A few weeks ago on one of the Facebook groups for self-publishers I'm part of but don't really do anything with, someone's plug for their book began, "Tired of 'woke' sci-fi?" I didn't say anything, but my first thought was, "Gee, what a shame Gene Roddenberry was so 'woke' with Star Trek. All that wokeness was really bringing it down."
"Woke" doesn't have to do with sleeping; in this context it's about being aware of social issues. To me, science-fiction is mostly supposed to be "woke." So much of it is dealing with the future, whether near-future or far-future and it's hard to write about the future without getting into any social issues. Even writing in the present, sci-fi authors deal with technology and how that impacts society.
While there have been conservatives like Robert Heinlein who wrote futuristic sci-fi, even those weren't completely un-woke in that they weren't completely blind to societal issues. Maybe they took a more conservative approach, but they couldn't ignore issues entirely.
But most of the best-remembered classics like Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Make Room! Make Room! (the Soylent Green story), and The Forever War dealt with societal issues. They were "woke" before people even used that word in that way.
I suppose it's not requisite for every sci-fi story to be concerned with societal issues, though even Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy wasn't completely un-woke. The Vogons destroying Earth shows what happens when rigid bureaucratic thought runs amok. Probably even those Union Station books I read are slightly woke, though they mostly don't deal with any issues at all.
But really saying your sci-fi isn't "woke" is just code for that there won't be minorities or gay people or things like that. Or if there are, they'll be bad guys or comic foils probably written in some cliche way. The women will all have big boobs, no brains, and probably wear almost nothing. I guess that's really all some people want.
Someone might say, "Well what about your books?" I have a lot of gay relationships and transgender characters. I try not to make women too bimbo-y--unless that's the core concept of the story. I could probably use people of color more, but I've always thought something like, "Transformed Into a Black Girl" or something similar would be kind of tacky from a white guy. Maybe I'm wrong.
2 comments:
that's one thing that really bothers me about Star Trek "fans" of late...there's a certain minority subset that has completely forgotten that it was "woke" from the beginning...the entire core concept of the franchise is "woke". I don't know what they conservative trumpers find in Star Trek that appeals to them since most series have "woke" concepts in them...I guess they just turn a blind eye to it in TOS or TNG but since it's there front and center in Discovery they are told to hate it because that's the new term to use and the thing to do.
In a way, though, using the term "woke" is a lot like the term "cancel culture". They come up with these terms and make them popular in an effort to enable their own lack of social and personal responsibility...like somehow they're the ones being picked on and it's society that's wrong, not them. It's just like when they were using "snowflake" a lot...most of the trumpers are the biggest pansy "snowflakes" out there...but yet they throw around that term while being keyboard warriors because someone simply wants to have equal access or equal rights...it's disgusting. But they try to use those terms as weapons and to wear others down with their use so they can mainstream their messages of hate and bigotry. modern "conservatives" disgust me and the whole "woke" thing is just another insidious component of their agenda of hatred and backwards thinking.
Yes, I agree that SF is fine with being "woke". As a kid, the first SF I watched was TOS, and I just never thought "Oh there's a black woman on the bridge." or "oh wow, an Asian guy is at the helm." It didn't seem unusual to me at all, and I liked all the characters and stories. I don't recall people talking about it. I just thought it was the future and there would be a mix of different people on the ship, and this all made sense. Maybe I was too young and sheltered to be woke at the time, but the messages of SF stories do stick with you. You know how I love ST Discovery.
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