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[personal profile] 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)

Date: 2009-05-09 08:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] valkyriekaren.livejournal.com
Interesting. I've recently got a little bit into Steampunkery after making some costume pieces for Whitby. I wouldn't claim to be particularly knowledgeable about the genre, but I don't really think it's any more sinister than goths dressing up as Victorian gents or medieval princesses. You can ask the same questions that Forthwritten asks in her essay above - where are the syphilitic child-whores among the Vicky-goths? Where are the horny-handed serfs among the knights and ladies?

And actually to an extent I think steampunk does this better - not everyone is a nobleman or a lady adventurer. There's no shame in being the cabin boy on the pirate airship, or the greasemonkey on the submarine. (My own developing steampunk 'character' is a little subversive, in fact - a spy/mercenary who's brought herself up from poor beginnings with intelligence and deviousness, attended by a non-too-bright but burly ex-army chap of shadowy but undoubtedly aristocratic origins - that'd be [livejournal.com profile] d_floorlandmine).

I'm sure there are some right-wing elements with dreams of empire, but then I've encountered that in other subcultures too - including goth, punk and SF.

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