(no subject)

[mirrorshard]

Further to the paperblogging in my con report, there's a really interesting essay on steampunk & colonialism here.

There are basically two steampunks - I'll call them the Morlock and Eloi trends. The first is about all the incredibly cool things the Sons of Martha can do, hacking metallurgy and thermodynamics and then decorating the results with random twiddly bits Because You Can, while the second is about poncing around in interesting costumes with shiny brass accessories, and generally being a Victorian Gentleman (or Ungentle Lady).

They can both be read as responses to a highly abstracted technological environment, either knowingly (punk versus goth - react to an ontological threat by spitting in its eye, or by dancing on the volcano) or unknowingly (two different and equally valid ways of Having Fun).

I think there's some perceived difference in the nature of that ontological threat, though. To the Morlock trend, it's out to destroy their agency - their ability to build, modify, control, or subvert the world around them. I'm less sure about the Eloi, though. Anyone care to venture an opinion?

(crossposted from DW)

Comments

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I can see the appeal of being courteous, mannered, precise and dressing to look good. There can be a pleasure in the formality of a tea party.

I could see some appeal in being a Victorian lady (as long as one had money, of course).

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Oh, no disagreements there. It's just the potential ickiness of the precise trope used - and while that's easy enough to subvert for us, I'm told that others have difficulties. Hell, I have enough Welsh-working-class difficulties with being an English gentleman myself.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I view it in the same light as the Society for Creative Anachronism. One accepts that the Middle Ages were not really like that, but it's still fun to pretend.

All tropes have hidden ickiness, except those that pretend to impossible utopias.

PS. What's the costume in the icon? (Makes me think of tok'ra)

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Mm, I'm familiar with the SCA thing, but I still have trouble getting away from it in the here-and-now - I think of it in the same way as Blake's dual-vision thing. I can see what they want, aspire, to be, at the same time as looking at the material culture and the signifiers attached to it. In a way, it's crippling, but interesting.

All tropes have hidden ickiness, except those that pretend to impossible utopias. I'd argue that the way to get around that is to problematize the ickiness and drag it out into the open, really.

The costume - I'm not really familiar with the screen version of the original, but it's an iconized version of Sabalom Glitz from Doctor Who.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

All tropes have hidden ickiness, except those that pretend to impossible utopias. I'd argue that the way to get around that is to problematize the ickiness and drag it out into the open, really.

Depends on your reason for doing it in the first place. We all need escapism sometimes. As there are no real worlds without ickiness, it is occasionally necessary to invent ones without.

Sometimes I read fiction to be challenged and enlightened. Sometimes I read it for a bit of fun.