Science Fiction and American Culture » September 11th: William Gibson, Part I

September 11th: William Gibson, Part I

Plan for the Day

  • Finish Previous short story discussions
    • Gender
    • Sexuality
    • Romantic Love and other lies
  • Male gaze in media
    • Heinlein’s audience
    • Notice the way narrator in “New Rose Hotel” describes Sandii–next class
  • Samuel R. Delany’s “Racism and Science Fiction”
  • Posthumanism
  • William Gibson

Focus on Gender and Sexuality

We’re going to return to this topic throughout the semester, so I figured I should bring up some points that aren’t obvious on a first reading of “Aye, and Gomorrah…” and “All You Zombies–.” What I was hoping to convey to you last week was to radically rethink not just hegemonic notions of sexuality (i.e. heteronormativity) but also assumptions of sexual activity. We seem to define people based on their romantic proclivities, but we don’t often recognize people who have no or little desire: asexual is the “A” in LGBTQIA+. Also, heterosexism, usually defined as the belief that ONLY male-female coupling is appropriate, tends to consider its practice as normal and all others as deviant. Even people who assume they’re “gay friendly” may hyperfocus on sexuality being a person’s dominant identity. Consider the following scenarios:

  • Hetero “friends” pointing out individuals who must be of interest: “wouldn’t you like him?”
  • A gay couple leaves a group and is told “be safe,” which is a pathologizing frame related to HIV/AIDS.
  • The F/fascist belief that the LGBTQIA+ community is inherently immoral and will groom children.

In Delany’s “Aye, and Gomorrah,” the Spacer narrator goes off with a woman, assuming she’ll pay him* for sex. She claims:

  • “You don’t choose your perversions. You have no perversions at all. You’re free of the whole business. I love you for that, Spacer. My love starts with the fear of love.”
    • Think about the assumptions loaded in her statement: “You have no perversions at all.”
    • This reinforces the idea that sexuality governs a person’s entire identity.
    • Again, if heterosexuality is dominant, everything else is abnormal.
  • “I want you because you can’t want me. That’s the pleasure.”
    • She uses him in a peculiar way here.
    • Could Delany be commenting on “the game”?
  • “When you leave, I am going to visit my friends and talk about . . . ah, yes, the beautiful one that got away.”

*The narrator answers “Male….It doesn’t matter” when the woman he meets asks, “Did you start out male or female?” (p. 410).

Sexual Politics

Don’t worry, you’re not going to be asked to vote. Earlier on I mentioned that we would discuss the difference between Big-P “Politics” and little-p “politics,” and today seems like it’s a good time. Traditionally, you associate “politics” with governing the country, and that’s a good definition, which I’ll refer to as Big-P (think Democrats and Republicans). However, what’s more useful for us is the following definition: “the total complex of relations between people living in society” (“politics” 5a, Merriam-Webster).

Consider the following sexual relations between people:

  • Dating, marriage, and divorce (a popular sociology class)
  • Hegemonic patriarchy
    • conquests
    • locker room talk
    • hypermasculinity
  • Fabrication (the rule of three, half truths, “my buddy is such a scum bag…”)
  • Contradiction: American cultural obsession and repression

You probably know of some unwritten rules that relate to the situations and concepts above. Think about dating? What traditional practices come to mind?

Posthumanism

The topic of posthumanism, like many philosophical terms, doesn’t have an exact definition. However, we can begin to understand the concept–after all, this course is all about leading you to more questions than answers–by thinking literally of “post” being after humans. Although many science fiction texts have humans becoming machine-like, I read that metaphorically as the ways in which technologies–socially constructed–have conditioned behaviors (but not values or worldviews necessarily). You have heard me say that we became posthuman once we used non-instinctual technologies. Humans are tool users, but we have also become tools for social systems that we cannot separate ourselves from. Although this concept has varying ideas about how much control humans can exert on a system, I argue that our control is extremely limited and tied to illusions of control embedded in a system that trained us to think and even dream the way the system wants.

There is certainly room for subversion, but how often is is co-opted by hegemonic actors? Perhaps, I’m too pessimistic and reject the overwhelming potential of small, incremental changes. Perhaps, others are too committed and too optimistic of the potential for individuals to effect change. Perhaps there’s more gray area.

William Gibson Overview

  • Cyberpunk
  • “Preface” and “Introduction” to Burning Chrome
  • Japanification of American Culture
  • “Johnny Mnemonic” Notes

Cyberpunk

Delany references cyberpunk in his article, and William Gibson is often the first one people point to when they think of this subgenre. Consider the aesthetics of the cyberpunk media we’ll consume. You might find it helpful to read about steampunk, another subgenre, if you’re interested in more distinctions among science fiction.

“Preface” and “Introduction” to Burning Chrome

I want to explain a bias I have. Well, it’s not just my bias; it’s a contemporary English professor bias called the intentional fallacy. Basically, a text’s meaning does not come ONLY from the author’s (or director’s or creator’s) intended meaning. Therefore, the author is not the sole or final arbiter of what a text means. Even though I take a more cultural studies approach–texts are products of the culture from which they come–I don’t want to imply that an author’s intent is irrelevant to a text’s meaning. I just don’t want you to assume that it’s the last word or that no other interpretation is possible. Most (good) authors and artists will say in interviews that they hope their audience takes away from it their own interpretations. That being said…William Gibson is from Conway, SC, but grew up in Norfolk, VA. It’s safe to say he might base the idea of the sprawl on the growth of Myrtle Beach and Virginia Beach. There’s a paper in that!

As you read Bruce Sterling‘s “Preface” and William Gibson’s “Introduction,” just remember that it’s not the final word, but they do help guide you on interpretations. One interesting point to ponder might be why Gibson claims he didn’t feel science fiction from Asimov and Heinlein “did it” for him; they weren’t loose enough with their take on the historical moment (p xvi).* I certainly have critiques of Asimov, and I think Gibson should be credited for taking science fiction into an more mature place, but even Gibson isn’t without critique…more on that later.

*I would argue that Asimov was questioning our assumptions of history, and he wasn’t writing from “fixed assumptions of history” (p. xvi). Gibson was just further into postmodernity–which questions all grand narratives–so he himself had a different reference point. Not better but different in context.

Sterling’s “Preface”

Sterling, who is a cyberpunk science fiction writer, sets readers up for Gibson’s works. Pay attention to the gloomy picture he portrays, affectionately, of Gibson’s short stories.

  • p. xi: “Very few feel obliged to take us seriously, yet our ideas permeate the culture, bubbling along invisibly, like background radiation.”
    • As someone who studies scifi and video games, I concur with this statement. However, what are the reasons people don’t take scifi and video games seriously?
  • p. xii: “[Gibson’s] densely packed baroque stories….[evoke]…a credible future….that many scifi writers have been ducking for years.”
  • p. xxi: “[I]n the Sprawl stories we see a future that is recognizably and painstakingly drawn from the modern condition.”
    • Ponder this a second…Is this a world you believe we inhabit? Obviously, the Sprawl is an allusion to modern life, but are we that far gone?
    • What comes with sprawl and overpopulation? Pollution, disease, poverty, resource depletion.
  • p. xiii: “[Gibson’s] characters are a pirate’s crew of losers, hustlers, spin-offs, castoffs, and lunatics.”
    • “In Gibson’s work we find ourselves in the streets and alleys, in a realm of sweaty, white-knuckled survival.”
    • They sound like great people to me. Please notice the way men are portrayed versus how women are portrayed.
  • p. xiii: Many SF authors…flung up their hands and predicted shipwreck.
    • Sterling sees Gibson as avant-garde in his approach.
    • pp. xiii-xiv: “…the emergent new school of Eighties SF: its boredom with the Apocalypse.”
    • Notice how technology is ultimately good in Gibson’s stories.
    • Technology allows for freedom…even if you’re indebted to multinational (criminal) organizations.
  • p. xiv: “[Gibson] is a devotee of…’invisible literature’: that permeating flow of scientific reports, government documents, and specialized advertising that shapes our culture below the level of recognition.”
    • There’s a lot of stuff packed into the above quote, but I want you to focus on “…that shapes our culture…” because Sterling is pointing to broad cultural communication that shapes our view of the world but we don’t recognize it. For instance:
      • Advertising…how else do they sell all that unnecessary stuff to us?
      • Science…who filters the new scientific information to us? Are we able to understand high-level science without advanced degrees?
      • Government…why do we continue to vote for the same politicians over and over again? The same people who dictate where our tax dollars go, what the rules are, and how we can voice our concerns.

Sterling sees the benefits of science and technology and Gibson’s predictions as what’s good about the work. Although Sterling makes comments that show he recognizes the social construction of texts “drawn from the modern condition” (p. xii), he doesn’t present a deep understanding of social science fiction. Sure, “specialized advertising…shapes our culture below the level of recognition” (p. xiv), but something drives that advertising: companies need you to part with your money!!! They don’t make a profit is you don’t buy stuff.

William Gibson’s “Introduction”

  • p. xvi: “The writers who made science fiction do what for me was its most magic thing seemed to inhabit a more urban universe, a universe with more moving parts, one in which more questions could be asked (if far fewer definitively answered).”
  • p. xvii: On his four-year writing of “Johnny Mnemonic”–“I had paused to observe, as an age-designated noncombatant, the phenomenon of punk rock, which also has its place in the source code.”
    • If you aren’t sure what punk rock was (past tense…there hasn’t been punk rock–real punk rock–since 1986), it’s irreverent music (or noise) that attempts to give voice to the angst of a generation, but, being avant-garde, it’s doomed to fall out of vogue and die from its followers maturity.
    • It’s a gritty, in-your-face type of music that cares little for artistry and more about velocity and volume.

Japanification of American Culture in the 1980s

What you’ll need to take my word for (assuming you weren’t alive and viable from 1985-1995), is that Gibson was projecting a future where Asian culture infiltrated and overtook Western–American and European–traditions. Prior to 1980, the West (America, Western Europe, Australia, Canada) was king economically and politically, but the recessions of the 1970s (and early 1980s) left a void open for Asian manufacturers, who were already the outsource of choice for American companies wanting to make cheaper products (and pass the savings on to you…). Japanese culture was the big export to the United States during the 1980s. We–yes, I was viable during this time period–were provided with tons of movies, TV Shows, video games, and (beginning stages) food inspired by Japan. Nintendo is a Japanese Company, which blew Atari away when they introduced the NES in 1985! Concurrently, you have Ku Fu films giving way to ninja- and samurai-themed texts and characters: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G. I. Joe, Chuck Norris, and American Ninja. This was also the era where martial arts in general was major popular culture material: The Karate Kid.

The above you can be sure I’m accurate about the way Japanese and Asian culture weaved into American pop culture. As far as food goes, I’m providing you a loose, subjective prospective. Japanese steakhouses* (like Benihana) had been around since the 1960s, but they didn’t gain pop culture popularity (seen in film and TV) until the 1980s. Sushi…that delicious cuisine…was also not ubiquitous as it is today, but, in the 1980s, we started to recognize it on TV and in films. Granted, it was often satirized and made out to be unpalatable in some films and TV shows, but we became conscious of the cuisine during the 1980s. Even William Gibson has a sushi bar scene in “New Rose Hotel,” our next reading (p. 118). I mention all this because Gibson is writing during a time when Asian economic influences inspired him (and the other writers and creators at the time) to think about future worlds where Western and Eastern cultures collide. He’s not being xenophobic; instead, he’s articulating a future where “if this continues…” American culture–the nation, in fact–will look different, and America won’t be the biggest entity around. Also, although they had been growing for decades, the 1980s was the time pop culture got a look at multinational corporations: Back to the Future II and RoboCop.

Even if I’m wrong about the extent of Japanification we had in the 1980s, please recognize that is was significant even if it wasn’t dominant or dominated all aspects of American culture. By the way, I never once mentioned Sony…Let your imaginations go there!

*I didn’t eat sushi until 1999, and I didn’t eat at a Japanese Steakhouse until 2001. My future ex-wife and her family loved those steakhouses, and I did too. Now, I go to Nakato for sushi…I sit at the bar so as not to risk the chance of being seated at the same grill.

“Johnny Mnemonic”

I’m just going to admit right now that I’ve never seen the film adaptation of this short story. I think there’s a love story here (and in the next two short stories), but I want to direct our attention to the following parts:

  • p. 2: Notice that new technologies–throughout Gibson’s work–augment human abilities. In the 1980s (especially the early 1980s), cosmetic surgery was for the ABSOLUTELY rich and not the middle class. Gibson projects into a future where humans augment their senses with implanted technologies, thus, becoming cyborgs.
  • p. 3: If you read Neuromancer, you’ll see how Gibson is a fan of Reggae, but I’m not sure why he brings up “Christian White of the Aryan Reggae Band, Sony Mao…final champion of race rock.”
    • Fortunately, good science fiction isn’t about predicting the future; otherwise, there would be a resurgence of white nationalism in this country today.
  • p. 6: Molly Millions’s “mirrored lenses were surgical inlays.”
  • p. 9: “The Yakuza is a true multinational, like ITT and Ono-Sendai. Fifty years before I was born the Yakuza had already absorbed the Triads, the Mafia, the Union Corse.”
  • p. 13: The military gets a dolphin addicted to heroine in order to make it work for them.
    • What kind of people porpoise-ly (that’s a joke, btw) get a dolphin addicted to drugs?
  • p. 17: “We’re an information economy….it’s impossible to move, to live, to operate at any level without leaving traces, bits, seemingly meaningless fragments of personal information. Fragments that can be retrieved.”
    • Good thing none of those concerns exist today…
    • When issues of privacy come up in classes I teach, I like to mention that when I was in college (mid-1990s), professors would post our grades on their doors and list us by…our social security numbers. Both my driver’s license number and student ID were my social security number. Times have changed.
  • p. 18: “The Yakuza….[steal] from Ono-Sendai as a matter of course and politely [hold] their data for ransom.”
  • p. 19: Johnny claims to have “spent most of [his] life as a blind receptacle to be filled with other people’s knowledge.”
    • Perhaps this is a metaphor for the way we absorb/consume information and pass it along without understanding or scrutinizing the source.

Future Stuff

Keep on reading! September 13th’s webpage has notes for our next readings, “New Rose Hotel” and “Burning Chrome.” These Gibson short stories–“Johnny Mnemonic,” “New Rose Hotel,” and “Burning Chrome”–are part of his Sprawl Trilogy, and he has three novels in the series also–Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988). I’m stunned at how much The Matrix is inspired by Neuromancer, but I don’t think the The Wachowskis ever gave Gibson credit. Oh well, it isn’t the first time. Enjoy!

This past semester, I taught Neuromancer (1984) and Count Zero (1986) in ENGL 4275 “Rhetoric of Technology,” March 16th. If you’re interested in learning more about Gibson’s novels (be aware there are spoilers), this is extra information that won’t be on an exam.