TheoFantastique: Carl and Tony, thank you for your willingness to discuss your book. I discovered your work on The History Channel while watching Star Wars – The Legacy Revealed. This program focused largely on the mythic aspects of Star Wars, particularly through the interpretive lenses of Joseph Campbell. Why has so much of the exploration of Star Wars been from the perspective of myth?

Carl Silvio: It all goes back to the publication of Andrew Gordon’s seminal article, “Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time,” in 1978. That essay had a tremendous influence on the future of Star Wars scholarship. George Lucas has also claimed that Joseph Campbell’s conception of the monomyth influenced him in the creation of the Star Wars saga. These two factors are probably the most significant reason why Star Wars and mythology/myth criticism have been so strongly associated with each other.

Tony Vinci: Andrew Gordon published his article, “Star Wars: A Myth for our Time,” in 1978. In it, he argues that Star Wars is more than childish entertainment, as many of his contemporaries contended. In order to validate this claim, he utilizes Campbell’s notion of the monomyth to explicate the significance of the film’s plot and characters by pin-pointing step-by-step how Star Wars follows Campbell’s thesis of The Hero with A Thousand Faces. Ultimately, he attempts to position Star Wars as myth. Add this publication to the fact that Lucas himself has been rather open about his interest in Campbell’s monomyth, and I do not find it that surprising that myth criticism has been such a prevalent mode of analyzing Star Wars. What I do find surprising, is that for almost three decades, it has been the dominant mode of analysis applied to the films, despite the dominance of cultural criticism applied to other speculative fiction texts in those decades.

TheoFantastique: But in the face of mythic perspectives on Star Wars your book takes a very different approach as you look at the significance of cultural studies. Can you describe your book’s approach and why you think it is helpful in understanding the significance of Star Wars?

Tony Vinci: The Star Wars films are laden with cultural representations of race, gender, economics, and spirituality; they fetishize technology and fashion; they use the most cutting edge film-making techniques—yet they are presented as simple pieces of entertainment without much social or political commentary. This paradox of a wildly complex matrix of competing representations delivered as a simple commodity is what makes the franchise such a significant cite for cultural criticism. Our hope was to analyze how the films influence and reflect the cultures that created and view them in hopes that we will understand more clearly how they function as pieces of cultural meaning.

Carl Silvio: We have nothing against myth criticism per se. But the analytical work on Star Wars has been so dominated by it that other critical perspectives have been crowded out. All too often, myth criticism becomes a kind of intellectual cul de sac. Let’s set aside for the moment the question of whether or not the monomyth actually exists independently from the perspective of critics bent on finding it everywhere. How many times can we observe and point out how this or that narrative corresponds and conforms to the monomyth template? Moreover, once such a correspondence has been demonstrated, where does that take us beyond affirming over and over again that the monomyth pattern seems to repeat itself in a wide variety of cultural narratives? For me, it’s just so much more interesting to look at Star Wars from other perspectives, to see it as a rich repository of ideology and cultural values.

TheoFantastique: Let’s talk about some of the specifics explored in the book by its various contributors. Tony, in your chapter you discuss the shift in how individualism is treated in the first trilogy versus the latter trilogy of films. Can you sketch some of what you put forward in your chapter?

Tony Vinci: What makes the original trilogy engaging is how it manifests a clear and stable anti-establishmentarian stance through its depictions of political and spiritual figures; however, the prequels subvert all of this progressivism, turning strong revolutionaries into lapdogs of the parties in power, turning the open spiritual exploration of the force into dogmatic religion, and turning spiritual figures into police officers, economic negotiators, and generals. To me, this reflects a disturbing transformation in the culture that created the films: the radical exploration of the late ‘70s gave way to the neo-conservatism of the early part of the new millennium.

TheoFantastique: Carl, in your chapter you touch on the differing ways in which Star Wars engages global capitalism. What is the thrust of your thesis on this subject?

Carl Silvio: Basically, I examine differences between the two Star Wars trilogies, the original and the prequel, in order suggest a parallel between them and the rise and consolidation of global capitalism. I argue that, as part of our larger cultural imaginary, each trilogy to some extent stages and dramatizes the cultural anxieties and ideological contradictions provoked by this social transformation. To be sure, I’m not arguing that a purely causal or deterministic relationship exists between the economic system and the Star Wars films. To some extent, I’m constructing a deliberate parallel between these two phenomenon in order to highlight certain aspects of each of them.

TheoFantastique: John Lyden has a chapter where he touches on how Star Wars taps into the long tradition of American apocalyptic, particularly an apocalyptic determinism in these films. What similarities and differences do you seen in Star Wars‘s apocalyptic as contrasted with other sci-fi franchises such as the Terminator or The Matrix series, for example?

Tony Vinci: I see Star Wars as being a bit different than the others in that what makes it apocalyptically deterministic is the fact of the prequels. Despite the Emperor’s declaration that he “foresees” the future, the original trilogy doesn’t explore that terrain too much, but the moment you have a prequel, the audience knows what is going to happen to this universe and its primary characters. Think Orson Welles’ Othello or Citizen Kane. We begin knowing the end, and all that comes after will never alter the outcome. Though, in the case of Star Wars, what we know is to come is redemption and victory. The other franchises you mention, especially Terminator, seem to work at creating a real sense of doom for the entire world, whereas in Star Wars, the deterministic mood is focused mostly around the Anakin/Vader character or a world that we know is going to be saved. Though, I believe this is ultimately overshadowed by the politics of the prequels, that they darken irreversibly the “triumphs” at the end of Return of the Jedi because we have now seen the old republic, its frailties and hollowness. Surely the New Republic will have many of the same issues.

TheoFantastique: For me one of the more interesting chapters was by Dan North titled “Kill Binks: Why the World Hated Its First Digital Actor.” CGI actors are now fairly common, and of course Avatar may have helped take digital actors to new heights. Why did so many people hate the digital Jar Jar Binks?

Tony Vinci: There are some serious flaws in the prequels. I think Jar Jar became a scapegoat for all of the other issues that people had with the films but couldn’t necessarily articulate. Beyond that, and the obvious, I think North nails it by arguing that we have anxieties about what watching a digital actor means, and that we projected those onto a character that is not only annoying and potentially racially offensive but represents some difficult questions about what it means to be human.

Carl Silvio: North does a great job of arguing that much of the hatred directed at the Binks character had less to do with its overall silliness and more to do with a deeper anxiety felt by the audience regarding the replacement of live actors with digital ones and the pervasiveness of CGI technology in Lucas’s film making in general. I find his argument to be pretty convincing. Ultimately, I don’t think that the CGI technology is the problem, or at least it’s not why so many long time Star Wars fans rejected the films. It’s more a matter of how Lucas used the technology to alter the franchise in ways that fans found troubling. The whole “Han shot first” controversy is a good example of how Lucas used digital technology to perform a kind of cultural vandalism on his own creation. Jar Jar Binks’s status as a virtual, digital actor allows him to become an emblem that represents all the ways that Lucas has used the CGI technology in ways that upset his fans.

TheoFantastique: Carl and Tony, thank you again for making time to discuss your book. I hope it helps others explore the significance of Star Wars as a cultural artifact.

Apparently something of a controversy has arisen as a result of The Legend of Cain, not because of the film itself, but because of the idea that the biblical Cain may be the source of the vampire in folklore. One aspect of the controversy comes from Christians who are up in arms over the idea that the Bible has anything to do with vampires. After his analysis, in his conclusion Laycock writes:

As for the accusations of sacrilege, perhaps we should look at the link between vampires and Cain not as a revision of a biblical story, but a testament to this story’s enduring effect on the Western imagination.

The accusation of sacrilege is interesting. It’s not as if there has not been a fantastic element associated with the early chapters of Genesis. For example, in popular Protestant fundamentalism and evangelicalism there is a belief that the “Nephilim” mentioned in an obscure reference in Genesis 6 are a race of giants produced through a sexual union between human woman and demons. It is difficult to see why this is more palatable than the idea that Cain became a vampire, but perhaps its because this fantastic idea is connected to a figure Protestants often equate with the sinister and the esoteric, and for them this is a connection being made by outsiders rather than one they see within their own religious tradition.

At any rate, I agree with Laycock in this assessment, and hope that Christians will be more cautions before alleging sacrilege in this latest instance of friction with the fantastic in popular culture.

Related posts:

“Joseph Laycock: Vampires Today”

“Joseph Laycock: Vampires and Eclipse”

Folklore around the world reflects mankind’s abiding interest in other-worldly creatures including vampires, werewolves, giants, fairies, and spirit beings. This easy-reading compendium will have a broad appeal among the general public. This book will delight everyone who is fascinated with tales of fairies, mystical beings around the world, and the legends and fairytales that feed our imagination.

Gary returns to discuss mythology and mysterious creatures.

TheoFantastique: Gary, thank you for coming back to discuss another of your research areas. As we consider fantastic creatures from various cultures throughout history, including in the present, how does mythological and folkloric studies help provide important considerations for us?

Gary Varner: Myth and folklore link all of us to a common thread. Our pasts in regards to our specific origins, ethnic roots and cultures may be different but we find many commonalities in our folklore and collective mythology. Because so many legends are almost identical, such as those connected with the Yeti, Bigfoot, and Sasquatch it is also very possible that these creatures did and possibly still do exist.

TheoFantastique: What is the basic thesis of your book Creatures in the Mist?

Gary Varner: I have pulled certain themes together to show that similar stories can be found the world over and throughout time concerning mermaids, sea monsters, gigantic bipeds and the little people or fairy. I am always interested in why the stories are so similar even though the geographic areas may be so far apart. Could it be that the “Hobbit” people of Flores Island may have been the origin for legends about little people? Or were there many such ancient groups around the world which resulted in such a widespread belief in these mystical creatures?

TheoFantastique: Can you share a couple of examples of creatures that appear in various cultures, and the types of similarities that may be found among them across cultures?

Gary Varner: The “wild man” or Bigfoot is perhaps the best known of a creature that is recognizable around the world. From the Pacific Northwest to the forests of Russia, China, Europe Central and South America these creatures are always described in the same fashion: very large bipeds with long fur or hair, tailless and normally dangerous. The little people are also well known around the world. They are normally said to be helpful to humans, fond of music and dancing and sometime can heal. But they have also been described as malicious or mean spirited and tricksters. Many Native American legends about the little people indicate that they live in or near water sources and in rock areas. Other than being very tiny, they are often described as appearing in human form but always with very long hair. Little people have become part of legend from North America, Polynesia, Ireland (of course), Wales, Canada, New Guinea, Russia and South America.

TheoFantastique: Do you see any similarities or relationships between the stories of the Wild Men or Giants of cultures in times past and contemporary stories of Bigfoot or Yeti?

Gary Varner: Yes although the Wild Men legends differ in that they sometimes describe creatures of small and sometimes dwarf stature and even appearing as goblins. Their appearances seem to vary depending on the region. Wild people in the forested areas of Europe were said to be of gigantic proportion while those in the jungles of Belize are only four feet six in height at the maximum. All, however, have hairy bodies, are powerful and often said to be extremely fast. The origin of the “Wild Man” legends seem to date to the Middle Ages and may have described bands of social outcasts, living on the fringe of society.

The other legends such as those about Yeti, Bigfoot etc., are entirely different in that they invariably describe a more primitive type of creature.

Giants, however, have and still do exist to some degree. In Greek mythology giants were primordial deities. Giants are common in Native American lore and while most of them are supernatural creatures there are a few legends that speak of giants as beings from other lands as human as you and I. The Cherokee, for example, have a legend of a party of giants that visited Cherokee villages in the 17^th century. Said to be twice as tall as common men with slanted eyes, they reportedly “lived very far away in the direction in which the sun goes down.” And, of course the Bible tells of a land of giants that were hunted down and slaughtered by the Hebrews. The interesting thing about these legends is how they were told as historical “events” and not as myth.

TheoFantastique: When I was growing up in the 1970s I enjoyed the program In Search of… that explored various paranormal phenomenon, including cryptozoology, and the contemporary program Monster Quest that does the same. Unfortunately, these programs are usually often disappointing in terms of holding out promise of the alleged existence of fantastic creatures that may inform our folklore and myths, but the evidence is usually lacking. Any thoughts on this?

Gary Varner: Yes, I enjoy Monster Quest now too but always know that any actual creature that they are looking for will never likely be found. They are entertaining and I think that they are worthwhile in that they provide “possibilities” that people should consider. We all need the unknown, the possibility that unusual creatures do exist, that the world is more than what we see everyday to keep ourselves grounded. We need to keep myth alive and who knows, previously unknown and thought to be extinct animals continue to be found so why not keep looking for these mystical beings?

TheoFantastique: Gary, thank you again for your book and your research interests that overlap with that of TheoFantastique.

Gary Varner: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure!

Patheos, a website exploring various facets of religion, recently featured an article by Jay Michaelson, a Ph.D. candidate in Jewish thought at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, titled “Demons, Dybbuks, Ghosts, and Golems.” The article provides an introduction to Jewish monsters from the Kabbalah, the Talmud, and folklore, including the female “demonic personality” of Lilith, the dybbuk and the phenomenon of possession with one soul connected to another (as depicted in The Unborn [2009]), the ibbur which is a possessing entity similar to the dybbuk, and the golem (most famously depicted in the expressionist film The Golem [1920]). For those interested in a brief introduction to cross-cultural considerations related to the monstrous this article is worth a read.

TheoFantastique: John and David, thanks for coming back to discuss your latest exploration of myth and science fiction. This is your second exploration of this topic. What did you want to do differently, or perhaps expand upon, with this second foray into science fiction myth?

John Perlich: With each volume we’ve been slowly moving toward more unusual or unorthodox texts (films, programs, artifacts, etc).  Because this project is post-structural in nature, it is important to look for subjects of analysis that can be “under the radar” per se.  Usually the conventional ends up getting lots of acceptance and attention—so we’ve taken some interest in either deconstructing popular texts to illustrate a potential fly-in-the-ointment or analyzing a hidden-gem to reveal the inner beauty.

David Witt: I don’t see this volume being radically different from the first, but it is a little more unique. When the chapter proposals started coming in there were the popular mythic texts like The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the NBC TV show Heroes. However, I remember we were especially intrigued with texts like the videogame Second Life and the complexity of evil exhibited in the book and musical Wicked. So, the book just naturally gravitated toward including more unusual subjects.

TheoFantastique: Myth is studied at times in connection with ancient civilizations and religion, but you suggest there is something significant here in understanding the modern period. Can you say a few words about the significance of modern myth in your view, and why science fiction is an important expression of this?

David Whitt: In my chapter I quote French poet and novelist Raymond Queneau who said “One can easily classify all works of fiction as descendants of [Homer's] The Iliad or The Odyssey.” If he is correct then all genres, including science fiction and fantasy, have drawn upon Homer epic mythic poem for inspiration. In this way mythology, and certainly not just Greek mythology, is timeless and continually influential. For example, last week I read Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning “The Road” and was struck by how this post-apocalyptic story is a variation on the hero’s journey. Since being immersed in comparative mythology the past several years as an editor and writer I’ve seen mythic tropes in everything from comedy to drama.

John Perlich: It has been argued by Joseph Campbell himself that there are no new myths but that assertion is often taken out of context. In fact, myths are retold and reinvented—leaving the possibility for new myths (or at the very least a myth/tale/archetype that does not resemble established tales, stories, legends, and lore). You’ll often find that science fiction is a powerful medium for telling new tales while simultaneously challenging existing structures and templates. We’ve hit on this issue in the previous volume from a variety of angles ranging from the cyborg themes (in David’s chapter) to “new” heroes (and heroines). Fantasy and science fiction allow for an expansion (if not a reconfiguration) of old boundaries.

TheoFantastique: I’d like to ask a few questions from a sampling of the chapters by contributors that were of most interest to me. Planet of the Apes is my favorite sci fi film franchise so I was naturally attracted to Richard Besel and Renee Smith Besel’s chapter “Polysemous Myth: Incongruity in the Planet of the Apes“. While I greatly appreciate the body of Tim Burton’s work, I was less than happy with his 2001 reimagining of The Planet of the Apes. The Apes myth did not work as well in the new cultural context of the early 21st century as it did in the late 20th. Besel and Besel suggest that one of the reasons for the decline in popular and critical success in contrast with the original film was its lack of interpretive depth. In what ways have viewers found hermeneutical depth in the original film, and how was this different with Burton’s version?

John Perlich: As you quite accurately pointed out, the milieu surrounding the original film accounted for a tremendous resonance between the audience and the themes in the movie—and Rich and Renee have done a great job articulating this premise. As I read Rich and Renee’s chapter I found myself saddened by the opportunity that was squandered when this film was remade. I don’t want to give away too much of their chapter so I can’t say more.

David Whitt: Burton had the unenviable task of trying to remake a classic film which was a reflection of its time, the socio-cultural tensions of the 1960s. I was certainly intrigued by the idea of remaking Planet of the Apes for the new millennium, but as you said, the themes of race and social conflict just didn’t resonate as well thirty plus years later.

TheoFantastique: Besel and Besel comment on the confusing ending of Burton’s Apes film. As a viewer who has watched it several times in an effort to figure it out, but has still come up empty, can you shed a little light on it? Is this a case of trying to live up to the now iconic ending of the original but which fell short?

David Whitt: I remember walking out of the theater and saying “That ending makes no sense within the context of the film!” Nobody has convinced me otherwise. Clearly, Burton was trying to go for the shock value of the original ending, but came up with one that left the audience scratching their heads.

John Perlich: I don’t have any additional insight on that ending, John—but I cannot confess to spending much time trying to figure it out. It does say something in my opinion that I wasn’t committed to making sense of the text.  Other films, for example Memento, have brought me back repeatedly to solve the puzzle of an unusual ending. I was not equally compelled by Burton’s work.

TheoFantastique: John, your chapter addresses one of the great fantasy films of the last few years in “Rethinking the Monomyth: Pan’s Labyrinth and the Face of a New Hero(ine)”. Can you share a few examples of how Guillermo del Toro has challenged or redefined the hero of myth and fantasy through Ofelia/Princess Moanna as the heroine in a new form of monomyth?

John Perlich: I am so absolutely delighted that you share my admiration for that film! I hope my piece compels every reader to watch del Toro’s work. By his own admission, Campbell’s work in articulating the monomyth often leaves a place of mutedness with regard to the female protagonist. Although Campbell contends that women can also travel the path of the heroic journey, his articulation of that process is vague and not well-defended. This is clear when you read his famous interview with Bill Moyers. Not only is Ofelia a willful and disobedient heroine, her age should preclude her from this epic adventure in many ways. Ofelia, as a girl, confronts challenges that resemble stages in the monomyth—but these stages must be recast as a result of the makeup of del Toro’s protagonist. Again, it is a fantastic film and I encourage your readers to check out both the film and my analysis of this fine work.

David Whitt: John’s chapter is a brilliant and incredibly thorough analysis of Pan’s Labyrinth. I think he could have easily written another twenty pages without even thinking about it.

TheoFantastique: What are the implications of del Toro’s depiction of the heroine for girls and young women looking to contemporary myth as inspiration?

David Whitt: Aside from John’s concern about violence, I think young girls can draw inspiration from Ofelia. In the face of great danger and horror, in both the real world and the fantasy world, she exhibits remarkable bravery and intelligence. What’s not be inspired by?

John Perlich: My concern, as mentioned in the chapter, is that the violence of the film might preclude them from seeing this fine work and thus drawing from both Ofelia’s journey and character for inspiration.

TheoFantastique: Jay Scott Chipman discusses myth and posthumanism in “So Where Do I Go From Here?: Ghost in the Shell and Imagining Cyborg Mythology for the New Millennium”. Why does Japanese culture express a great volume of cyborg mythology through various media, particularly in manga and anime as in Ghost in the Shell?

John Perlich: I’d hate to be stereotypical in a prognosis but it seems to me that each culture might dwell on some archetypal themes as a result of cultural and historical forces. It is well documented that the aftermath of World War II and the birth of the atomic age has had a profound impact on the literature and art produced in Japan. I think the proliferation of cyborg mythology is an extension of this milieu.

David Whitt: I was fortunate to visit Tokyo last spring and witnessed firsthand Japan’s celebration of technology. Certainly John is correct with the claim that the nuclear age had a great impact on the cultural consciousness of the country. However, it’s more than that. Chipman explains how the Japanese have historically embraced technology for centuries, tracing narratives about artificiality back almost 500 years. So, you could argue that appreciating the technology and the merger between humanity and machine is part of Japanese culture.

TheoFantastique: With the continued exploration of cyborg themes in science fiction, in Surrogates, for example, do you see a continuing need for the exploration of this mythic thread in the genre? If so, how might the cyborg myth help us understand ourselves, our increasing interconnection with technology, and the possibility of the posthuman?

David Whitt: I have yet to see Terminator Salvation or James Cameron’s Avatar but their box office popularity seems to suggest a public intrigued with posthuman existence  (or perhaps audiences just like to see things blown up). The merger between technology and humanity is unavoidable, but what we should be concerned about is how this impacts our individuality, and those qualities which make us human. Besides, I believe that everyone already is a cyborg (in one way or another), and welcome any text which continues to explore our inevitable cyborg development.

TheoFantastique: Thank you again for delving again into the area of myth and science fiction. I hope that both books are successful, and that perhaps there might indeed be a future volume to complete a trilogy.

This is the case with the editors of the forthcoming book Millennial Mythmaking: Essays on the Power of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Films and Games (McFarland, 2010). I first encountered the work of John Perlich and David Whitt as editors of their first book along similar lines, Sith, Slayers, Stargates, + Cyborgs: Modern Mythology in the New Millennium (Peter Lang Publishing, 2008). They graciously provided me with samples from this volume and then consented to an informative interview here.

Millennial Mythmaking promises to take up where Sith left off and to expand our horizons on sci fi and fantasy as contemporary myth. The product description at Amazon.com reads as follows:

Contemporary myths, particularly science fiction and fantasy texts, can provide commentary on who we are as a culture, what we have created, and where we are going. These nine essays from a variety of disciplines expand upon the writings of Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey. Modern examples of myths from various sources such as Planet of the Apes, Wicked, Pan’s Labyrinth,and Spirited Away; the Harry Potter series; and Second Life are analyzed as creative mythology and a representation of contemporary culture and emerging technology.

Millennial Mythmaking will be available in May 2010 with pre-orders possible now. Look for an interview with Perlich and Whitt here after mid-January.

I remember as I enjoyed the fantastic as a kid that many of my teenage friends enjoyed horror (few teens don’t), and a few fellow geeks liked science fiction, but very few shared my love for fantasy films (until Star Wars, that is). Unless fantasy is framed in children’s garb (e.g., Harry Potter) or dark action (e.g., The Dark Knight), it tends not to receive the popular or critical attention that I believe it deserves. And very few filmmakers even attempt to put together good fantasy films for adults. That is, until Guillermo del Toro.

I have long been a fan of del Toro’s work who has proven himself a competent director and storyteller with horror films such as Cronos (1993), Mimic (1997), and The Devil’s Backbone (2001), as well as comic action films like Blade II (2002) and Hellboy (2004). All of these films are very enjoyable but it was his work in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) that established him as a visionary filmmaker, not only as a director, but also as a writer with a special gift for fantasy films.

As I have posted previously, Pan’s Labyrinth incorporate myth, archetype, and symbol into his a story that provides for multiple levels of meaning and interpretation. This film caught the attention of the viewing public and garnerd three Oscar awards. In many ways Hellboy II is a sequel to Pan’s Labyrinth, at least in terms of the mythic dimension it incorporates. With this second installment in the Hellboy series based upon the comics of Mike Mignola, del Toro creates an expansive mythic and fairytale world for the characters to inhabit that is multifacted, rich in depth and detail (e.g., the words on a portal to Troll Market relate to a Jungian concept), and visually stunning. For fans of fantasy films and mythmaking, Hellboy II is a true pleasure to watch, and additional rewards come from multiple viewings so that more of the depth and detail can be appreciated.

For many years I have been, and remain, a Ray Harryhausen fan. For generations of people he has been the king of fantasy films who brought creatures to life through stop-motion animation who appeared to live and breathe in mythic worlds. But in many ways in my opinion, and I say this as a serious fan, Harryhausen’s films lacked a depth of mythology that interfered with their ability to be appreciated by broader aspects of popular culture. Even so, Harryhausen is an icon in fantasy films who inspired a number of filmmakers, including del Toro. Perhaps del Toro might be considered in some sense as Harryhausen’s successor, the next generation of fantasy filmmakers, who is able to put together fantasy films that not only entertain on a surface level, but also incorporate aspects of myth, archetype, and symbol that make for a rich tapestry that rewards deeper reflection.

Guillermo del Toro has expressed an interest in making another Hellboy film to complete a trilogy. As a fan of his myth-making I hope is able to make it. If not, perhaps another cinematic endeavor will enable him to build on the mythic vision of Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy II. The realm of imagination will be the richer for his continued artistic expression.

Within the context of the nexus of the fantastic and popular culture one of the more interesting expressions of this is the Otherkin. Danielle Kirby has written on this fascinating community in Frances Di Lauro, ed., Through a glass darkly: reflections on the sacred (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 2006). She also presented a paper on this topic at a conference titled Exploring the Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age in the U.K. in 2007. The paper was titled “Pulp fiction and the revealed text: an inquiry into the treatment of fantasy and science fiction narratives within the Otherkin community.” This paper was revised to become a chapter contribution as part of a forthcoming book to be published by Ashgate.

Kirby describes the Otherkin as “a loosely affiliated virtual community with an alternative metaphysical foundation” which can be found at websites such as www.otherkin.net. In her discussion of this community she notes that “The unifying feature of the Otherkin community is a shared belief in non-human, often fantastic or mythological, souls and selves.” As noted above, this understanding of self-identity is forged through the “conscious integration of explicitly fictional narrative into a sacred or spiritual context.” Here the fictional texts of the films of Star Wars informs Jediism, H.P. Lovecraft’s writings inform the Church of All Worlds, and the corpus of vampire mythology in literature and film informs vampires within the Otherkin.

One of the striking features of the Otherkin community is how their interaction with narrative fiction informs a sense of self-identity that goes much further than those involved with Jediism or various aspects of Neo-Paganism. Kirby says that the Otherkin “believe, primarily, that they are in some way other than human. The non-human aspects appear to have been largely drawn from mythology and fantasy literature,” and “[t]his relationship to the fantastic takes a variety of forms and can mean a non-human soul in a human body, multiple souls residing within the same person or inter-species reincarnation.”

In my exploration of the fantastic in popular culture as an academic, the existence of subcultures like the Otherkin with their neo-religiosity represent a fascinating path for research and understanding.

TheoFantastique: Thank you both for your willingness to discuss the fascinating book you co-edited on the current Battlestar Galactica series. To begin, what was the genesis of the idea for you to compile this collection of essays and to edit this volume?

C. W. Marshall: I think that the main drive was the recognition that at the time there was nothing out there yet. The series was getting a lot of press, and there was a growing fan base with fan publications, but there was nothing that was attempting to assess critically the many themes that the series was raising. But there was a selfish reason, too: we were having great conversations after watching each episode, and we wanted to see what others were saying about the series.

Tiffany Potter: It was clear almost from the start that Ronald Moore and the writers of BSG were trying to engage and interrogate American culture on a critical level; what we wanted to do was to bring together a scholarly community to facilitate the fullest possible investigation of those questions.

TheoFantastique: To provide some background for readers can sketch some of the contours of the current series and its connection to the 1970s version? And how has the current series been revisioned?

C. W. Marshall: The basic plot is the same as the original series: a rag-tag fugitive fleet flee the enemy Cylons after their twelve planets have been destroyed in a sneak attack. Character names repeat, the ships are similar, but the new series introduces two significant developments. First, the Cylons are no longer the robotic forces of a reptilian enemy. Instead, they are a human product that has turned against us, and rebelled. Secondly, some Cylons appear human, and so can pass amongst us unrecognized. These two changes fuel most of the “revisioning.” I think it is helpful to see these changes as reflecting the political climate in which each series was produced: the cold-war us-vs.-them scenario of the original series, in which the enemy is relentless, unfathomable, and completely other, gives way to a post-9/11 enemy who is hard to identify, who looks like us and possibly dwells among us.

Tiffany Potter: One intriguing thing about the old series/new series revisioning is the apparently ambivalent relationship that the producers and even actors seem to have with the old series. The most common adjective used about the old series is “cheesy,” and I think that there’s a certain defensiveness about the show’s origins (not just a little ironic in a show that is in many ways an origins narrative). No one reads the current series in those terms, but we note in the book several examples of what seem undeniable allusions to or revisionings of specific episodes or plots from the original series. The most glaring is perhaps the “Starbuck stranded on a planet” plot in the season one episode “You Can’t Go Home Again.” There are what appear to be direct references and borrowings from the Galactica 1980 episode “The Return of Starbuck,” but Carla Robinson, the writer of the new episode, not only denies knowing the original one, but denies even knowing there was a series called Galactica 1980. I’m not sure what the shame would be in a well-crafted homage to a less well-crafted original, but there’s certainly a pattern of discomfort that’s worth noting if you’re discussing the process of revisioning.

TheoFantastique: In your Introduction to the book you describe Battlestar Galactica as inhabiting different aspects of science fiction as it presents its dystopic fiction of the future. Can you touch on how the series incorporates these different aspects?

C. W. Marshall: One of the virtues of science fiction is that it allows an unfiltered examination of contemporary society. Because a story is set in a distant future, or “a galaxy far, far away,” the creators are at liberty to be very pointed about social or political issues that exist in their own time. It separates the audience from their default assumptions about a subject, and can invite new, imaginative responses. Paradoxically, the distant setting allows for a more direct examination of real issues.

Tiffany Potter: No current American television programming can dare comment on socially contentious issues like abortion, genocide, or the possibility of a divinely-inspired president attempting to steal an election because she or he believes it necessary to God’s will. By recontextualizing the narrative into a site where the essential assumption is that content doesn’t matter (which I’d argue is generally the case with science fiction), the genre can say the unsayable in a way that no other current media can do (and that includes the 24-hour news networks and other ostensibly critical modes of large cultural discourse).

TheoFantastique: You also discuss one of the changes in the current series in the development of the Cylons, the “robots” or androids, into “artificially created synthetic beings with living tissue and cells” that are virtually indistinguishable from human beings. How has this development paralleled discussions of posthumanism and how has it impacted the way in which issues are addressed through the storytelling?

C. W. Marshall: Ultimately, I don’t think the series is particularly interested in posthumanism: it isn’t concerned with what our next stage may be. Instead, it uses the concept of the Cylons in a fictional world to examine what qualities define humanity in the real one. It’s a thought experiment. When there is no external, objective way to mark the Cylons as different than us, the labeling begins to seem rather arbitrary. Being Cylon is to be other, which in the series means that one isn’t guaranteed what should be universal human rights and freedoms (this plays into the discussions on torture, for example). The humans in the series won’t practice capital punishment even for their worst offenders (as when Gaius Baltar is put on trial at the end of season three), but tossing a Cylon out an airlock, or even advocating genocide against the Cylons, is viewed by sympathetic characters as morally unproblematic. It’s a real gap in our Western moral compass that the series’ writers have identified and are playing with. Further, the current season is showing the Cylons working hard to become even more indistinguishable from humans (programming mechanisms to enable free will, removing mechanisms that prolong their lives and allow their consciousness to continue independent of their bodies). These efforts to reduce the differences between the humans and the Cylons challenge any attempt to define meaningful difference.

TheoFantastique: One of the reasons the series has been popular, not only among average viewers, but also among academics, is its frequent treatment of various social, cultural, and religious issues. Can you discuss how the series has addressed our post-9/11 context as it touches on terrorism, torture and prisoner rights?

Tiffany Potter: Two essays in the book address those issues specifically, so the first thing I have to do is acknowledge that my thinking on BSG in these areas has been tremendously influenced by Brian Ott and Erika Johnson-Lewis on post-9/11 and torture respectively. BSG’s take on these topics is most important, I think, in its absolute recognition of the requirement of dehumanization for acts of war and mass violence. The surviving humans need to create a language of difference and nearly literal alien-ation of the Cylons in order to do two things: to define the actions the Cylons have taken (monstrous and inhuman); and to confirm that human beings, by virtue of their humanity, are incapable of such a genocidal action (though of course the show makes clear that we are not).

Though the associative metaphors of terrorists and insurgents are intentionally, brilliantly muddled by season three, the humans never surrender their demand for difference from the “toasters” and “skin jobs.” If they’re going to throw Cylons out airlocks without trial (and by extension if Americans are going to throw people into Guantanamo Bay cells without trial or the public presentation of evidence that has defined justice for Western history), then those thrown away cannot be like the ostensible us: they have to be rendered not-us, not-deserving-of-human-rights through systems of language, of laws, and of governance. It’s not just that the president says so; it’s that the community agrees and naturalizes that construction of difference. And that’s a hugely startling assertion for a presumptively frivolous medium like television to make.

C.W. Marshall: Yes. The series is able to manipulate the default expectations most in the audience will have after 9/11. For example, for two seasons we are invited to map the experience of the humans in the show onto middle America: the Cylons are terrorists, attacking our homeland, threatening our security, and so forth. There is then a startling reversal at the start of season three, when suddenly the humans are seen as a nation occupied by a technologically superior military, insurgents fighting their oppressors. We care about the human characters and have identified with them for two years, but it’s really quite bold to ask the American audience to identify with the plight of Iraq in this way.

TheoFantastique: The original series found religious influences in Mormonism, and the new series is not without a religious dimension as well. Can you talk about the religious or spiritual aspects of the current series, especially the interesting dynamic represented in the monotheism of the Cylons and the polytheism of the humans?

C. W. Marshall: For me this is one of the most exciting aspects of the series. While the new series has not pursued the Mormon angle to the same degree, it is very interested in examining a number of theological and religious questions. At a sociological level, we are shown how religion impacts the lives of a number of characters in the fleet. Some pray, some avoid going to services, some believe in active prophecy, and some prefer to take religion as an extended metaphor. It is a realistic representation of the diversity of North American religious experience, which is pretty uncharacteristic for a television world. At times, the commentary is specific to the America of George W. Bush: at one point, the president is seen praying with her cabinet.

Theologically, the series presents a culture, the Cylons, which bases its actions on an extremist monotheism. One true God, to replace the diverse polytheism of the humans. Problematically, we are told “God is love,” but we also see the Cylons using their monotheism to justify their attack on the humans. The series authors have been very careful to blur the lines of how we are to interpret this religious extremism: is it the radical Islam America claims to be fighting, or is it the fundamentalist Christianity that is particularly associated with the American heartland?

The current season is developing both of these dimensions. We see that the human polytheism has had a place for mystery cults (reference has been made to worshippers of Mithras alongside the twelve Olympians), and we see a growing place for the cult of (Cylon) monotheism. In some ways, the picture is evoking the religious world of the first-century Mediterranean.

TheoFantastique: Can you sketch the overall layout and some of the other topics addressed in this book?

Tiffany Potter: We’ve organized Cylons in America according to three different threads of inquiry. In part one our (brilliant) contributors address the way that BSG represents American life through the distorted and sometimes didactic mode of science fiction. They address exactly the issues of post-9/11 questions of identity, violence, and torture in a world suddenly defined by a terrorist Other. This section also addresses how a community responds to this sort of immediate change in terms of military and scientific responses (and the way a culture comes to view its military and its scientists), and also in terms of individual responses like the continuing need for competition, play, and desire.

The second section addresses the series’ big question: what does it mean to be human, and how does the Cylon/human interface illuminate that? The contributors’ essays discuss religion, determinations of personhood, racialized difference and its potential future in ideas of hybridity. This all sounds very critically astute—and it is—and perhaps out of the range of many readers—but it’s not. It’s about what marks Sharon as concurrently human and Cylon, and how conventions of horror genres help us to understand what’s so attractive and terrifying about Six, and how the series plays with those end-of-the-world-movie clichés like all of humanity banding together regardless of race and creed to fight a non-human enemy, and how that suddenly gets more complicated when that enemy can’t be instantly visually identified by physical markers (like the shorthands we use in our usual ideas of race).

The final section looks at the series as television. Essays in this section link the show’s often contradictory politics with contemporary media’s obsessive need for supposed “balanced reporting,” and also look at allusions to other science fiction and cultural texts, from films and music to fan fiction and internet responses to the regendering of Starbuck. We tried to select essays that would talk about BSG not just as if it were a text, but also as a cultural experience at the start of the millenium.

TheoFantastique: How would you summarize your experience in reflecting on these issues and how it informed your editing of this volume?

C. W. Marshall: I think the process made us better viewers of television. Each viewer has particular interests, but by expanding the dialogue in this way we become exposed to a range of critical issues and approaches we might not have considered on our own. The series is a larger and deeper object of study than we originally expected. Like theatre, television is a collaborative medium, where a range of individuals bring their talents to the creative process. As such, it invites a wide range of academic approaches; we are authorized to look for deeper meanings and resonances.

Tiffany Potter: For me the experience of editing the volume made clear how much really astute thinking is going on about elements of our culture that many people regard as disposable and temporary. For better or worse, television is our culture’s
single most pervasive social device: it functions in the way that literature and theatre have done for hundreds of years in that it provides a widely-consumed and thus normative reflection that isn’t really a reflection. It’s aspirational in showing what we perhaps wish we were (morally, socially, economically, or as America’s Next Top Idol Fifth Grader), and what we wish we had (“My Name is Earl” aside, most of television is about highly affluent, often professional people with a lot of expensive things). But I think television is also linked to long traditions of didacticism—satirical or otherwise—in that good television brings into our homes the very things we try to avoid seeing: the dangers and benefits of treachery, corruption, and violence, and what they mean to us as human beings. Children’s television directs by positive modeling, but television like BSG, The Sopranos, and The Wire challenge us to *think* about the world, and that’s never disposable.

TheoFantastique: Thank you again for carving out some time to discuss the book, and for your great contribution to the academic study of popular culture.

Book Description
The beginning of the twenty-first century has already seen its fair share of modern myths with heroes such as Spider-Man, Superman, and Harry Potter. The authors in this volume deconstruct, discuss, engage, and interrogate the mythologies of the new millennium in science fiction fantasy texts. Using literary and rhetorical criticism—paired with philosophy, cultural studies, media arts, psychology, and communication studies—they illustrate the function, value, and role of new mythologies, and show that the universal appeal of these texts is their mythic power, drawing upon archetypes of the past which resonate with individuals and throughout culture. In this way they demonstrate how mythology is timeless and eternal.

From the Back Cover
“This volume represents fan-scholarship at its most energetic, invigorating, and inspiring. The contributors couple a fan’s close reading and enthusiasm with the confidently-informed theoretical scope of academia—and show that not only do the two approaches mesh perfectly, but that they’re really not that far apart.

“It’s a tribute to the authors that however well you know these shows and movies, you’ll find something here to surprise you; a way of seeing the familiar from a fresh perspective. You’ll want to watch old DVDs again, and check out the ones you haven’t seen. You’ll want to meet the contributors and talk through a few of their ideas— and you get the feeling they’d like that too.”

Will Brooker, Principal Lecturer and Head of Film and Television at Kingston University in London and author Batman Unmasked, Using the Force, and The Blade Runner Experience.