Is a Tomato a Sandwich?

On categories and what we want from them

Star Wars

I had been planning to launch this blog around this time, but I wasn't expecting to do it with this topic.

For context: Some weeks ago, John Scalzi posted on social media that he'd seen people arguing whether Star Wars was science fiction. He said he's tired of that discussion, and he firmly stated that yes, Star Wars is science fiction and it's silly that people are even asking the question. In the responses to his post, I noticed many were making variations on one repeated argument: Star Wars has robots and spaceships, therefore it's obviously science fiction. That feels to me like a very reductive way of defining genres. So I published my opposing view on the same website, but without tagging Mr. Scalzi, because, after all, his post said he's tired of the whole thing. In my post, I said that calling Star Wars science fiction because it has robots and spaceships is like calling Casablanca a musical because it has people singing. Now, to be clear: I didn't see Mr. Scalzi use that specific line of argument; I only saw it in the responses to his post. But he didn't respond to his responders to tell them they were wrong, so at a minimum he doesn't seem to disagree with them.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to track down the posts I'm citing, so that you can read them for yourselves. “Weeks ago” is entire geological eras in social media. I actually had forgotten about the whole matter until this morning, when Marie Vibbert published an essay on her blog, where she specifically calls me out, framing her text as an answer to a challenge I issued. I honestly don't remember having issued any challenge, but, as I said to her, I'm flattered that my words got her thinking at such length. I met Ms. Vibbert personally at the Chengdu Worldcon last year, and she struck me as immensely kind, funny, and sharp-minded. We got along really well. To this day we remain in excellent terms. Her post on Star Wars makes many interesting points, and this post of mine is not a counter-attack. Dear readers, do not mistake this for a feud.

But in my never humble opinion, Star Wars is obviously not science fiction, and if you care enough about a very dead horse to keep reading this post, I'll proceed to explain what I mean.

First, I hope we can all agree that labels are made up. There's no law of the universe that objectively, unambiguously distinguishes Pride and Prejudice from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the same way that we can objectively, unambiguously distinguish electrons from protons. The question about what Star Wars is can't be answered by appealing to any fixed, eternal standard. We, collectively, decide what Star Wars is. We decide how we talk about art. At some point in the future, a Tumblr post may invent a new label, let's say, “offspringpunk,” and define it as stories where the descendants of villains fight against their parents, and it's conceivable that the author of such definition will claim Star Wars as a precursor of offspringpunk. The key thing to keep in mind here is that no one involved in the production of Star Wars ever thought about such a label, much less about intentionally conforming their creation to it, but this admittedly absurd example shows how a label can be retroactively applied to art that wasn't made with that label in mind. That's how I can claim that Sherlock Holmes is science fiction even though its author may have never heard of that label—even though most people alive today who are familiar with science fiction will probably dispute that the label fits Sherlock Holmes.

So I guess it's time for me to clarify how I define science fiction. In very broad terms, I think science fiction is a mode of storytelling in which the resolution of the dramatic conflict hinges on the use of human-made tools. Star Trek is full of non-scientific stuff, like telepaths and all-powerful children and fungus-powered travel and divine koalas and horny ghosts, but a Star Trek plot has a stronger claim to being science fiction than a Star Wars plot because of the way the story proceeds. Characters in Star Trek solve their problems by using reason; moreover, the setting of Star Trek is intentionally conceived as one where problems respond to reason. That won't work in Star Wars, because the setting of Star Wars is conceived as one where problems respond to moral fortitude, so that's how characters in Star Wars go about solving their problems. It was by clever application of technology and tactics that the Rebels blew up the second Death Star, but it was by purity of heart that Luke defeated an Emperor. Even if Star Wars didn't have the supernatural ingredient of the Force, it would still rely on heart solutions over brain solutions. George Lucas intentionally modeled Star Wars on the structure of ancient myth, and that's the vibe it still goes for.

Again, all this is under the definition that makes sense to me. I have no way, and no right, to demand that you adopt my definition. When we're not talking about electrons and protons, most instances of the question “Does A belong in the category X?” are actually hiding the question “Is this definition of X good for anything?” Margaret Atwood still protests that her books are not science fiction, because the definition of science fiction that she happens to prefer is impractically narrow. John Scalzi calls all of fiction fantasy, because the definition of fantasy that he happens to prefer is impractically broad. So we have to pay close attention to the question we're actually asking. When two people discuss whether Star Wars is science fiction, they should first check whether they're speaking the same language.

The whole Star Wars thing resurfaced recently with this Reactor article by Kristen Patterson, which concludes that the fundamental difference between science fiction and fantasy is the way we treat them. But that answer doesn't cover the entire problem. A 19th-century novel about psychic powers could have been received as a scientific story in its day, but now we'd call it fantasy. How is it possible for a story to change genres if the text remains intact? It is possible because labels are mutable. I still hold that as soon as you introduce the supernatural, you're doing fantasy, but I suspect that someone who believes that the supernatural is a real thing would call Chilling Adventures of Sabrina something other than fantasy.

While it's true that labels are made up, it's also true that some labels allow for more productive conversation than others. In reference to that article by Patterson, John Wiswell has commented, “Fantasy is make-believe wearing a cloak. Science fiction is make-believe wearing a lab coat.” Which is a totally fine way of settling the question—if you believe that genre is reducible to aesthetics. That's how Star Wars uses science fiction: as a costume. A cool aesthetic. When you examine what happens in Star Wars, you can see that it doesn't need the robots and spaceships. In her blog, Ms. Vibbert asks whether the story of Star Wars can be told without the robots and spaceships. As it happens, it absolutely can: it's called The Hidden Fortress by Akira Kurosawa. What Lucas did was retell The Hidden Fortress with a cover of chrome paint on it, just like Zack Snyder recently retold Star Wars with a dusty sepia filter. My point is that you could take the same plot of Star Wars and tell it with cowboys and trains, and it would lose nothing of its emotional core. So I find it very strange to see Star Wars classified as science fiction when you could remove the coat of science-looking paint and keep the same story.

So no, I'd say genre does not reduce to aesthetics. The Matrix is a feast of unbridled aesthetics, but you can't keep the same story of The Matrix if you remove the science element. It's the kind of story that can only be told by reference to a specific set of technologies. You can't tell the story of Blade Runner or Bicentennial Man without the artificial people, even if one grants that those stories can be interpreted as allegories for human-on-human discrimination. But there's also a danger of going too far in this direction. From this argument it would be easy to jump to the position that genre is defined by specific plot elements. That opens whole new cans of worms. Fans of romance have famously codified the hard rule that a story without a happy-ever-after cannot call itself romance. But that would leave great romance stories excluded from the genre. Where would we classify Titanic? Should we ignore the romance elements in Great Expectations? What about Before Sunrise and its sequels? Perhaps, rather than a hard yes/no rule, we need a more granular approach. One would have to be a very confused reader to call Romeo and Juliet a romance story, but any meaningful discussion of it must address the undeniable elements of romance that it contains. Likewise, there are undeniable elements of science fiction in He-Man, even though the resolution of dramatic conflict in a typical He-Man story tends to come down to who has the bigger sword.

Indeed, He-Man is a clearer illustration of the questions that Star Wars raises. In the setting of He-Man, magic and technology are equally accepted; a genius inventor may as easily resort to one or the other. It's a story where Clarke's third law is a fact of reality. Such an unfairly maligned piece of worldbuilding as midichlorians would comfortably fit with everything else in He-Man. So why isn't there a more heated argument about whether He-Man counts as science fiction? For that matter, why isn't more digital ink spilled on the proper classification of Steven Universe or Captain Planet or Doctor Strange or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Why the hyperfocus on Star Wars? Because none of those other stories has gone out of its way to deliberately claim the gigantic cultural cachet that Star Wars loudly insists it deserves. Star Wars is a unique case because it isn't satisfied with telling a story; by explicitly calling back to Campbell's monomyth, it aspires to convince you that it's telling the Ur-story. And that makes any discussion of Star Wars emotionally intense. For fans, this story has left an irreversible limbic footprint (which is exactly the effect Lucas intended). To hear criticism of Star Wars feels like receiving a blow to the self.

I have to agree with Patterson when she complains that there's a component of snobbism from my faction. When we deny Star Wars the label of science fiction, it's tempting to treat Star Wars as a lesser form of story, as a pretender to the dignified mantle of science fiction. So I find myself in the complicated position of having to admit that yes, I'm unimpressed by the storytelling tricks of Star Wars, but also, having to find reasons for my system of classification that don't come from highbrow affectations. There's a failure mode in this discussion that excludes Star Wars from science fiction on the basis that the genre would somehow suffer a degradation otherwise. Under this failure mode, Star Wars is seen as too crass and facile to merit membership in the refined club of Asimov and Wells. And you can see how that line of argument leads nowhere if you, like me, are a lifelong fan of Power Rangers. So I must hope that I can muster the necessary nuance to effectively convey that, yes, I do happen to think Star Wars is crass and facile (see, for example, any of David Brin's delicious diatribes against the franchise's flattened morals and faux pop-wisdom), but also, that's not the reason why I exclude it from science fiction. I don't want a genre (or a fan community) that would see itself as too good for Power Rangers.

I said above that I count Sherlock Holmes among the ranks of science fiction. Let me explain why: detective fiction only became possible after sufficient progress had been made in psychology, medicine, anthropology, legal theory, sociology, and the natural sciences for it to be thinkable that the evils of society could be fixed. Centuries under the defeatist poison of Calvinism had delayed that cultural moment. Once the daring idea emerges that evil is solvable, literature can dare speak of crime as a human-sized problem that human tools are equipped to address. And thus we get detective fiction. Crime was no longer seen as the result of an indelible corruption of the human soul, but as the result of choices motivated by concrete circumstances. Of course, we still find in these times the detective novel that romanticizes the criminally insane and shrugs before the mystery of the human mind. But that's not where the kernel of detective fiction is to be found. The truly interesting detective story is that where evil follows from an act of reason, and therefore can be opposed by reason. That's the basic attitude underlying the works that I classify as science fiction.

This is why I call Daedalus a science fiction character cruelly dropped into another genre. In a world of miracles and fate, of superstrong demigods and irresistible witches, Daedalus is the type of hero whose way of solving his problems is by using his intelligence. There's a seed of science fiction there, in the attitude that pits human intelligence against gods. It's in Sancho Panza as he tries to explain to his boss that what looks like the giants of legend are mere machines that need not be feared. It's in Dorothy Gale as she confronts the man behind the curtain. It's in Lyra Belacqua as she learns to take nothing on faith. It's in Batman as he goes to battle against demons and magical monsters wielding knowledge as his weapon. It's in the Doctor as he outsmarts entire armies from his little blue box.

Regardless of any supernatural shenanigans, at the end of the day it's that attitude, that trust in a character's intelligence (and the tools it can produce) as a sufficient engine of narrative resolution, that distinguishes science fiction.

And it's nowhere to be found in Star Wars.

—Arturo

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