10/17/18

Today's class focused primarily on Science Fiction movies and how they use different tones about the past, present, and future. We started off class with a question, 'How can we view Ready Player One as allegorical?', and we had a few minutes to talk among ourselves in our groups about what we though the answer is. Our discussions were then ended as Mr. Rivers put a quote from Ray Bradbury up on the board in response to this question and to further understand the meaning(s) behind a lot of Science Fiction films. The quote was, “I often use the metaphor of Perseus and the head of Medusa when I speak of science fiction. Instead of looking into the face of truth, you look over your shoulder into the bronze surface of a reflecting shield then you reach back with your sword and cut off the head of Medusa. Science fiction pretends to look into the future but it’s really looking at a reflection of what is already in front of us. So you have a ricochet vision, a ricochet that enables you to have fun with it, instead of being self-conscious and super intellectual.” ~ Ray Bradbury (1920- 2012). After this, we were split into our groups again to discuss what Bradybury was talking about and to put his claim(s) into our own words. My group came up with this definition...

• Even though science fiction is set in the future, it often deals with problems in our time in the form of a ‘reflection’ of the problem in the future

Then Rivers introduced the movie that we will be watching in class this week, Wall-E, and explained that our goal while we watched the film is to pick out the tone that it has about the past, present and future. We then watched the movie till the end of class. STOP STOP STOP Even though the majority of the period today was taken up by the movie, the lessons from today's class can still be connected easily to the real world at large. As shown in the excerpt from Ray Bradbury, in almost every science fiction movie or novel, you can find how it reflects on issues from the present and includes the issue(s) in the story. One such example is the X-Men series, which, as it was created in 1963, is heavily influenced by racism and the civil rights movement of the time and this can be clearly seen in the subject matter of the series itself. Evidence can be seen throughout the series as the mutants are constantly being oppressed by everyone around them just for being different. Additionally, Professor X and Magneto are extremely similar to Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X not only in their actions but also in their strategies to deal with the oppression of mutants. Although there are many other examples of how our lesson today ties in with the real world, the X-Men comic book and movie series is among the most prominent examples.