TheoFantastique: Regina, thank you for your time to discuss a great book. I’m not aware of previous treatments of this topic in book form which, if true, is curious given the prevalence of Roman Catholicism in horror and other genres of the fantastic. How did you come to develop this subject matter and these contributors?

Regina Hansen: I started planning for the book during discussions with friends at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (two of the book’s contributors, Christa Jones and Isabella van Elferen were part of those discussions). You’re right in that there hasn’t been much scholarly inquiry into this particular topic. There have been some terrific books on Catholicism in film, and Victoria Nelson’s essay on “faux Catholicism” in works like The Da Vinci Code was very helpful in our thinking about this book. The great thing is that many of the volume’s contributors wanted to be part of the project precisely because they’d always wanted to write on the topic of Catholicism in fantastic film but never had a chance. I came to the idea from both personal and scholarly interests. My family (at least my mother’s side) were very much steeped in the supernatural aspects of Catholicism: my great-grandmother really understood and studied the various devotions, to Mary especially. My grandfather read Aquinas and Francis of Assisi for fun. Being a part of that tradition really opened me up to the fantastic, to supernatural and metaphysical themes – in the stuff I like to write about, and in what I like to read and see in film. I think you’d find that to be true of many people actually. Still, in putting together the book, I didn’t need or want everyone to have the same point of view as I do. I love being a Catholic; I love everything about the practice of my faith – even though there’s also a lot that disappoints me on the social level. There’s plenty to question and a lot of that questioning has been done by filmmakers and critics in the fantastic. I wanted to have contributors who represented a spectrum of attitudes toward Catholicism and a spectrum of scholarly approaches as well. I think we really succeeded in that goal.

TheoFantastique: Can you comment on the various ways in which Roman Catholicism is uniquely suited to provide material for the fantastic in contrast with Protestantism?

Regina Hansen: The elements of Catholicism that make their way into films of the fantastic tend to be the ones that were rejected during the Reformation as idolatrous or pagan – devotion to Mary and the saints, the use of statues or other physical objects as a means of veneration or an aid to worship. But, I wouldn’t say it’s just a Catholic/Protestant thing. I think filmmakers are drawn to the non-Enlightenment, irrational aspects of Catholicism, in the same way that Gothic novelists used to be. Catholics are supposed to fully believe in a supernatural world, in supernatural events occurring on a daily basis – the priest actually turning bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood, Mary and the saints as intercessors with God, angels, demons, all that stuff. Many Protestants are meant to believe in some of those things, too. The recent movie Exorcism deals with demons, etc. from a Pentecostal rather than Catholic perspective. Still, Catholicism has been around longer, and there is a Catholic presence in almost every country in the world. Catholic practice and iconography are weird and familiar at the same time, especially in the United States, where there weren’t really a lot of Catholics until the 1800’s.

TheoFantastique: Readers might first think of vampires and demonic possession in connection with Roman Catholicism, but while your book touches on these areas it also sketches broader areas of influence. Can you touch on the connection of this branch of Christendom to the broader realm of the monstrous and fantastic?

Regina Hansen: There are a lot of issues. For instance, in fantasy film and literature, so much of the traditional narratives grow out of Medieval romance, or have a Medievalist aesthetic that goes back to the pre-Raphaelites and the work of Morris and Rossetti. That kind of aesthetic is just not possible without dealing with the iconography of Catholicism, even if you end up changing it around a bit. Also, people don’t necessarily think about religious movies as movies about the fantastic, but of course they are. Traditional stories of saints’ lives are as full of that kind of stuff as anything from J.K. Rowling. In our book, Paulo Cunha and Daniel Ribas write about Marian apparitions in film – particularly Our Lady of Fatima. These are films about a supernatural personage appearing to a group of children and performing supernatural feats, like making the sun spin etc. That’s the fantastic right there. Also, one reason I wanted to do this book was to show how often entirely realist films create an atmosphere of the fantastic or uncanny simply by adding elements of Catholic religious practice or belief to the narrative. Kathleen Urda and Brett Gaul talk about this in their chapters, on the new Brideshead Revisited film and Gone Baby Gone respectively. A really great example (not in the book) is in The Godfather when Michael Corleone’s enemies are being slaughtered as he takes part in a baptism, and is supposedly rejecting Satan.

TheoFantastique: One of the chapters I connected with was the one by Christopher McKittrick in his analysis of the films of Terry Gilliam. I was surprised to learn of his being raised Protestant, and yet he has incorporated Roman Catholic elements in his films of the fantastic. How has this religious tradition impacted his work?

Regina Hansen: Again I see the impact in the Medievalist aesthetic of a lot of his work, from the interstitial cartoons he did for Monty Python’s Flying Circus to Monty Python and the Holy Grail to The Fisher King. At the same time, Gilliam/the Pythons pretty cleverly satirize some Catholic beliefs or doctrine, as in the song “Every Sperm is Sacred,” from The Meaning of Life. Chris McKittrick writes about all this but also suggests that the narrative arc of many of Gilliam’s films echoes theological questions that have often brought Catholicism and Protestantism into conflict: free will and the problem of evil, the importance of good works relative to faith. These are interesting things to think about.

TheoFantastique: I enjoyed Em McAvan’s exploration of The Lord of the Rings. How has Tolkien’s text come to involve multiple readings and layers in terms of Tolkien’s Roman Catholicism as well as New Age and pagan elements?

Regina Hansen: Tolkien was an observant Catholic; most people know that. At the same time, we don’t usually see LOTR as having much Catholicism in it. It seems much more based in Anglo-Saxon or Norse mythology, the kind of literature Tolkien studied and taught. Em sees the influence of Tolkien’ Catholicism in the novel’s sacramentality, its use of holy objects. She suggests that objects like “Galadriel’s phial of light and the elvish lembas bread” represent “the sacred embodied in the material.” (43) This idea is certainly central to Catholic practice, though not unique to it. Em also suggests that the films replace that element of sacramentality — of particular objects carrying particular holiness — with a more generalized New Age “reverence for all living things.” (49) So, if you look at the novel and films together, there really is the interplay among paganism, Catholicism and New Age thinking, and also, as Em reminds us, the danger of consumerism – taking objects so seriously, making them so holy that they become more important than what they represent, or just things to be acquired.

TheoFantastique: I’m finalizing some research for a chapter in the forthcoming book The Undead and Theology, so Jana Toppe’s chapter on zombie films and the Resurrection and Eucharist were of special interest. In what ways might zombie “resurrection” and the consumption of flesh and blood be read as a satire of Resurrection and Eucharist?

Regina Hansen: Christianity and Catholicism in particular make certain promises – people will achieve eternal life through the consumption of Christ’s body and blood; there will be bodily resurrection at the end of time. Zombie films sort of half fulfill these promises: Zombies eat flesh. Zombies live forever (or almost, until they get shot in the head) but they live forever without identity, without soul. Zombies are walking resurrected bodies, but just bodies and corrupt ones at that. The Zombie Apocalypse involves the resurrection of the body but, as Jana says, leaves out the promise for a better world. Interestingly, as Jana points out, early zombie films (like The White Zombie) were based on Haitian Voudoun, or a heavily exoticized version of it anyway. Since Voudoun has many Catholic elements, it seems as if Catholicism and movie zombies have been interacting since the early days of film.

TheoFantastique: I was pleased to see a discussion of The Others, a ghost story that was very well done. How does Roman Catholicism inform the identity and struggle of the main character, Grace, portrayed by Nicole Kidman?

Regina Hansen: Grace is obsessed with the “rules” of Catholicism, and her interpretation of them. She follows those rules obsessively, as a way to hide from herself the truth of her present situation (spoiler alert) that she’s dead and also killed her children, that she is the “other,” the ghost in the house. In their chapter, Anabel Altemir Giral and Ismael Ibanez Rosales suggest that in clinging to rules, to dogma, Grace not only blinds herself to her own state of being but to the potential for holiness all around her. They write about Grace’s denial of her “sacramental imagination,” her inability to see the objects and people in the house as potential “revelations of God’s grace.” (277) A full understanding of Catholicism includes the experience of a world alive with spirit and holiness. As happens with the character of Grace, blind adherence to rules for their own sake can cut one off from that world, that sacramental experience.

TheoFantastique: I would love to have seen someone grapple with the place of Roman Catholicism in the films of Guillermo del Toro. Are there any plans for a follow up volume that might include explorations like this?

Regina Hansen: Del Toro’s work is fascinating in this regard. He very much rejects organized religion and some of his nastiest characters are Catholic clerics. At the same time, he often portrays people of simple faith, who happen to be Catholics, in a very appealing way, and his work seems to find some kind of real power/value in Catholic objects and images. I’m working on a single author volume right now that will continue some of the work started in Roman Catholicism in Fantastic Film, and I do plan to include Del Toro.

TheoFantastique: Regina, thank you again for a great book, and for your time in discussing aspects of this volume.

Regina Hansen: Thank you very much, John.

‘Magic is Might 2012′ : 23-24 July 2012, University of Limerick, Ireland

An International Academic Conference Exploring the Cultural Influence of the Harry Potter Books and Films

Hosted by the University of Limerick Department of Sociology in collaboration with the UL Interaction Design Centre, Dept. of Computer
Science and Information Systems.

Call for Papers

The Harry Potter series has become a publishing phenomenon that has captured the imagination of children and adults all over the world. The stories created by J.K. Rowling have inspired extensive multidisciplinary academic discussion, ranging from cultural and literary analyses, sociological and philosophical interpretations, design practices, to recognised medical publications.

Conferences have taken place that focused on the impact that the novels have had on the world and their educational contribution and edited collections have been produced centering on themes of philosophy, religion, sociology, and critical analysis, to name just a few. The characters’ relationships, the political and social systems, and cultural commentaries woven into Rowling’s writing are just some examples of what makes the Harry Potter series an exciting framework for academic discourse in a number of areas.

This two-day event will feature twenty 15-20 minute presentations on papers relating to popular culture and the Harry Potter series. We will encourage intensive and lively discussion and debate around the papers over the two days in this intimate setting. Wizards, muggles, established academics and postgraduate students are invited to submit papers. Post conference, full papers will be put together into a collection that will be available online.

Suggested Topics include but are in no way limited to:

- Society (both Wizard and Muggle) and its portrayal
- The Law and the Criminal System
- Government and Politics
- Gender
- Race
- Class
- Prejudice
- Relationships (sexual, friendship, the family etc…)
- Human and Non-Human Rights (werewolves, goblins, house elves,
centaurs, ghosts, Aragog, etc…)
- Bodies and Embodiment
- Education
- Conformity and Deviance
- Socialisation
- Sexuality and the Erotic
- Media, Technology and Design
- Fashion, Music and the Arts

Please submit a 300 word abstract with 100 word biographical information by 1 September 2011. All inquiries and abstracts can be emailed to magicismight2012@gmail.com.

All abstracts will be reviewed for inclusion in the conference by the conference committee. Accepted papers will be notified by December 1st 2011. We will then ask for draft conference papers to be submitted. General inquiries can be made at the above email address to conference organisers, Gráinne O’Brien (University of Limerick, Ireland) Michelle Mayefske (University of Limerick,Ireland) Dr. Luigina Ciolfi (University of Limerick, Ireland) and Jadwiga O’Brien (National University of Galway, Ireland).

See http://magicismight2012.blogspot.com/.

TheoFantastique: Avril, how did you come to a personal interest in science fiction and fantasy, and what expressions of them are most appealing to you and why?

Avril Hannah-Jones: It all began for me when a school teacher gave me a copy of The Hobbit when I was about eight. I remember that as the moment when I discovered science fiction and fantasy – but since I was born in the early seventies I’d also seen Star Wars when it was first released, and at some point I’d read C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series. Growing up I enjoyed very (stereo)-typical genre fiction by authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mary Stewart, Judith Tarr and David Eddings.

For a long time my interest was purely book-based; it wasn’t until Joss Whedon’s Buffy series that I really became obsessed with television-based fantasy. I try to limit myself to one television obsession at a time, so at the moment it’s Supernatural (with occasional forays into Doctor Who and Torchwood) and I’m trying to resist the friends who tell me I must watch True Blood.

Usually I read and watch stories that either explore and challenge gender stereotypes or ponder the nature of good and evil. Occasionally, as with Joss Whedon’s television series, I find something that does both.

TheoFantastique: How do you see or make a connection between the sacred and the fantastic, more specifically, between a Christian spirituality and theology and the fantastic?

Avril Hannah-Jones: I draw very heavily on the thoughts of The Inklings, the Oxford-based group that included C.S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. They were all very committed Christians who saw the fantastic as a way of exploring theological themes. Lewis was much more allegorical about it than Tolkien and Williams, but all of them were exploring good and evil and questions about the best way to live.

Tolkien also argued that the sort of “world-building” that authors of the fantastic do is a form of “sub-creation” that is part of being human, because humans are made in the image of God the Creator.

Sci-fi and fantasy are often accused of being forms of escapism, as opposed to more serious works, partly because they do often involve the ultimate triumph of good over evil. For me that triumph is at the heart of the Christian story, with the resurrection following the crucifixion, and the sort of fantasy and sci fi that I enjoy most reflects an affirmation by Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death; victory is ours through him who loves us.

TheoFantastique: At some point you decided to incorporate the fantastic into your church services among your congregation. How did this decision come about? What types of things did you do? And what was the response of the congregation as well as those outside the church?

Avril Hannah-Jones: It started as a joke! I was in the audience of a television program called Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight hosted by the very charming Australian comedian Adam Hills. One of the things that he did was get the audience to fill out surveys before coming to the taping, and to the question: “What is your guilty pleasure in life?” I answered: “Sci-fi television. I thanked Buffy the Vampire Slayer in my thesis acknowledgments.”

Adam and his writers thought that that was so funny, given my day job as a Uniting Church minister, that they created an ad for something they called The Church of Latter Day Geeks. Adam then got me to agree to wear a ‘geeky’ t-shirt to lead a worship service, which I did, and finally challenged me to get an entire congregation to dress up.

Since I’d already been thinking about using sci-fi and fantasy to explore theological themes for years, I agreed, and held what I called a “sci-fi and fantasy-friendly church service”. AHIGST promoted it and came along to film an item about it.

Before the service was held I explained to my four congregations what I was doing and why I believed that this particular genre could be used to explore Christian theology. As I told them: “I don’t just watch and read sci fi and fantasy books, films, comics and television programs. I analyse them and theologise about them. My library is full of books with titles like Holy Superheroes! Exploring the Sacred in Comics, Graphic Novels and Film and The Gospel according to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-Earth and Hogwarts for Muggles: Harry Potter and Philosophy. I’ve even had a chapter on “Good and Evil in the World of Supernatural” published in a collection of essays on the television show Supernatural. Once they knew that there was something seriously spiritual behind the idea of the service their response was overwhelmingly positive.

I advertised the service by saying:

Impressed with the way the Doctor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter live out Jesus’ teaching, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”?

Intrigued by the themes of mercy, forgiveness and redemption in Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and the television series Angel?

Inspired to do good and resist evil by the example of Peter Parker, the crew of Serenity and the Winchester brothers?

Then come to a sci-fi and fantasy-friendly church service to be held at Romsey Uniting Church on the 10th of April at 4 pm.

(You’re welcome to come in a costume of your choice, but blasters, stakes and other weapons will have to be left at the church door.)

TheoFantastique: Has any of the reactions you’ve received surprised you, whether positively or negatively?

Avril Hannah-Jones: I found the fact that the story went global absolutely astounding! Every time I do something a little bit different in the churches, I let the local media know. So I emailed the local papers about this, and one came to Romsey to take photos of me holding a toy lightsaber. That story then got picked up by one of the state newspapers, the Herald-Sun, and the day they published the story I got phone calls at 6 am from two Melbourne radio stations asking me about the service and a film crew from a current affairs program on my doorstep at 7.30 am. After consulting with the Uniting Church’s state leaders I agreed to be interviewed by the current affairs’ program – and after that the story apparently went global. Utterly bizarre! For some reason countries starting with ‘I’ were particularly interested: I’ve seen stories in the Indian, Italian and Indonesian press.

I was strongly supported by members and ministers of the Uniting Church, which was wonderful, and I was criticised by some conservative Christians who assumed that I was replacing the Christian story with sci-fi and fantasy, rather than using the latter to reflect on the former. But that last didn’t surprise me at all. Conservative Christians seem to spend all their time criticising the rest of us.

TheoFantastique: What does the future hold for your interactions between Christian spirituality and the fantastic?

Avril Hannah-Jones: I think the service is going to have to become an annual one; this first one was such a success and I had so many comments from people who couldn’t make it and would like to come to the next one if it happens.

And I still have an idea for a book on ‘Theodicy in Fantastic Television’ in the back of my head. That would look at the way shows like Buffy and Angel and Charmed and Quantum Leap and Doctor Who and Supernatural present good and evil and answer questions about the meaning of life. I don’t really have any time to work on that while I’m working in congregational ministry, but if I ever get a sabbatical that will be what I spent it on.

TheoFantastique: Avril, thank you for taking the time to discuss this. I think this interaction with pop culture, and this expression of church is fascinating and I’d love to see something like this replicated in the United States. Perhaps a new kind of emergent church!

Back to Space-Con looks at one of the earliest Star Trek conventions from the 1970s. The first event was called “The Red Hour Festival,” a name inspired by a time of revelry and abandon from the original Star Trek series episode “The Return of the Archons.” This convention took place on February 22, 1975 and was held at Lincoln High School in San Francisco. For those wh only have familiarity with contemporary conventions, whether science fiction, fantasy, or horror, and the widespread media exposure in niche communication channels that these gatherings receive, whether from magazines, the Internet, Facebook, specialized satellite and cable television channels, and other venues, back in the 1970s none of these media channels existed, with the exception of a small handful of specialized magazines. I remember this situation as a teenager and fan of the fantastic growing up in northern California. We had to work hard to find out about conventions, and about other fans that might share our peculiar interests.

As Back to Space-Con documents, local horror host Bob Wilkins of the Creature Features program on Channel 2 in the Bay Area, and later Channel 40 in Sacramento, promoted “The Red Hour Festival” on his television program, and also served as master of ceremonies at the event. The result was a huge turnout of fans, many with home-made costumes from the television series, as well as props such as phasers and tricorders made in home garages, long before Hollywood recognized there was a mass market for such items and concerns over copyright and royalties became an issue as it would in the post-Star Wars era shortly to come. Wilkins would continue to promote the events, as would his eventual successor on Creature Features, John Stanley. The result was an was an ongoing and increasingly successful series of conventions, and a burgeoning and influential fan base. As the Back to Space-Con website states:

These “Space-Con” conventions left an indelible mark on the science-fiction fans and “Trekkers” who attended. In the end, conventions like Space-Con helped awaken Paramount from hibernation and led to the creation of the first installment of the major motion picture series “Star Trek” in 1979. This full-length documentary film is the story of how fandom revolutionized an industry.

Back to Space-Con provides not only a sense of nostalgia for those of us who lived through these times of being a fan, but also helps us understand the origins of contemporary sci-fi and fantasy conventions and the significance of fandom not only as an element connected to entertainment and commercialism, but also in how certain aspects of the fantastic move from individual fandom to the formation of collective subcultures.

Fast forward from the 1970s and fledgling science fiction conventions to the contemporary period, and shift from California to Atlanta, add several thousand more fans in attendance (at least 35,000 in total by one estimate), and you have Dragon*Con. Four Days at Dragon*Con explores this convention which has been in existence for twenty-four years, and which someone in the documentary calls “Woodstock for nerds.” Dragon*Con makes for an interesting contrast with Comic-Con, in that while both events draw fans and feature aspects of pop culture from science fiction, fantasy, and even horror, Dragon*Con, much like the Space-Cons which preceded it, gives the impression that it is far more fan-driven than media and commerce-driven. This is not to say that there is not a strong driving force of entertainment and commercialism behind Dragon*Con, but appears to focus more on explorations and expressions of fandom as a result of the fantastic, rather than serving primarily as a means for promoting the latest Hollywood products of the fantastic.

The press release for this documentary brings out one of the significant facets of this for Dragon*Con, and I believe this element was also present at the initial formation of such conventions in the 1970s, and also serves as the foundation for fan subcultures.

“One thing we wanted to explore was the real reason people gather here in such numbers,” said the documentary’s director, Jack Walsh. “It couldn’t be just to talk about sci-fi”. Walsh co-produced Four Days at Dragon*Con with Gordon Ray, PBA30′s Senior Producer.

“It became pretty clear early on that this was a sense of acceptance,” said Walsh. “For 361 days out of the year, they might be dismissed as nerds, but when these fans come together on such a massive scale, they form their own like-minded community that just happens to be larger than a lot of towns.”

After watching both of these documentaries, and reflecting on the resulting fan subcultures that have arisen over time as a result, I was struck by the similarities to my research on Burning Man Festival which I did for my masters thesis. Burning Man is an alternative cultural event which meets each year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Although it began with a handful of participants from its humble origins on a San Francisco beach, it has grown to become an international phenomenon that creates a temporary city and subculture each year.

Some of the parallels between Burning Man Festival and fan conventions/subcultures like Dragon*Con include:

- A sense of belonging, family, and being part of a like-minded group that shares similar values.

- Related to the above, a shared sense that their participation in the festival/convention represents being part of a subculture more real than that lived in the rest of the year.

- A process which Victor Turner discussed which involved leaving one’s tribe, traveling to a liminal space apart, participation in various forms of ritual, and a return to the tribe after experiencing a strong sense of “communitas” or community from the shared experience.

- The inclusion of a strong sense of artistic expression through painting, drawing, sculpture, and the creation of various forms of artifacts.

- Costuming and play. At Burning Man this can take a variety of forms, from nudity to any number of costumer creations, while at sci-fi/fantasy conventions it becomes “cosplay,” costume play as a form of performance art related to the fantastic.

- A strong sense of participation and self-expression in keeping with embodied ideals as the driving force behind the gatherings.

- A sense of modern tribalism, a connectedness in terms of shared understandings of social and (sub)cultural values.

- Utopian desires which yearn for the creation of forms of society which transcend the limitations and overcome the negative aspects of contemporary Western societies.

These documentaries are “must viewing” for fans, as well as students and scholars of the fantastic, media studies, and fan cultures. Back to Space-Con can be ordered from Tom Wyrsch here. Unfortunately, Four Days at Dragon*Con is not available for purchase, but it is airing nationally at the discretion of local public broadcasting stations. Visit the documentary’s Facebook page, as well as its American Public Television page for possible broadcast times near you.

Related posts:

“WIRED: Is Being a Geek a Personality Trait or a Way of Life?”

“And the Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth, or at Least Lead Pop Culture”

“Star Trek Conventions as Sacred Pilgrimage”

“Star Trek Fandom as a Religious Phenomenon?”

An article at indieWIRE recently explored this topic in a piece titled “Shadow and Act: On Cinema of the African Diaspora” which provided background on the documentary, and the place of speculative fiction for African Americans:

African American science fiction, fantasy, and horror—all of which fall under speculative fiction—has been developing for over a century now.  Its tradition has its roots throughout the African Diaspora, but for Americans the voyage into a fantastical world has held a special appeal. Rising out of a need to escape from the lasting essence of slavery, the emergence of Jim Crow, and second class citizenry, utopian fiction provided hope for a better future.

The article also describes how the film is structured:

The timeline for Invisible Universe is divided into six sections, following the evolution and forms speculative fiction genre. Asli starts with utopian fiction, then moves on to zombie fiction (esp. films), science fiction, blaxploitation and mythology, superheroes in comic books, and modern fiction.

I hope to be able to see a screening of this film, or to secure a review copy. It will make an important contribution to the understanding of speculative fiction, and the various ethnic and cultural influences that have shaped it over the years. It will also provide a window into how the African American community expresses its hopes and fears through these genres, as well as how others have viewed and represented them.

First, human beings have been engaged in body modification for thousands of years across diverse cultures. In fact, very few cultures have not engaged in body modification, whether tattooing or piercing.

Second, we live in a culture where many forms of cosmetic body modification are practiced routinely and are commonly accepted, from Botox injections to breast enlargements to permanent makeup application. It is telling that the correspondent in the ABC News piece found ear modification distasteful, and yet would probably not think twice about the appropriateness of any number of forms of cosmetic surgery.

Third, some have argued that our current fascination with more routine forms of body modification may be construed as a form of religion, or at least a practice strongly related to it. In a Religion Dispatches piece by Jeremy Biles titled “I Want a Perfect Body: Is Plastic Surgery a Rite of Passage?”, the author writes:

“Though it may be a global phenomenon, the roots of this fixation on the body may lie partly in American religion. We need only think of America’s many corporeal obsessions, from dieting, to fitness crazes, to cosmetic surgery, to begin to suspect that beliefs and commitments at the very heart of American culture are at work here. Harvard’s R. Marie Griffith argues that religion, specifically Protestant forms of Christianity, has been a key influence on the conception and creation of American bodies. Protestant ascetic expressions of Christianity, Griffith argues, promote what she calls ‘corporeal acts of devotion.’ Griffith traces shifting Christian conceptions of embodiment from these early modern Protestant roots through Christian Scientism and the New Thought Movement. The emphasis on manifesting the inner, spiritual self through disciplines shaping the outer, physical self has thrust the body to the forefront of the American imagination.”

Moving from the influence of religion toward the shaping of attitudes related to the body and its modification to consideration of other influences of religion and the sacred, it is worth noting that various expressions of fantastic fiction are being drawn upon in this instance as inspiration for shaping our form. Given that concepts of the sacred have now moved beyond more traditional expressions of religion to incorporate any number of sources once considered more mundane than sacred, pointed ears in science fiction and fantasy may be an example of “manifesting the inner, spiritual self through disciplines shaping the outer, physical self” as a form of “corporeal acts of devotion.”

Going under the knife to create elf ears may not be everyone’s preferred form of body modification, but it is not as extreme as some may think upon further analysis. Surely the health considerations must be taking into consideration, but to frown on the legitimacy of the procedure without the other considerations I have mentioned above indicates blind spots that must be acknowledged.  I have come to the place where I don’t expect much by way of media reporting, but perhaps in the future the folks at ABC News can engage in a little more reflexivity before reporting.

Picture: David Caird; Source: Herald Sun

I recently came across an interesting couple of news items related to a church in Australia that has scheduled a fantasy and science fiction service. The idea is the brainchild of the Uniting Church’s pastor, Avril Hannah-Jones, who is a fan of the fantastic in popular culture. From the Unsettled Christianity website:

What started as a joke on the Australian television program Adam Hills in Gordon St Tonight, is now an actual church. Uniting Church minister Rev Dr Avril Hannah-Jones will be leading the first service of the ‘Church of the Latter-Day Geek‘ at the Romsey Uniting Church, north of Melbourne, at 4:00pm on April 10, 2011. Rev Hannah-Jones is encouraging people to dress-up in sci-fi costumes, and Klinglons are welcome. Very inclusive … as the Uniting Church in Australia most definitely is. One suggestion on the program for a new set of commandments was “Thou shalt forget about The Phantom Menace”.

As might be expected, this has led to criticism and controversy as conservative Christians react to what they see as an inappropriate combination of Christianity and popular culture. According to the Herald Sun:

But traditionalists have slammed the service’s irreverence and lack of emphasis on scripture. Sources close to the church told the Herald Sun the plan had split locals.

“There are some that aren’t very happy about it, especially because it just sort of happened out of the blue,” a parishioner said.

Other church leaders said it was blasphemous and could encourage witchcraft and supernatural ideas.

“I don’t have a problem with people enjoying sci-fi, but church isn’t the place to encourage escapism and fancy dress,” Mentone Baptist minister Murray Campbell said.

This church service, and the resulting controversy, are fascinating on a number of levels, from the impact of fantastic fiction on religion, to reactions of traditional religions to such interactions.

Pastor Hannah-Jones will be interviewed here in the near future.

TheoFantastique: Leslie, thank you for the opportunity to take a look at your book, and for participating in this interview. How did someone with an academic background in political science come to connect this to The Twilight Zone?

Leslie Dale Feldman: Good question, John. As I was teaching my political theory classes I realized I kept using examples from The Twilight Zone. I would always say “there’s a Twilight Zone like this” in teaching about themes like dictatorship, conformity, technology, etc. One day I said “I should write a book on this” and one of the students said “you should do it” So I did.

TheoFantastique: Can you summarize the thesis you unfold in your book regarding Hobbesian political theory, and how you connect this to Rod Serling’s political explorations in The Twilight Zone?

Leslie Dale Feldman: Thomas Hobbes, English political philosopher of the 17th century, focused on a negative view of human nature, how humans, during a time before government to control them, would be “belligerent, nasty, competitive, and acquisitive” I see this view reflected in The Twilight Zone in such episodes as “The Shelter” (where neighbors compete for refuge in a shelter) and “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” where neighbors turn on each other when they think one of them is an alien. But The Twilight Zone also has optimistic shows with children and magic.

TheoFantastique: In your research into Serling what types of things did you come across perhaps in his education, speeches, or interviews that shed light on his political views?

Leslie Dale Feldman: He was a Democrat with a strong sense of social commitment and justice. Most of all, he hated nuclear war which he felt was the worst part of “modernity” and fascism which he fought against in WWII. This is reflected in such Twilight Zone shows as “The Shelter” and “Time Enough at Last” with Burgess Meredith, among others. And there are also several anti-war shows such as “The Quality of Mercy.” Serling belonged to an anti-nuclear group in Hollywood, California.

TheoFantastique: What were some of the main political themes explored by Serling in The Twilight Zone and which episodes illustrate them?

Leslie Dale Feldman: There are so many:

Dictatorship: “The Mirror,” “It’s A Good Life”
Nuclear War: “Time Enough at Last,” “The Shelter,” “No Time Like the Past”
Individual v. the state: “The Obsolete Man”
Conformity: “Mr. Bevis”

TheoFantastique: Do you have any favorite episodes that touch that special place for you as a political science professor?

Leslie Dale Feldman: I love “A Stop at Willoughby,” about a harried New York advertising guy who wants to escape the “rat race” of modern competition and go back to a bucolic 19th century town he fantasizes about, Willoughby. The gazebo is a symbol featured here, as in No Time Like the Past, to represent the band concerts and community that Serling had experienced in his hometown of Binghamton, NY, and this symbol is featured on the cover of my book Spaceships and Politics: the political theory of Rod Serling. I also like the shows about dictators, the Holocaust and fascism.

TheoFantastique: I still find The Twilight Zone of relevance to our culture and social circumstances today and have even made posts using various episodes for contemporary political commentary. Do any episodes that touch on politics seem worthy of reflection today?

Leslie Dale Feldman: Absolutely. “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” looks at fear and how it works in a community among neighbors. This can apply to the Red Scare, the Communist threat of the 1950s, and even today. Neighbors fear each other, and it’s basic human nature not to trust. In a classic Twilight Zone episode, “The Gift,” Serling suggests we should trust more– but then in “To Serve Man” he suggests the opposite! The shows always have something new to offer, even if you’ve seen them– in “I Dream of Genie” a guy who becomes President has a dog as a sidekick that looks like FDR’s dog. I thought that was cute. What about technology? “A Thing about Machines” is about a guy who hates machines– robots, computers and technology are great but have their drawbacks.

TheoFantastique: Leslie, thank you again for your book, for its exploration of one of the greatest television writers and programs of all time, and for your time to discuss politics and The Twilight Zone.

Leslie Dale Feldman: Thank you!

(Readers interested in exploring Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone in more depth might also enjoy the documentary Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval which can be viewed in installments on TheoFantastique’s YouTube page.)

Related post:

“On the Fiftieth Anniversary of The Twilight Zone‘s ‘The Eye of the Beholder’”

Thanks to the email list for the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts I learned about a documentary that will be broadcast courtesy of American Public Television. The documentary is titled Four Days at Dragon*Con. From The APT website:

Every Labor Day weekend, tens of thousands descend upon Atlanta for the largest convention of pop-culture fandom in the Southeast. From science fiction celebrities and their obsessive fans to colorfully costumed characters engaged in mock combat, FOUR DAYS AT DRAGON*CON explores the “Woodstock for nerds” known as Dragon*Con. What draws these 35,000 people together? Dragon*Con’s inclusive multi-genre, multi-platform approach — combining science fiction, fantasy literature, role-playing, science, history, video games and more — gives attendees the opportunity to meet like-minded individuals. Others, especially the costume designers and creators, seem to gravitate most to the element of escapism. Featuring interviews with fans, staff, performers, artists, stars and would-be superheroes, the documentary examines the sense of community and acceptance that forms among this often ridiculed and marginalized subculture. FOUR DAYS AT DRAGON*CON captures the heart and soul of this quirky and fascinating annual event with footage of the Dragon*Con parade and a stirring climax centered around an ambitious attempt to break the world record for dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

For more on this program visit:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DragonConPBS
More about Dragon*Con: http://www.dragoncon.org/

I’m hoping that the program is aired on my local PBS station.

Related posts:

“WIRED: Is Being a Geek a Personality Trait or a Way of Life?”

“Field Study in Fan Culture at Comic-Con 2011″

“And the Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth, or at Least Lead Pop Culture”

“Star Trek Fandom as a Religious Phenomenon”

That group of horror bloggers, the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTTD), of which I am a part, has come up with the theme for their latest roundtable group of posts. By early April those participants will have posted on their favorite villainess. It’s been a while since I’ve done something on the lighter side, so I am throwing my at in the ring with my choice in the form of Medusa from Clash of the Titans (1981). In my view, overall the film is not one of the best efforts that involved the special effects stop-motion animation genius of Ray Harryhausen as his team’s preferences for fantasy did not evolve in dark enough fashion with a changing culture. Nevertheless, the film includes one of Harryhausen’s best stop-motion sequences with the Medusa who can turn men to stone with a mere gaze. The scene includes a number of great elements, including key lighting, sound effects, creature design, and of course, Harryhausen’s animation. In my view this segment ranks among the top of his animation efforts over the years, right up there with the skeleton battle sequence from Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

In Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life (Billboard Books, 2004), with his co-author Tony Dalton, Harryhausen describes the process he went through in coming up with the look and design for this creature. For her face and head he consulted art, literature, and film. He describes how this process influenced the design of her torso:

In most renditions of Medusa [the torso] is unseen, but when shown (as in the Hammer film The Gorgon, 1964), she is usually wearing a diaphanous gown which would have been impossible to animate. I decided to give her a non-human body and expose as much of it as dignity would allow. In fact the drawing of Medusa was the earliest I completed for Clash (dating back to 1977), and it shows her wearing a discreet boob tube. However, when it came to designing the model, I experimented with her wearing a bra-like garment, but it looked vulgar, so in the end everyone agreed that the offending garment should be removed (I suppose one could say she was the first lady to burn her bra) and Medusa’s potentially offending nipples were painted to blend in with the rest of her torso.

Harryhausen goes on to describe how the Medusa scene was received on the screen:

The Medusa sequence is perhaps the one I am most proud of. Everything in it — the model, the actions, the pace, the lighting — works so perfectly….When director Desmond Davis saw the completed sequence, he kindly called to congratulate me.

I don’t know who my fellow LOTTD members will be highlighting in their favorite villainess posts, but I’d be willing to put my money on Medusa in a horror celebrity villainess death match any day, perhaps as they fight to the death to the tune of Electric Light Orchestra’s tune “I turn to stone.”

Check the LOTTD page, as well as those of its members, for posts on this topic as they are assembled.