Mirrors of Reality: Postmodern Views of Reality in Modern Science Fiction
Science fiction and fantasy have always been genres that stimulated and pushed the boundaries of imagination. Recently, however, in the late twentieth century, these genres have gone even farther beyond their traditional roles: instead of temporarily suspending or gradually expanding notions of reality, science fiction and fantasy have begun to abruptly shatter accepted concepts by presenting bold, original, and sometimes frightening views of what reality could or will truly be. As Jean Baudrillard wrote in his famous Simulacra and Simulation, "the good old imaginary of science fiction is dead,… and something else is in the process of emerging" (Baudrillard p.121). What is emerging is a genre of imagination that blurs the boundaries of truth and refracts reality. Reality is no longer static and known; it instead becomes a mirror for limitless possibilities and ideas.
By creating such new and unique ideas of truth and being, science fiction and fantasy have become vehicles for a postmodern view of reality, commonly called constructivism or relativism. These terms mean that reality is a human construct that is relative to each individual's experiences and personality. According to relativism, reality is not a concrete thing that is knowable through human perception, a belief that has long been the most accepted theory. As constructivist Walter Truett Anderson wrote, disagreement now is "not merely conflict between beliefs, but conflict about belief itself" (Anderson 1990, p.1). This constant searching, rejecting, and creating nature of postmodernism is reflected in various aspects of science fiction and fantasy which stem from a conglomeration of progressive and intertwined social changes that form the very foundation of postmodernism.
The first element of late twentieth century science fiction and fantasy that helps portray postmodern ideas of reality is shock value. As the average person becomes desensitised and accustomed to extreme or bizarre violence, sex, and abnormalities, authors of science fiction and fantasy continuously try to surprise and shock their audiences by describing scenes of ever increasing extremes and oddities. The Undying by Mudrooroo, for example, takes the familiar vampire and adds a shocking twist by giving Amelia Frasier a penchant not only for traditional blood drinking, but also oral sex that often ends in castration (Mudrooroo 1998). The accepted, "safe" version of Bram Stoker's vampire is warped into an astonishing original form. The known and traditional image of the vampire transforms into an unforeseen and unknown element. In The Undying, the accepted vampire myth is no longer the reality; it shifts with the author's words.
Similarly, Richard Harland's use of extreme and shocking details in The Dark Edge reflects postmodern reality. This novel contains numerous explicit and unbelievable scenes:
The bath was half-filled with murky slop, dark red with bits of pink and browny-purple. The pink bits were segments of human flesh, the browny-purple were human organs. They protruded above the surface of the slop like meat in a casserole….He got into the bath with the dismembered body. He wallowed around in the blood and slop (Harland 1997, pp. 206-07).
By applying such gruesome description and action, the author jolts the reader out of his safe, accepted world. According to one source this is because many artists and writers are more interested in truth than beauty (Suleiman 1994, p.143). In such cases, the author redefines the desire for the aesthetic, showing that reality is not necessarily beautiful or even acceptably pleasing. In novels like The Dark Edge, the reader is confronted with scenes that are unpleasant and maybe even unwanted. As constructivism espouses, reality is no longer a known. Like the text itself, reality becomes shocking and unknown.
Another element of recent science fiction and fantasy that helps depict a postmodern sense of reality is the incorporation of the purely fantastic into an otherwise normal world. For example, The Undying initially reads like a common historical fiction, a story of past aborigines in Australia and Tasmania. With the addition of the characters' dreaming forms, however, the reader's first assumption is shattered. All of a sudden, little boys are turning into flying dingos and strong-willed wives are sailing the skies on the backs of manta rays that shoot deadly red lasers out of their eyes (Mudrooroo 1998). Scenes like these obviously exclude the novel from being placed in the realistic fiction category. The famous philosopher Immanual Kant supported this technique when he stated that "imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself" (Kant 1933, p.120). Following this relativistic admission, Mudrooroo's insistence on incorporating actual historical figures and events with the fantastic actually redefines reality. The beliefs of the Aborigines are presented as reality to the reader, pointedly ignoring accepted Western scientific notions of the real. According to one source, "the Western intellectual tradition promotes a few central values such as reason" (Poster 1997, p.136) By refusing to follow the laws of reason, Mudrooroo breaks free from the objectivist version of reality where everything is concrete and understandable through reason and science. By thus combining the accepted standards of reality with the accepted elements of fantasy in a non-apologetic, non-explanatory way, Mudrooroo advocates postmodern relativism and shows reality to be subjective and shifting, relative to each individual.
In addition to shock value and the seamless blend of the fantastic into traditional reality, science fiction and fantasy have lately begun to project an anti-humanistic philosophy that reflects postmodernism. In such cases, humans are no longer the most important, the most powerful, or the most intelligent. For example, the 1999 movie The Matrix shows a world seemingly identical to the present. Things change, however, when the main character, Neo, consciously chooses to become aware of his surroundings by taking the required pill given to him by the mysterious character Morpheus. Neo touches the mirror and blends with his reflection initialising a spectacular and shocking series of images and revelations that one critic called "15 seconds of cinema experience that is worth the whole price of the ticket" (Wark 1999). One of the main reasons these revelations are so frightening and stunning is because the accepted notion of reality is violently shattered. With a jolt, the audience realises that what was unquestionably considered real was actually nothing but a masking dream. The true reality centers not around humans, but around machines, artificial intelligence that human beings invented themselves. Instead of dominating the world, humans are complete slaves to their own creations, living entirely in a dream while their bodies are used for energy. As the same critic wrote, by stripping humans of their delusions of grandeur and reducing them to nothing but living batteries,
The Matrix popularises the postmodern critique of humanism. The neurotic insistence on clinging to the conventional perception of the world, as if the real could be properly known from the point of view of the human subject, is the veil the film would rip from our eyes (Wark 1999).
The Matrix is a prime example of a science fiction movie that stresses a postmodern vision of reality by presenting a world in which humanism is obsolete because reality is autonomous from humans.
In the same anti-humanistic manner, The Dark Edge reveals a world in which the grip humanity maintains on universal dominance is tenacious at best. On a distant planet called P-19, humans are falling prey to a horrible, escalating series of murders while the main hub of civilisation is unaware of this threat to all of mankind. The Anti-Human is the adequately described enemy that actually views the human body as intolerably monstrous. They are abstract, disembodied beings with an uncontrollable need to annihilate that which revolts them most—humans. One of the characters infected with the Anti-Human predilection described one of his victims: "I could see the horrible fears and feelings squirming around like maggots in his brain….filthy, soft, wet brain, all coiled and folded….I was aware of his foulness. He knew he was wrong and going to be destroyed" (Harland 1997, p.247). Such passages help The Dark Edge support a postmodern view of reality by branching off from the traditional accepted notion that humans are powerfully important. Using anti-humanistic philosophies and showing their possible ramifications, authors of science fiction and fantasy reinforce postmodernism and show the fallacy of accepting a concrete, blind version of reality and truth.
Finally, although these genres' signature has always been the creation of new worlds, the last element that reflects a postmodern notion of reality is directly describing and explaining new and original versions of reality. By actually relating the created reality to the accepted real world, science fiction especially confronts the audience with relativist and constructivist issues. The Matrix, for example, is a movie that hinges around the idea that what all humans consider real is actually nothing but a construct, an unbelievable elaborate virtual reality. This virtual reality in the movie seems identical to many urban cities that exist in the real world toward the approaching new millennium. The entire movie questions the accepted view of reality by presenting a terrifying alternative that has enough basis in this accepted reality to light a spark of fear. This direct method forces the audience to question their own idea of what is true; this questioning is one of the trademarks of Postmodernism. One source quoted Brian McHale who proposed that all postmodernist novels are studies in ontology, the nature of being: "What is a world? What kinds of worlds are there…? What happens when different kinds of worlds are placed in confrontation, or when boundaries between worlds vanish" (Suleiman 1994, p.127)? The Matrix raises these questions directly and pointedly, thereby becoming a hallmark of Postmodernism.
It has been established that there are four main aspects of late twentieth century science fiction and fantasy that support a postmodernist ideology. However, the source of this recent trend towards the incorporation of Postmodernism in these genres has yet to be discussed. There are several main sociological and cultural changes that have occurred in the latter half of the century that have led to an upsurge in Postmodernism; all these changes are connected and dependent upon each other.
Increased technology is the most spectacular change sweeping the world. New advances in physics, engineering, and medicine have increased the organisation and ease of many tasks. The dawn of the internet has weaved the world together in a web of electronic filigree. Not only does increased technology provide fodder for science fiction stories like The Matrix and The Dark Edge, but it also encourages the acquisition of knowledge and possibilities. As advances are made, the limits of possibility extend ever farther. As these limits increase, reality constantly changes. What is today pure fiction beyond the realm of ability can easily become possible and even normal tomorrow. Due to the rapid progressive advancement of technology, reality is now popularly considered to be shifting and subjective to each individual. Baudrillard explains the postmodernist slant of recent science fiction in relation to the changes brought about by the exponential growth of technology: "Until now we have always had a reserve of the imaginary—now the coefficient of reality is proportional to the reserve of the imaginary" (Baudrillard, p.123). As technology advances, possibilities become realities, and imagination decreases—or changes into something previously unconsidered popularly. Postmodernism is an embodiment of this change; it has recently become a popular movement incorporating the ambiguity and confusion resulting from a constantly changing and discovering world.
Increased technology has led to globalisation, another important sociological change that heralded Postmodernism. Because technology allows faster and easier travel and communication between countries, awareness of other cultures, beliefs, and environments has quickly blossomed. Walter Truett Anderson pointed out that this new awareness of other ideas forces a set belief system to be questioned (Anderson 1990, p.30). Instead of observing life, truth, and reality from just one window, globalisation forces one to see through—or at least acknowledge—the countless other windows that show reality from a different vantage point. The Undying is one such product of globalisation; Aboriginal views, beliefs, and lifestyles are present without explanation. The reader must therefore at least acknowledge or at most accept the Aborigines' unfamiliar and almost incomprehensible view of what is real in relation to traditional Western standards. This in turn means that these standard Western beliefs must be scrutinised in relation to the new Aboriginal version of reality. This example is a microcosm of the complete effect globalisation has on all belief systems by increasing awareness of different versions of reality. As a result, Postmodernism is the philosophy of reality that most encompasses all beliefs of truth.
In addition to globalisation and increased technology, increased cynicism is also responsible for the birth and growth of Postmodernism. With increased exposure to more cultures and beliefs, many people are losing faith in their own beliefs. With increased exposure to violence through media, many people are losing their trust in justice and morality. With increased exposure to various distractions and amusements, many people are losing interest in common activities. According to Neville Wakefield, "we live in an era stripped of transcendent truths…, solid foundations, and neat resolutions. The ground upon which we tread is…shaky. Structures tend not to last, grand theories tend to fade, ambitions have half-lives" (Wakefield 1990, p.1). These characteristics of the late twentieth century lead to Postmodernism, a movement filled with what some critics call "deeply disillusioned intellectuals…. Postmodernism is an ironic, perhaps even despairing view of the world" (Poster 1997, p.55). Cynicism itself has flourished and become an integral part of Postmodernism, complementing its sceptical and questioning nature.
Because of increased cynicism, globalisation, and increased technology, Postmodernism and its shards of possibilities have gained powerful footholds in the modern world. Reflecting this phenomenon, science fiction and fantasy novels and films have begun to commonly employ various methods such as shock value, a blend of traditional fantasy and traditional reality, anti-humanistic tendencies, and direct questioning of traditional views of reality. As Colin Falck stated, "imaginative literature is our most fundamental mode of inscription of reality, and it is imaginative or imagistic concreteness that we need for this purpose…." (Falck 1994, p.151). Science fiction and fantasy genres provide a medium in which abstract ideas, half-formed notions, and vague intuitions can coalesce into a solid formation. Convoluted postmodernistic notions of reality are given "imaginative concreteness" in novels like The Undying and The Dark Edge, and they are given "imagistic concreteness" in movies like The Matrix.
In conclusion, the definition, origin, and theory of reality has been a subject of much debate among philosophers and theorists. This debate has been recorded both indirectly and directly within the annals of literature. One thing is certain, however, the idea of reality is changing as the twenty-first century approaches. Baudrillard believed that reality will totally cease to exist as the ideas, feelings, and sources surrounding the definitive aspects of Postmodernism rise. Only various hyperrealities will remain: "We will no longer even pass through to "the other side of the mirror" (Baudrillard, p.125). His prediction, however, is flawed because he assumed that only one reality can exist at once. Postmodernism, on the other hand, allows equally valid realities to exist independently and simultaneously. Reality is blurred until the original accepted view is indistinguishable from the infinite reflections in the mirrors, and all perceptions equally and undeniably exist.
