Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Classic Scifi and You!

It would seem that a lot of classic scifi, at least in America, was born out of this idea of the "space race" we had with against Russia following World War II.

Much of the technology represented in classic scifi seems to be built around the stories themselves, and never really the other way around. Because of that, I feel as though the public was more accepting of scifi in that form, being more about space drama with a bit of action, a ray gun that looked especially art deco, a sleek and clean presentation of the universe that's being built around the story.

Cars, even, reflected this whole idea of the space age:


The rocket ship-like tails fins and chassis lends to this national idea of reaching the stars in a subconscious way, mirroring Japan's adoption of their own mechanical icon after WWII: the robot/android/mecha, which informed its national identity for decades to come as well.

So it would appear scifi had gotten a lift, pun intended, in America directly due to the fact that were were trying to get a rocket in orbit, and then put a man on the moon. The very gradual introduction of less fit and trim elements of scifi into popular culture speaks to that. After all, putting a man on the moon, or even up into space had seemed like science fiction enough to most people for a very long time, much like the fantasy of human flight before it.

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