Censorship and the Twilight Zone

During Banned Book Week (September 25 – October 2), we’re each going to talk about a particular banned young adult or middle grade novel. These are books someone somewhere has challenged as unfit for kid consumption—either in public schools or libraries. However, sometimes what we write gets censored even before it sees the light of day. Rod Serling talks about just that in this interview with Mike Wallace that recently surfaced:

Serling discusses how sponsors and networks emasculated the content of shows he’d worked on prior to the Twilight Zone. When pressed about his new show, Serling explains that he’s tired of fighting the censors and he just wants to put on an entertaining show. (I’m paraphrasing.)

“So, you’ve given up on writing anything important for television,” Wallace tells him.

Serling answers, “…if you mean I’m not going to delve into important social issues, then I’m not.”

Hah.

Serling was no fool. This interview aired the night before the Twilight Zone premiered on October 2, 1959. In later years, Serling admitted he chose a science fiction / fantasy anthology format precisely for the opposite reason that he told Mike Wallace (and all the sponsors and network suits watching). Serling knew he could wrap what he wanted to say about important social issues up in the shiny, palatable wrapper of speculative fiction—and put one over on the suits. They equated science fiction with escapist fare like Buck Rogers. But Serling used science fiction and fantasy to make shows about racism, Nazis, the Cold War, religion, and the loneliness of modern life. And he won three Emmys in the process.

Ironically, if Rod Serling hadn’t fought censorship throughout his TV writing career, we might not be watching the Twilight Zone over 50 years later.

Can you guys think of any other instances where science fiction and/or fantasy were used to ingeniously “skirt” censorship issues? Or where the possibility of censorship actually spurred on the writer’s creativity?

The Greatest and Most Horrible Website Ever

Know that if you click on the link below it will take you to the most wonderful and most terrible website in the entire universe. Do you dare?  Oh, what? You want a little background first? Ok. (chicken)

Basically what the dastardly users of this site have done is catalog every single commonly used literary and dramatic trope they could find and illustrated them with copious examples. Stock characters. Standard plotlines. Common themes. It's all here and it's absolutely exhaustive. Seriously, you could spend days on this site.

Ready now? Ok, go here.  Keep in mind this link takes you only to the tropes for Post-Apocalyptic stuff, but you should definitely explore it all. Sci-Fi. Fantasy. Action/Adventure. Dive in!

Now, why is it wonderful and horrible?

Well, it is living proof that the struggle for a real honest to goodness original idea is more uphill than ever, heck it may not even be possible anymore. I know I found plenty of characters and situations in here that are in my book and I bet you will too. It's definitely a little disconcerting to see the product of your long hours of sweat and toil laid out with proof that all of it has been done before.

But the thing is, and this is what I think is wonderful about it, presented with such overwhelming proof that pretty much everything has been done is, well, it's sort of freeing right? You don't have to reinvent the wheel. If your favorite writers have used these tropes, and used them to great effect, then maybe it's all just about what you bring to it--how you mix and match ideas, play around with them, tweek them. Maybe a fun challenge is taking a tried and true idea, something that's been done a million times, and doing it in a way only you would do it. Maybe that's what originality is now.

What tropes have I got in my book? Well, I've got me a Depopulation Bomb and some Disaster Democracy . Oh, if you're looking for a couple good Armor Piercing Questions you'll find them in my book. I definitely have the Action Girlfriend.  Hmm, wait, maybe she's actually the Cute Bruiser...

Ok people. Take a look and cop to it in the comments. What tropes are in your book?  An Amulet of Concentrated Awesome perhaps?  Maybe the Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults?  Do your characters at any time have Tea with Cthulhu?

Cyrano de Bergerac

While doing some on-line research I came across a fact (little-known to me) about Cyrano de Bergerac (of whom countless tales have been told & re-told, not the least retelling of which was "Roxanne" with Steve Martin - gotta love the little alien suction cup action (since I couldn't find that clip - I put in this one, which has nothing to do with spec fiction - but it's fun! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWIz_AfWW4s

Anyway - Cyrano wrote a book commonly called "A Voyage to the Moon." (full text and notes here: http://www.bewilderingstories.com/special/tow.html And, in this book, he takes a trip to the moon - via Canada... in a suit of bottles filled with dew... it's fascinating so far! (I've just started reading it.) It's not just science fiction though, there are all kinds of politics of the times involved. It is interesting to note that it was written before the apple fell on Newton & while the belief of the earth and other planets revolving around the sun was still a question.

Here are a few quotes from the notes at the end of some of the chapters. These were written by Donald Webb - who did the translation of the text, too.

"Like any other author, Cyrano uses travel as a literary device: the things he has to do necessarily take him to distant places. And yet, like modern-day science-fiction authors he is not content with dreams, magic or miracles but is genuinely interested in how such voyages might be accomplished."


"Cyrano was no mathematical genius like Cardano or Descartes, nor was he a physicist like Torricelli and Pascal (all but Cardano were his contemporaries), but he understood what science was doing. Cyrano’s arguments and examples are sometimes comical and sometimes quaint, taken as they often are from kitchen and garden. However, the images of a fireplace turning about a roast and a coastline moving past a ship seem particularly striking: they parody and caution against an egocentric point of view. As a teacher, Cyrano would have been very fond of modern visual aids and multimedia. Cyrano’s examples may seem a little far-fetched, but they effectively underscore his organic concept of nature."


"The space aliens have been hard at work with Earthlings in the fields of alchemy and herbalism. We may smile at that, but we must also excuse Cyrano if he points out with a trace of impatience that, once stripped of charlatanry, those efforts led directly to modern chemistry, pharmacy and medicine."


"Cyrano introduces a concept often found in modern science fiction: organisms that seem to consist of energy patterns."


"Cyrano lived 259 years before the time that historian Raymond Aron would aptly call “the century of total war” and that Albert Camus would call “the century of fear.” And yet Cyrano — himself a combat veteran of the Thirty Years War — knew as well as anyone that war proves its own futility except to those who have grown too fond of it."


"Needless to say, science fiction has found a gold mine in the topic of space aliens’ covertly or overtly influencing Earth’s history. As in the case of Cyrano’s latest friend, the results are always somewhat mixed. To take only one example: in the classic film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) — a Biblical allegory, as it happens — the visitor from space first appears officially but then works in secret after his initial attempt at first contact proves unsuccessful."


It's fascinating to me that book this was written in the 1600's! I intend to read it! 

Samurai Mind Tricks

So, over the Labor Day weekend, Spike ran all the Star Wars movies in a marathon. And since I'd just posted about it last Monday, I thought I'd rewatch these classics...and had a revelation. So forgive me for busting out my Star Wars nerd two Mondays in a row, but I thought my revelation was pretty spiffy, even if I'm clearly not the first one to have noticed this.

But see, there's a lot of similarities between samurai and Jedi. Now, I'd already known that George Lucas's inspiration for Darth Vader's iconic was samurai armor:

Darth Vader in a manly stance.

A samurai mannequin in a manly stance.

But, other costumes have samurai influence. The daily wear robes of the Jedi is rather similar to the daily wear kimono of samurai.

Mace Windu: you know he's a beast.

I'm sure these random men are beasts, too...

Beyond costuming, you have the attitude: a samurai's sword was his greatest, most revered weapon--so was a jedi's light saber. Samurai were the elite of the elite, trained from a very young age to fight--as were Jedi. The samurai philosophy, also known as bushido, warned against fear and attachment--and how can we forget Yoda's advice to Anakin: "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose," and "Fear leads to the Dark Side." This is similar to Uesugi's bushido text:

Those who are reluctant to give up their lives and embrace death are not true warriors.... Go to the battlefield firmly confident of victory, and you will come home with no wounds whatever. Engage in combat fully determined to die and you will be alive; wish to survive in the battle and you will surely meet death. When you leave the house determined not to see it again you will come home safely; when you have any thought of returning you will not return. You may not be in the wrong to think that the world is always subject to change, but the warrior must not entertain this way of thinking, for his fate is always determined.

Compare also the "end" of the Jedi in the Clone Wars to the end of the samurai age (visually, I have to say The Last Samurai gives a good--if not historically accurate--comparison of what I'm trying to say). In the Clone Wars, a handful of Jedi fought against their own Chancellor (later, Emperor) in a battle against robots that looked identical--and later, clones that looked identical.

Individual Jedi fought with their lightsabers against vastly more numbered robots with blasters.

At the beginning of the Edo period in Japan, Emperor Meiji abolished the samurai--although some did fight back. Emperor Meiji instituted a Western style of army--soldiers all dressed exactly alike, in uniform, with guns. Some samurai did rebel--including Satsuma, in 1877, the last true stand of the samurai. A handful of samurai faced off in their individual samurai armor with their katanas against an army of clone-like dressed soldiers fighting with guns.

Now, why am I going on and on about the similarities of the Jedi and samurai? Because it's awesome! It's awesome to pull a legend from history, add a laser to a katana, and throw it up into space. AWESOME.

There are no new stories under the sun. But what we can do is pull from history the epic heroes and battles, and create new trappings for them. The common writerly saying is to "write what you know." Did George Lucas know the Force or Jedi or lightsabers? No--he knew Japanese history, and transplanted that to...

Have You Ever...?

Okay, I'm just going to propose this, and then I'll probably run and hide. No, just kidding, I'll stick around to read what you have to say.

So I read a lot of dystopian novels. Not as many as some of you, obviously. I've written a dystopian novel. And as I was reading a few months ago (I won't say what book), I wondered something: Is this really that bad? Is this government really wrong? Maybe some of what they enforce is actually good...

So today, I'm playing Devil's Advocate. Think of the last dystopian novel you read. Tell us what it was (Mockingjay, anyone?) and try to see life from the point of view of the other side. Can you see why they rose to power in the first place? Do you see any good they're doing/did? Are there aspects that actually protect the people, provide for their basic needs?

I know that the governments in dystopian lit are usually portrayed as evil. But I'm wondering if you've ever stopped to think that maybe the evil sprouted from something good. Or that the entire government isn't all bad.

So have you ever thought of the other side?

Frakking Good Storytelling

Jeff has waxed lyrical about Firefly and Buffy in the past. I’m definitely a Joss Whedon fan, but I think one of the finest TV shows—science fiction or not—is Battlestar Galactica. No, not the late 70’s Glen Larsen space opera starring Lorne Green and Richard Hatch but Ron Moore’s gritty dystopian remake.

I have to admit I was reluctant to watch it when it first came out as a miniseries on SciFi Channel. I had a soft spot for the glitzy, somewhat camp 70’s show. (It was TV’s answer to Star Wars—minus the really good writing.) However, Ron Moore stood that shiny, cheesedog of a cold war allegory on its frakking head by making some really bold and fearless choices.

Realism. The original was very clean and shiny, and evidently the best and brightest survived the massacre of the human race. On BSG, the Battlestar Galactica survived because the ship was an old rust bucket about to be decommissioned. The Cylon attack didn’t disable its systems because it hadn’t been upgraded. Commander William Adama was in charge of the Galactica because of some questionable decisions. And Colonel Ty was a drunk, whose wife was a notorious flirt. Apollo (real name Lee Adama) hated his father, and Starbuck (Kara Thrace) was in the brig for punching Ty during a poker game. Oh, and the day the Cylons attacked, the President found out she had terminal cancer. And, the Cylons can look human and have sleeper agents on board the Galatica. Good times.

Strong Female Characters. On the original, the only major female character was a reformed hooker. (Yes, Cassiopeia was what was euphemistically called a sociolator.) And then she became a nurse. Paging Nurse Chapel! (That's a Star Trek reference, btw.)

On BSG, Starbuck, the President, the commander of Pegasus, Boomer / Athena, Six, Diana, and about half of the characters, Cylon and human alike, are women. Strong, complex women. And no one questions or even remarks on it. (Ok, the diehard fans of the original show had a hard time with Starbuck being a woman, but they got over it. For the most part.)


Tough subjects. The original, as I mentioned, is kind of a cold war allegory. The Cylons were the Soviets, and they wiped out the humans because we let our defensive guard down. BSG is far more complicated. Moore didn’t shy away from terrorism, religion, free will, destiny, and what it means to be human.

Plot Decisions. The original had its moments, but the plots were mostly predictable. And everything was wrapped up in 42 minutes. (Or whatever the length of a standard hour long drama was in 1978.) And they found Earth. (At least on the short-lived Galactica 1980.)

Moore envisioned BSG as more of a long form. He had the overarching story in mind when he started. And he never took the easy road to get there. For instance, after establishing the Cylons as monotheistic terrorists chasing and infiltrating the humans, Moore turned the tables. Thinking they’ve lost the Cylons, the humans find a habitable planet to settle, which they call New Caprica. A year later the Cylons arrive and decide to occupy New Caprica—and reform the humans. Here, have a look:

After this, the humans have to become terrorists themselves to combat Cylon occupation. (I won’t mention the utterly heartbreaking—and damned ironic—choices characters like Ty make.)


I could go on. And on. And on. The long and short of it is that Ron Moore made his characters—human and Cylon—deeply flawed and tested them in the worst possible situations.

That’s frakking good storytelling.

Any BSG fans out there? How did Ron Moore make BSG work for you? What were some of your favorite moments or characters?

BTW, I found Ron Moore’s podcasts / episode commentary—which are available on the SyFy site and iTunes—great lessons in storytelling. He talked about the writing and editing process for the each episode and the series in general—usually while sitting in his living room, smoking a cigar, and drinking scotch.

Link-O-Rama

Hi Everybody!


Crazy times here.  Just got back from a great trip to Nashville that we and wifey planned a few month ago and now I've got just 6 days before my edits for Long Walk Home have to be in to my editor. Yikes!

I'll be back with a real post next week, but for now here's a bunch of articles I've been enjoying lately!

• Everybody's favorite website io9 is doing this awesome new regular feature called "Science Fiction University."  I really loved the Top 20 Essential TV Shows and the Classic Science Fiction Movies Everybody Must Watch.  

• They also did a big Mockingjay review where they basically argue that it needs to be made a part of the canon of great sci fi lit. Big words. Do you agree?

• Really enjoyed these thoughts on bringing, or not bringing, your personal politics into your writing.

• Just because I'm obsessed with mine, here's a rave review on the the new Kindle. 

• Excellent article on an issue I've been thinking about alot lately, how our plethora of digital devices are depriving our brains of needed down time. Are we amusing ourselves to death?

You guys  read anything good lately?