I HATE 'sci-fi'

  1. That sounds like an odd thing for me to say, doesn't it? After all, I read a great deal of it, and write quite a bit of it. However, I hate the term ‘sci-Fi‘. Why?

    There is a very primitive power in being able to name something. There is a great power in language, because (as the comedian George Carlin pointed out) even though thoughts transcend words, we think in language, so the quality of our thoughts is affected by our use of language.

    Why did African-Americans bristle at the term ‘Negro’, why do ‘midgets’ call themselves ‘Little people’? Why did Hispanics reject that term ‘Hispanic’ and invent ‘Latino’? Well the term ‘negro’ already had many negative connotations associated with it and makes people less human sounding and robs them of dignity. The term ‘midget’ has also become inherently offensive, and that it because the way that we collectively as non-negroes and non-midgets have abused the terms. The term Hispanic was invented by the Census bureau to account for the Spanish-speaking, Spanish surnamed, and nonwhite inhabitants of certain places of the country. Except that not all Hispanics speak Spanish, or have Spanish surnames, or are nonwhite. The term ’Hispanic’, just like the way that the Census Bureau saw them, was completely fabricated and Hispanics saw that. ‘Latin’ culture is a differentiation from the majority of the country, which has Anglo-Saxon culture, despite whatever language they speak, how they pronounce their names, or what their color is.

    The name ‘Science Fiction’ was made, and agreed upon, and welcomed, and greeted by legions of fans as well as writers. We owe much to Science Fiction, it truly deserves more respect than the way it’s being treated today. However, today Science Fiction is thought of as juvenile and illegitimate as an art form (despite contributions from such literary giants as Verne, Wells, Burroughs, and Bradbury. These are men with such fame all we have to do is say their last names and we know their work. All of have their seminal works in the Science Fiction isles). No respectable book store can leave them out, their work is in such demand that it has been translated in various languages, is circulated worldwide, and remains always constantly in print.

    Always associated with Fantasy, although the two genres can be described as escapist in nature, technically many romances or even westerns can be considered escapist as well. Having a silly name like ‘sci-fi’ contributes to the persecution against the art form and the reason why Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ got nominated nine times for an academy award before it finally won one…for Cinematography!

    Usually the people who use the term ‘sci-fi’ are people who are not partial to the genre, or think it sounds cool, or cute, or will sell movie tickets, or magazines. It produces a gag reflex in people like me who prefer the term ‘Science Fiction’ because it sounds like a legitimate literary genre when it’s written like that. If they actually think that ‘sci-fi’ is serious sounding and respectable, they might as well write it in crayon with the ‘f’ backwards.


    Forrest J. Ackerman used the term "sci-fi" at UCLA in 1954.[12] As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction.[13][14][15] By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Terry Carr and Damon Knight were using "sci-fi" to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction,[16] and around 1978, Susan Wood and others introduced the pronunciation "skiffy". Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers".[17] David Langford's monthly fanzine Ansible includes a regular section "As Others See Us" which offers numerous examples of "sci-fi" being used in a pejorative sense by people outside the genre.[18]

    -Wikipedia


    Again, when people call my Science Fiction writing ‘sci-fi’ I cringe, but it’s not their fault, because somehow they actually think they are giving me a compliment when they are actually offending me. I blame the morons who popularized the term to sell magazines and books with lavishly drawn covers. It’s no wonder that so many pulp fiction companies of the past targeted juveniles with Science Fiction covers and that Science Fiction writers are paid per word. It is a great example of runaway, corrupting, Capitalistic greed.

    If you cannot bear or stand to write ‘Science Fiction’, because it is too long and hurts your hand, then please use the actual abbreviation, SF. It’s not unlike YA for Young Adult fiction which, ironically, with titles like ‘Twilight’ and ‘Harry Potter’ is enjoying a Renaissance because of adult readers while Science Fiction is truly in a ‘twilight’.

    Can we blame the silly term ‘Sci-fi’ for the decline in Science Fiction readership and success in the markets? Is that why the genre is dying, and the Science Fiction isles are being overrun by Star Wars merchandise and video game franchise fiction? It might have something to do with the surge of Fantasy writing, which is in a sort of muted golden age (apparently male readers have declined significantly while female readers have increased, and statistically women read Fantasy more than Science Fiction. I am not a misogynist and did not make that up, Orson Scott Card wrote it in an article about how Science Fiction is dying, so it must be true).

    With Science Fiction in its death throes, I shall soldier on, and I know that many fans of the genre, many of them writers as well as readers, shall join me. I am prepared for the post-apocalyptic age of Science Fiction, after all, the term ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ itself is a term probably coined and detailed in the pages of some Science Fiction anthology.

Comments

  1. Sabih Omar
    I agree. Whenever people think about SF they think about green-skinned aliens, saucer-like spaceships and laser guns and all these things have been given a childish look by the entertainment industry. I don't know much about others, but in my country an SF writer is essentially considered a children's writer by the bulk of the critics and readers and never ever considered for a national award.

    I think most adults nurture a phobia for the word 'science' and mix it up with mysterious supernatural things. This has been given a boost by The X-files. Many supernatural writers now claim to be SF writers only because their works feature characters that investigate the matter. This is simply disgusting.
  2. cybrxkhan
    A similar problem happens in fantasy, in terms of defining what it is. People always think fantasy is dragons, magic, elves, and if you're lucky, maybe some weirdo Middle Eastern bedouin-ripoffs with magic carpets and genies.

    It's not. Fantasy just simply means a world that is not ours, simple as that; it does not need to be a pseudo-medieval world with mages and magic - and even then, the fact that its pseudo-medieval is annoying enough (medieval is fine, pseudo-medieval is not).

    That's why I like the term "Speculative Fiction" for use of both Sci-fi and Fantasy. It is much more neutral, and gets the definition much better - and as a bonus, it also encompasses many more "genres" that are not clearly fantasy or science fiction, such as Steampunk or Alternative History. After all, the line between fantasy and sci-fi can be extremely blurred at times. They are simply genres about worlds that are not ours, in my opinion.
  3. Ragnar
    Invent a new name? Seems like a solution. At least what passes for one inside my head. And sadly, I've been a victim of said old "sci-fi" movies and bad sci-fi literature. They have scared me away from reading "sci-fi" other than a short story written by the author of this post which was very enjoyable ^^

    Edit: Hey, "Speculative Fiction".. I like that.
  4. Wreybies
    Unfortunately, like any genre, science fiction has been exploited and even worse, marketed. As soon as anything comes into the hands of a marketing minded person it becomes diluted, watered down, bastardized, and broken. Is Star Wars actually, honestly, seriously good science fiction? No. It's a marketing tool for Hasbro.
  5. jonathan hernandez13
    Addendum

    WHY?
    Is the classic Ridley Scott film 'Alien' considered a classic of horror and not of SF? For Christ's sake, it has three staples of the SF genre: spaceships, an alien world, oh, and a freakin' ALIEN!

    WHY?
    Is the classic James Cameron film 'Terminator' considered a classic action and not SF? For Krishna's sake, it has time travel, cyborgs, and nearly half the movie has flashbacks in a post-apocalyptic future!
    ???

    Does that make sense to anyone?

    ET was actually a kid's movie...
    Starman was a romance...
    Coccoon was a fairy tale disguised as SF, serving as propaganda for the geriatric community....

    I'll tell you why media and the film industry can get away with calling SF films anything but SF, because we let them. In the world of writing it's different, we have the right to name and market our own product, we are not subject to the rules and regulations of the Hollywood fatcats out to make a buck on the hard earned cash of the movie goer.

    By boiling down the complexities of even the most well crafted story down to a simplistic buzz term like sci-fi, you can induce images of gigantic explosions in space, triple breasted alien slave women, or whatever else some dim-witted advertiser can imagine. Calling it 'Science Fiction' is way too long and suggests that there may actually be some hidden facts in the story that only belong in a classroom. God forbid you bore that poor dim witted fella in row twenty, he has been living past his means at the advice of greedy capitalists and in the days of a post-recession depression does not want science or deep thought. Give him car chases, senseless nudity, and flashing lights!

    My biggest complaint is not that a SF film will never win an academy award no matter how excellent it is and how mundane and banal its competitors are. My biggest complaint is that in this greedy, consumer driven, pig-headed world the panderers of slop have brainwashed us into thinking that 'sci-fi' is this cool, popular genre that is perfect for selling tickets and magazines to pimply faced socially awkward juvenile men who will never touch a tit that doesnt belong to their mother. SF has never been after popularity, if it had, it would not appeal to the pimply faced socially awkward juvenile men who will never touch a tit that doesnt belong to their mother. That wasnt good enough for the fatcats, that had to steal a legitimate artform from the nerds, and sell it to the ignorant masses along with colorful T-shirts and stupid crappy merchandise.

    Disgusting...
  6. GrantG
    This is true.

    I absolutely hate the terrible term. How 'bout "sci-hor?" It isn't a popular term... yet. But something tells me it will be.

    And The Sci-Fi Channel is partly to be blame for the public's misconceptions of what SF really is, which used to be an okay channel when it first came out (I defend its early years because it introduced me to Harlan Ellison when I was a very young and impressionable kid, and he even once made the same argument against the term "sci-fi" on The Sci-Fi Channel... the balls on this guy! The video is on YouTube somewhere; I would search "Ellison" and "Sci-Fi Channel").

    Now they're calling the station ScyFy and they have wrestling and Ghost Hunters as part of their programming, last I checked. Great. Now everyone thinks that SF fans are nerdy virgins who enjoy wrestling and believe in ghosts. This crap never ends and it never will.

    What the public thinks is SF is not what I read. I'm in it for the ideas. Not science-free space adventures with little green men with ray guns and certainly not movies like Independence Day. ID4, as idiots call it, the director of which is going to rape Asimov's Foundation after his "sci-fi" film 2012 will no doubt make billions of unearned dollars.
  7. mugen shiyo
    Hmmm...actually, I hardly think Alien is a sci-fi movie. It's more about fighting the Aliens than science. Simply because it's in outer space on a...wow...spacecraft...and has futuristic gimmicks doesn't make it science fiction.

    Same thing with the Terminator. They have these science fiction things in them like time travel and all that, but no practical explanation of them. Science is more like a prop in these stories than a working element.

    But then again, maybe I have way too specific an idea on what Science Fiction is. It always seemed like in a science fiction work, the actual science should be a principle feature.

    I do cringe when my work is labeled as Fantasy. I cringe when I tell people I like to read fantasy. They assume I read about dwarves, elves, and all that. Maybe as a kid, but it gets irritable at some point.

    If I never won an Academy Award I'd consider it an honor. Those things are rigged and there's probably so much bullcrap and politics that go into it I hardly pay attention to them or reviews. If Hollywood hates you, you get bad reviews, no matter how good your movie is and if they love you, you get good ones no matter how bad. George Clooney made some snore movie called Syrianna. The idea of it was cool but the movie could make you fall asleep in a lava pit. It had four stars and all those ball-sucking reviews.
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