Marginalized Bodies of Imagined Futurescapes: Ableism and Heteronormativity in Science Fiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.2018102226Keywords:
future, science fiction, disability, queer, temporalityAbstract
This article aims to contribute to an understanding of marginalized bodies in science fiction narratives by analyzing how physical disability and homosexuality/bisexuality have been depicted in popular science fiction film and television. Specifically, it analyzes what types of futures are evoked through the exclusion or inclusion of disability and homo/bisexuality. To investigate these futurescapes, in for example Star Trek and The Handmaid’s Tale, the paper uses film analysis guided by the theoretical approach of crip/queer temporality mainly in dialogue with disability/crip scholar Alison Kafer. Although narratives about the future in popular fiction occasionally imagines futures in which disability and homo/bisexuality exist the vast majority do not. This article argues that exclusion of characters with disabilities and homo/bisexual characters in imagined futures of science fiction perpetuate heteronormative and ableist normativity. It is important that fictional narratives of imagined futures do not limit portrayals to heterosexual and able-bodied people but, instead, take into account the ableist and heteronormative imaginaries that these narratives, and in extension contemporary society, are embedded in. Moreover, it is argued that in relation to notions of progression and social inclusion in imagined futurescapes portrayals of homo/bisexuality and disability has been used as narrative devices to emphasis “good” or “bad” futures. Furthermore, homo/bisexuality has increasingly been incorporated as a sign of social inclusion and progression while disability, partly due to the perseverance of a medical understanding of disability, instead is used as a sign of a failed future. However, the symbolic value ascribed to these bodies in stories are based on contemporary views and can thus change accordingly. To change the way the future is envisioned requires challenging how different types of bodies, desires, and notions of normativity are thought about. Sometimes imaginary futures can aid in rethinking and revaluating these taken-for-granted notions of normativity.
References
Allen, Kathryn (ed.) (2013): Disability and Science Fiction. Representation of Technology as Cure, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137343437
Arthurs, Jane (2004): Television and Sexuality: Regulation and the Politics of Taste, Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Attebery, Brian (2002): Decoding Gender in Science Fiction, New York: Routledge. Bérubé, Michael (2005): “Disability and Narrative”, PMLA, 120:2, 568–76. https://doi.org/10.1300/J082v53n03_03
Bonds-Raacke, Jennifer M., Elizabeth T. Cady, Rebecca Schlegel, Richard J. Harris, and Lindsey Firebaugh (2007): “Remembering Gay/Lesbian Media Characters”, Journal of Homosexuality, 53:3, 19–34.
Brown, Jane D. (2002): “Mass media influences on sexuality”, The Journal of Sex Research, 39:1, 42-45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490209552118
Call, Lewis (2013): BDSM in American Science Fiction and Fantasy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137283474
Campbell, Fiona Kumari (2009): Contours of ableism: the production of disability and abledness, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245181
Campbell, Fiona Kumari (2012): “Stalking Ableism: Using Disability to Expose ‘Abled’ Narcissism”, Dan Goodley, Bill Hughes, & Lennard J. Davis (eds.): Disability and Social Theory: New Developments and Directions, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 212–230.
Cheu, Johnson (2002): “De-gene-erates, Replicants and Other Aliens: (Re)defining Disability in Futuristic Film”, Mairian Corker and Tom Shakespeare (eds.): Disability/ Postmodernity: Embodying Disability Theory, London: Continuum, 198–212.
Cheyne, Ria (2012): “Introduction: Popular Genres and Disability Representation”, Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 6:2, 117–123. https://doi.org/10.3828/jlcds.2012.11
Cornea, Christine (2007): Science Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748624652.001.0001
Covino, Ralph (2013): “Star Wars, Limb Loss, and What It Means to Be Human”, Allen, Kathryn (ed.): Disability and Science Fiction. Representation of Technology as Cure, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 103–113.
Dhaenens, Frederik (2013): “Teenage queerness: negotiating heteronormativity in the representation of gay teenagers in Glee”, Journal of Youth Studies, 16:3, 304–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2012.718435
Doherty, Thomas (1999): Pre-Code Hollywood. Sex Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934, New York: Columbia University Press.
Dyer, Richard (2002): The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation, 2. ed. London: Routledge.
Edelman, Lee (2004): No Future: Queer Theory and The Death Drive, Durham: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822385981
Ellis, Katie (2015): Disability and Popular Culture: Focusing Passion, Creating Community and Expressing Defiance, Burlington: Ashgate Publishing.
Freeman, Elizabeth (2010): Time binds: queer temporalities, queer histories, Durham: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393184
Ginn, Sherry and Michael G. Cornelius (eds.) (2012): The Sex Is Out of This World: Essays on the Carnal Side of Science Fiction, Jefferson, N.C. McFarland & Company. Inc. Publishers.
Gomillion, Sarah C. and Traci A. Giuliano (2011): “The Influence of Media Role Models on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identity”, Journal of Homosexuality, 58:3, 330–354. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2011.546729
Goode Luke & Michael Godhe (2017): “Beyond Capitalist Realism – Why We Need Critical Future Studies”, Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 9:1, 109–129.
Goodley, Dan (2011): Disability Studies: An Interdisciplinary Introduction. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Greven, David (2009): Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek: Allegories of Desire in the Television Series and Films, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co.
Gwenllian-Jones, Sara (2002): “The Sex Lives of Cult Television Character”, Screen 43:1, 79–90.
Halberstam, Judith (2005): In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives, New York: New York University Press.
Hollinger, Veronica (2003): ”Feminist theory and science fiction”, Edward James and Farah Mendelsohn (eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 125–136. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521816262.009
Ireland, Andrew (ed.) (2010): Illuminating Torchwood: Essays on Narrative, Character and Sexuality in the BBC Series, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co.
Jenkins, Henry (2004): “’Out of the Closet and into the Universe”: Queers and Star Trek”, Benshoff, Harry M. & Griffin, Sean (red.); Queer Cinema: The Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 189-207.
Johnston, Keith M. (2011): Science Fiction Film: A Critical Introduction, Oxford: Berg.
Kafer, Alison (2013): Feminist, queer, crip, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Kama, Amit (2004): “Supercrips versus the pitiful handicapped: Reception of disabling images by disabled audience members” Communications 29:4, 447–466. https://doi.org/10.1515/comm.2004.29.4.447
Kanar, Hanley E. (2000): “No Ramps in Space: The Inability to Imagine Accessibility in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, Elyce Rae Helford (ed.): Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 245–264.
Kuhn, Annette (ed.) (1990): Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema, London: Verso
McRuer, Robert (2006): Crip theory: cultural signs of queerness and disability. New York: New York University Press.
Mitchell, David T. & Snyder, Sharon L. (2000): Narrative prosthesis: disability and the dependencies of discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Moody, Nickianne (1997): “Untapped Potential: The Representation of Disability/ Special Ability in the Cyberpunk Workforce”, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 3:3, 90–105. https://doi.org/10.1177/135485659700300307
Muñoz, José Esteban (2009): Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, NYU Press, New York.
Nama, Adilifu (2008): Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film, 1. ed. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Norden, Martin F. (1994): The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press.
Pearson, Wendy G. (2003): ”Science fiction and queer theory”, Edward James and Farah Mendelsohn (eds.): The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Cambridge University Press, 149–160.
Pearson, Wendy G. (2008): “Alien Cryptographies: The View from Queer”, Pearson, Wendy G., Hollinger, Veronica & Gordon, Joan (eds.): Queer Universes: Sexualities in Science Fiction, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 14-38.
Pearson, Wendy G., Hollinger, Veronica & Gordon, Joan (eds.) (2008): Queer universes: sexualities in science fiction, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Rosenberg, Tiina (2002): Queerfeministisk Agenda, Stockholm: Atlas.
Russo, Vito (1981): The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies, 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row.
Samuels, Ellen (2017): “Six ways of looking at crip time”. Disability Studies Quarterly, 37:3, n.pag. https://doi.org/10.18061/dsq.v37i3.5824
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, s. 4, ep. 5, ”Rejoined,” Paramount Television, October 30, 1995.
Star Trek: Discovery, s. 1, ep. 7, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad,” CBS Television Studios et al., Netflix, October 29 2017.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, s.1, ep. 5, “The Last Outpost,” Paramount Television, Netflix, October 17 1987.
Star Trek: The Original Series, s. 2, ep. 4, “Mirror, Mirror,” Norway Productions et al., Netflix, October 6 1967.
Storey, John (2015): Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, Seventh edition. London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315744148
Telotte, J. P. (2001): Science Fiction Film, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511613159
The Handmaid’s Tale, s. 1, ep. 3, “Late,” MGM Television, HBO Nordic, April 26 2017.
The Handmaid’s Tale, s. 1, ep. 5, “Faithful,” MGM Television, HBO Nordic, May 10 2017.
Weinstock, Jeffery A. (1996): “Freaks in Space: ‘Extraterrestrialism’ and ‘Deep-Space Multiculturalism’”, Rosemarie Garland Thomson (ed.): Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body, New York: New York Univ. Press.
Wälivaara, Josefine (2016): Dreams of a subversive future: sexuality, (hetero)normativity, and queer potential in science fiction film and television. Diss. Umeå : Umeå University.
Wälivaara, Josefine (2018): ”Blind Warriors, Supercrips, and Techno-Marvels: Challenging Depictions of Disability in Star Wars”, The Journal of Popular Culture, 51:4, 1036–1056. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.12707
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Josefine Wälivaara
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Copyright for all manuscripts rests with the author(s). The editors reserve the right to edit manuscripts. Contributors are responsible for acquiring all permissions from the copyright owners for the use of quotations, illustrations, tables, etc. Each author must, before final publication fill, in a publishing agreement provided by LiU E-Press.
Since 2021 Culture Unbound uses a Creative Commons: Attribution license for new articles, which allows users to distribute the work and to reform or build upon it without the author's permission. Full reference to the author must be given. For older articles please see each article landing page.