the second unifying factor of the characters on the list: wit. In the UK they have always had a healthy respect for clever repartee, and a warm place in their hearts for people whose mouths operate way ahead of their brains. The ability to come up with the pithy comment and smart response may (indeed, probably will) get your teeth kicked in, but Brits will love you for it. Americans are uncomfortable with clever people (look at the President!), and nothing like as verbal as their cousins across the pond. This is probably a result of the fact that they are a nation made up of immigrants where language was not initially a binding force. That’s why action and visual humor has always had more value than the spoken word.

On shows like Andromeda, Star Trek and SG-1 our heroes have a “mission”. All else is secondary to this “mission” (whatever it happens to be) which in turn gives the characters a higher purpose, a setting in which “self” and the individual is not as important as the nation/organization/crew and the “mission”. On Doctor Who, the Doctor is usually just shambling around the space/time continuum having a good time (with the exception of the Key of Time arc, of course); on Buffy they just want to make it to the next day to defeat the next “Big Bad”; and on Farscape Crichton, Dorothy-like, simply wants to go home. The characters on these shows bicker, banter and fight because they all have different goals.

And isn’t that what life is really like? We stumble along with our own dreams and desires, which may be radically different from those around us, yet circumstances decree that we get along with whatever companions life has thrown our way. We go off on tangents and end up somewhere we had no intention of being, yet that is truth. The Federation (Star Trek), the Commonwealth (Andromeda), the Empire (Star Wars) and the military-industrial complex (Stargate: SG-1) are not. Perhaps the fans of those shows like the lockstep and certainty of their imaginary worlds, but give me one in which there’s a surprise around the next corner, and in which my companions are clever and funny, or at least have dialog written for them by Joss Whedon, or Douglas Adams:

“'We're safe,' he said.
' Oh good,' said Arthur.
' We're in a small galley cabin,' said Ford, 'in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.'
' Ah,' said Arthur, 'this is obviously some strange usage of the word"safe" that I wasn't previously aware of.'”
               (Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Now, there’s a show you’d watch. And you can be pretty sure that no-one of any interest will be wearing a uniform or obeying any orders. And that, to quote Martha Stewart (another well-known alien life-form), is a good thing.