In this post I’ll elaborate on a claim David McMahon makes in his essay, “The Psychological Significance of Science Fiction” (Psychoanal. Rev., 1989). One of my earlier posts reviews another part of this article.
McMahon states “three possible psychological roles that science fiction literature and cinema” play in society. SF, he claims, allows “understanding and adapting to change through exploring possible futures or parallel worlds” (287). SF depicting alternate futures “offers cognitive models for both conceptualizing change and adapting to change.” (emphasis in original)
Elaborating, McMahon describes how Star Wars offered society a model for President Reagan’s 1983 proposal for a “Strategic Defense Initiative” (290). This defense system included “complex space-based ballistic-missile defense that involves abstruse technical constructs” — difficult for the public to imagine. News outlets, however, “quickly dubbed the proposal the ‘Star Wars Defense.’ Suddenly, the incomprehensible had a conceptual model derived from space-fantasy films.” (my emphasis)
I propose that SF stories centering around rebellion allow people to more concretely imagine rebellion in real life. I use rebellion against the Trump administration as an example. SF, by offering clear depictions of rebellion, allows people to more easily bring to reality feelings against the President– anger, worry, etc– that would cause a want for rebellion.
I use as evidence (albeit not great in quantity), two photos I took at the 2016 Women’s March. Let’s take a look:
This poster features the phrase “Rebellions are built on HOPE,” the phrase uttered by rebel Jyn Erso, in the Star Wars companion film, “Rogue One,” as she tries to convince other rebels to fight against the Empire. The gold logo on the poster is the emblem of the Resistance, a rebel group in the Star Wars universe. Disclaimer: this phrase and/or logo probably appear in other Star Wars lore, but I don’t know enough about Star Wars to know about these other appearances.
Thereby, Star Wars rebels and society’s associations with Star Wars rebels are a vehicle by which this poster-writer can imagine themself rebelling against President Trump. The familiar Star Wars rebels are recalled as a defense against the unfamiliar feeling (for citizens of a democracy) of wanting to rebel.
Most notably, given the popularity of Star Wars, the poster-writer is assured that their invocation of Star Wars will resonate with others. If the poster-writer had felt a need to make a poster about rebellion, but had never watched Star Wars, or consumed media depicting rebellious groups, I propose that they would have a harder time putting this act of rebellion into words and making it popularly accessible.
Here’s another poster:
This poster features the phrase, “When does Marty McFly go BACK in TIME and save us all?”. Marty McFly is the protagonist of the classic film, “Back to the Future“, in which McFly accidentally travels back in time and has to figure out how to get “back to the future”.
McFly becomes a vehicle (haha) for this poster-writer to imagine an alternate universe. If the poster-writer hadn’t seen “Back to the Future” and hadn’t seen any cultural depictions of time travel, they may have had a harder time expressing their feelings of wanting to go back in time, of wanting to run from the present. The Film, in its clear, visual representation of time travel, makes it easier for people to conceptualize travel to the past.
“Good” SF literature and film can work to heal cultural anxiety if it presents consumers with a vivid virtual world that can provide a solution to the anxiety. Star Wars provides rebellion and hope to those seeking democracy. “Back to the Future” provides an escape route from tyranny. To summarize, I repeat McMahon’s claim: “the incomprehensible [missile defense system/rebellion] had a conceptual model derived from space-fantasy films [like Star Wars]”. Through “Star Wars,” the wish for rebellion surfaces in a mode easily accessible to the public consciousness.