SMNTY Classics: Can Science Fiction Save the World?

For the first time, a woman has the role of famous sci-fi character Dr. Who. In this classic episode, we talk about how science fiction can be a force for change.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to Steph. Mom
never told you. Some of you might have heard about
a little show called Doctor Who if you haven't. It's

(00:25):
a sci fi show on the BBC that first started
all the way back in and it follows a time
lord known as the Doctor or Doctor Who, and his
adventures through space and time on his blue police box
spaceship called the Tartist, usually with one or more human companions. Now,

(00:47):
I had a friend that was a huge fan of
Doctor Who when we were kids, like the old school episodes,
and I owe her for introducing it to me, even
though I fought against it tooth and nail because of
a very elaborate prank my older brother played on me
that involved special effects that old roswell alien dissection, video

(01:08):
lights and sound effects. I was, until semi recently terrified
of space aliens in pop culture, like I only just
saw Et a couple of years ago. Terrified, as you
can imagine. This made my life as a sci fi
fan interesting. The only movie I ever walked out of,

(01:30):
by the way, was Lost in Space, the one that
had Matt LeBlanc in it, not because it was bad,
but because I was so scared all of us to say.
When I was sleeping over at my friend's place and
she'd leave a tape of Doctor Who playing late at
night and fall asleep, I would lie awake, terrified in

(01:50):
spite of the bad effects, horrified by the dolleks, just
waiting for it to be over. But have since overcome
my fear, and I am a doctor who fan. For
a little bit of of backstory context while we're talking
about this at all. Since the show started in nineteen three,

(02:11):
it's had three sort of eras, the latest one beginning
with new episodes in two thousand five. One of the
things about this character, the Doctor, is that the showrunners
have a really neat story thing that also explains why
the actors keep changing the actors playing the role. One
of the Doctor's alien abilities is that if he dies,

(02:35):
he regenerates into a new body with a different personality,
although some personality traits do remain the same new actor,
same character, it all fits in the storyline. Fans call
whatever inneration of the doctor they're talking about, the tenth Doctor,
the eleventh Doctor, so on. And I keep saying he
because until recently the character has been played by a

(02:57):
white male, but new episodes started airing this week with
a new doctor played by a woman, Jody Whittaker, and
this is a big deal for a couple of reasons,
as only four of mainstream sci fi and fantacy films
had a female protagonist, and most of those roles. Those

(03:18):
female roles are for either one dimensional characters or really
really serious characters. But one of the most important traits
of the Doctor is he now she is funny, goofy,
can choke around a different type of sci fi protagonist
than most women get to play. Think Black Widow, Gamrea, Nebula,

(03:39):
Wonder Woman, pretty much every sci fi movie very serious, um,
but not so in this case. Eight point two million
people tuned in to watch the premiere with the New Doctor,
the highest viewership in ten years. Despite the all the
fearmongering about how having a woman would ruin the show,
the response was general only positive. The character is also

(04:02):
getting a Barbie doll, by the way, which apparently led
to some confusion between American and British fans when the
description included the word braces. Braces in the UK means suspenders, um,
not the teeth contraption that it means here in the US.
So the description was updated to suspenders, but in the
UK suspenders means garter belt hilarious confusion with words the

(04:28):
actress playing the doctor. Whittaker said, of all of this
conversation about her being the doctor, all of the conversation
that has generated quote, what will be brilliant is when
this kind of casting isn't so exciting because TV is
so representative of the society we all live in today,
and the same is true for people of color, a

(04:49):
casting direction that people also want to see for the
show in terms of a broader impact outside of Doctor
Who viewers, this could help open doors for other types
of sci fi and fantasy media to have a more
dynamic female in the leading role, and the importance of
seeing that on screen, as we've talked about before, shouldn't

(05:10):
be undervalued, and it could even have ripple effects out
to other media we consume outside of sci fi and fantasy.
If we look at sci fi as a genre as
a whole, it is a genre that can reimagine a
world outside of the one we live in, outside of
the structures of racism and sexism, and it can give

(05:32):
us an idea of what that world might look like,
what a more inclusive world could look like. And this
is one of my favorite classic episodes that you're about
to hear because it talks about the power of sci
fi to be a tool for change. I hope you
enjoy this episode as much as I did. Welcome to

(05:58):
Stuff Mob Never told you for House top Works dot Com. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline,
and today we're going to talk about two topics that
might not sound like they go together, but in fact
work so perfectly in tandem. And that is social justice

(06:21):
and science fiction. And thankfully, since to be perfectly honest,
I'm not a science fiction expert, Caroline, or are you
a science fiction I can't say that I'm a science
fiction expert. As much as I've watched some science fiction movies,
I cannot claim to be an expert. And even though Caroline,
I have dressed up as Ripley for Halloween, sadly that

(06:42):
doesn't you know that that even still doesn't make me
an expert. But thankfully we have someone so much more
knowledgeable in the realms of both social justice and science
fiction to talk to us today about all this fun stuff,
and that is Online Editor of the feminist and pop
culture nonprofit that we site all the time on the

(07:03):
podcast Bitch Media and also host of the feminist podcast Papaganda.
Sarah Murk Welcome, Sarah. Hi Kristen, Hi Caroline. It's so
great to be here. Oh well, it's so great to
have you. Well, so, Sarah, to get things kicked off,
let's start first by talking about your specific interest in
science fiction. What do you love about it as a

(07:26):
form of entertainment and how has it informed your personal
perspectives or philosophies or even activism. Well, first of all,
science fiction is just fun. I love reading science fiction
and I like watching science fiction movies because it's a
really good time. Um, you can sort of get deep
and philosophical about it, but honestly, I just like a

(07:48):
story that's well told, that has an interesting world behind it.
You know, I'm somebody I grew up reading a lot
of fantasy and a lot of science fiction, so you know,
super mainstream stuff like Lord of the Rings as fantasy
and then for science fic and like Dune and Enders
Game and the way that they sort of prompted me
to think about how other worlds could be. It is

(08:08):
just great for your imagination. You know, kids love science fiction,
I think in fantasy because um it ties into our
imagination so much and helps us sort of see what
other worlds could be and helps us imagine a world
beyond our own. And as I've gotten older, science fiction
is a great venue for discussing our own culture and

(08:29):
our own society. So as we're reading about alien worlds
in really good science fiction, it's a reflection of what's
happening in our own society. And so often in the
science fiction books that I love, you sort of introduced
to a culture and there's some kind of observer, like
an alien who's dropped onto a planet, who's observing the
culture and reflecting on it. And what they're commenting on

(08:51):
is stuff that you'll see a lot in our society,
or that pushes us to rethink the things that that
we take for granted as normal and instead see them as, oh,
this could function totally different. Or if an alien landed
here on Earth, what would they be appalled by or
what would they think was really interesting? Well, I think
from maybe more of an outsider perspective for people maybe

(09:13):
sitting more where Caroline and I are, who aren't really familiar,
like in depth with the genre. Who you know, we've
seen Star Wars, we've seen alien things like that, but
it seems like for a long time, particularly in those
more mainstream presentations of science fiction, it hasn't exactly been
a haven for diverse representations. So just kind of wondering

(09:38):
how the genre and also reader's awareness is kind of
perspective perspective, excuse me that you're bringing to this, how
that has evolved beyond a white, cis gender, male centric canon.
Actually it's not a new thing. I was, you know,
I sort of came to this reading um books like
doing an Enders game when I was a teenager, and

(09:59):
then Eater discovered writers like Ursula la Gwin and Octavia Butler,
who when I just picked up their books, I thought
they were writing today, and it turns out they were
writing in the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties. So
a sort of trend of linking social justice and science
fiction has been really happening for almost forty years. As

(10:20):
in the book world Um, one of one of my
favorite science fiction books is by Ursula Cala Gwin, and
it's called The Dispossessed, and this was published in nineteen
seventy four. So think about what's going on in nineteen
seventy four. We've just had Rope Wade, we have a
huge civil rights movement activism and women's movement activism, and
this book comes along, and it's about a planet that's

(10:44):
a totally egalitarian planet, an entire world that's sort of
run on UM the principles of anarchy of mutual aid
and no government, so no no police, UM, no prisons,
no no centralized government, just everyone helping each other the
ways they want to. And you know, a prison from
this planet goes to another world, and that world is

(11:07):
very sexist, and he sort of runs into all these
sorts of cultural problems around poverty and inequality in the world. UM.
And this book That Dispossessed It is mainstream science fiction.
It won in the year it came out, and won
the Hugo and won the Nebula Awards, those are the
biggest awards in science fiction. UM. It won the World
Fantasy Award Award and it won the National Book Award,

(11:29):
So that's as mainstream as it gets. And this is
a book that's really clearly discussing inequality, that's discussing UM
other options for governments. That's clearly putting sexism front and center.
But what's funny about this book. I have a I
have an edition of it that was published by Harper
just recently in the last few years, and none of
that stuff that just talked about shows up on the

(11:51):
cover text of the book. So if you look at
this book in the store, what it says on the cover,
it's Ursula Kila Gwin's Dispossessed. And then the description of
the book on the ever is an astonishing tale of
one man's search for utopia. And this book is not
about one man search for utopia. This book is about like, uh,
sexism and classism and physics, as well as a lot

(12:15):
of bureaucracy and politics. But what it's not is like
one brilliant man alone against the world, searching for utopia.
And so I think that there's I think that there's
definitely still a disconnect between the way that science fiction
books are often seen and sold by publishers and like
the sort of revolutionary content that's actually within them. And

(12:38):
that's something you see in Octavia Butler's books too. Octavia
Butler is and she she's a black woman science fiction
writer and lots of her stories center on black characters
and people of color, but she had a lot of
trouble in her life of publishers whitewashing the covers of
her books, of putting um you know, white poll on

(13:00):
the covers of books that are about characters who are
not white, and so there's there's has been that problem
with how science fiction is sort of seeing as as
a genre for white cis gender dudes, when a lot
of the stuff is written about is actually very revolutionary. Well,
and we've also speaking to gender. I've noticed in recent

(13:23):
years conversations about the representation of gender in science fiction,
but particularly to what you're talking about in the marketing
of science fiction. So there have been those, uh, those
kind of viral blog posts of the the gender flipped
sci fi covers where you know, men are doing the
typical female poses, which kind of leads to this question

(13:47):
of the intersection of feminism and sci fied Where, where
and how do those worlds collide? Well, I think science
fiction sort of gives us a way to talk about
our own culture and reflect on what we think of
as normal, and it also gives us really good tools
for sort of rethinking what we think we know and

(14:08):
so sort of the way that feminism and science fiction
intersect is that when you hear these stories about future
societies or future cultures um or people visiting our own
world and being confused by it, it makes you question
what rules in society you take for granted, and what's
actually not like a biological imperative, but it's just the

(14:30):
culture that we've built. And so, for example, in Ursula
Quinn's books, since I was just talking about her um,
there's often there's there's planets where there is no gender difference.
Or in Octavia Butler's books, she has a book where
there's um a whole race of species where there's a
third gender, and so that pushes readers, even young readers

(14:51):
or old readers to rethink, wait a second, wait, there
can be a planet where there's no gender, what does
this say about? What does this say about what gender is? Well,
speaking of these social issues in a recent Bitch article
and on Papaganda will Lead You and Marisha talked about how,
quote all organizing is science fiction that sounds a little

(15:12):
bit out there, but actually the theory is not that
out there. Could you talk a little bit about what
this means? Yeah, sure, Willie and Marisha is a really
great scholar, activist, professor, poet. She has a lot of
jobs and she is most recently the co editor with
UM an organizer named Adrian Marie Brown of an anthology

(15:33):
called Octavia's Brood science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements,
which comes out this spring from a K Press. And
the whole idea of this anthology is to collect stories
of visionary fiction and visionary fiction UM is a is
a term to sort of differentiate it from science fiction
that doesn't deal with rethinking the world and feminist issues

(15:54):
and social justice issues and focuses on basically, how can
action help us rethink the world that we live in? UM?
And they call science fiction and exploring ground a laboratory
to try new tactics, strategies and vision without real world costs,
so you can kind of explore in your imagination what

(16:15):
could society look like? What could the world we live
in be like? UM. Since we've been talking a lot
about Ursula Lagwin in her article in In Bitch, which
is called Rewriting the Future, Willie and Mauritia quotes Ursula
Lagwin's speech that she gave last year at the National
Book Awards ceremony, and you might have heard of this
speech because it went viral. It was a really big deal.

(16:38):
And in the in the speech, she talks about UM
basically that we need writers who can force us to
to re examine ourselves and to rethink the world that
we think about, and who can, as she says, remember freedom,
and Lagwin goes on to say, we live in capitalism.
Its power seems inescapable, but then so did the divine

(16:59):
right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and
changed by human beings. And Well Leader writes in her
article that that is precisely why we need science fiction.
But it allows us to imagine possibilities outside of what
exists today, and that's powerful. And so as an organizing tool,
you can use science fiction to say, Okay, we don't
like the world we live in right now, there's all

(17:20):
these problems with it. Where could we look to as
an answer. Well, in one of the exercises that you
all talked about on UM, both on the panel that
you hosted in on the propaganda episode that she was on,
was examining existence science fiction or even just pop culture
like the Simpsons and sort of using existing science fiction

(17:44):
to reimagine that in one of the examples you talked
about was was Star Wars remembering the Droids? What about
the droids? Or another example on the Octavia's Brewed blog
was of the Orcs in Lord of the Rings collectively
rising up because if they rise up and organized, then

(18:06):
of course more or would be no more. So I
was just curious to get your thoughts on um not
only creating new science fiction, but maybe using existing science
fiction as and reimagining that as another kind of accessible tool,
especially for again for for newbies like Caroline and me
who might not be so familiar. I love the idea

(18:29):
of supporting the striking orcs. You know, that's it's really exciting.
Then with a little little boldank picket science it's kind
of cute or or freedom now, Um, well there isn't
you know with science fiction, there's uh, there's a very
healthy tradition of fan fiction of people writing their own
stories about the shows. Um. And that's especially apparent when

(18:51):
sort of the storylines don't pan out the way you
want to or and you sort of see characters and
you want to know more from them. Um, I mean
a out of our current sort of culture of fan fiction,
which is so robust and so many people are publishing
their own stories. A lot of it begins with Star Trek,
with people writing their own sort of reimaginings of of

(19:12):
Star Trek episodes because they wanted to see different storylines develop.
And I think that that's great that, you know, if
you want to see more from these characters or um
or different people who were left out of the stories,
or you want to see what would happen if they
want if they were suddenly confronted with their own problems,
fan fiction is a great way to explore those things. Well,

(19:33):
in terms of exploring different themes, I'm interested in what
you think in terms of how science fiction in general
and visionary fiction in particular affect our views on things
like gender, race, age, and even society at large, and
how that might work differently from reading just you know,
quote unquote regular contemporary fiction about recognizable systems and lifestyles. Well,

(19:58):
I think that's science fiction in personally like draws me
in in a way that contemporary fiction doesn't always do.
You know, I'm so drawn into these juicy stories of
of other worlds and other cultures that it kind of
like slips, It slips me into the tow rethinking my
own society instead of hitting me over at the head
with it in a super heavy handed way. And I

(20:20):
think a really good book to bring up in this
example is Octavia Butler's book Kindred. This is probably her
best known book. You might have read it in school.
A lot of people read in school if publish in
nine And it's about a black woman in the United
States who falls back in time. So she's an accidental
time traveler. And I could see, you know, kids get
getting excited about this, like, oh, it's a time travel story.

(20:41):
I get excited about this. I want to know about
her time travel story. So she falls back in time
the nineteenth century in Maryland, where she meets her ancestors
who are enslaved people. And the narrative really makes you
think about sort of how uh, how these stories can
make us imagine a different future that like a black
female time traveler shows up in a slaveholding state and

(21:02):
says that in the future, the slaves are free. Like
that's how it sound as wild to them as it
would if a time traveler showed up now and said
that in the future, we have no prisons, you know,
So I think that that kind of narrative instead of
handing kids a book and telling them, you know that
this is going to be about American history, which you know,
not all that might be into you say, this is

(21:23):
book about a time traveler exploring alternate paths and re
imagine the future, and you're like, wow, cool, how exciting.
So I just think personally, I think that a lot
of those sort of elements of science fiction really draw
in readers in a way that that fiction certainly can
um but that I think is is powerful to science

(21:43):
fiction as a genre, and that sort of all the
limits are off. You know, if you're going to explore
another world, you can make that culture look like whatever
you want. You don't have to fit it into our
existing idea of what of what the world looks like.
So you can remake ideas of gender, sexuality, and class,
because hey, it's another world. You can make it look
however you want. Yeah, it seems like the genre can

(22:08):
be so powerful by removing all of the familiar signposts
that might otherwise be distracting. Say, if you're reading a
book about a person in New York, you're like, well, no,
that's that's not how New York is whereas in science
fiction you can't say, no, this moon World is not
how moon World should be because that rule book doesn't exist,

(22:29):
which is really really neat um. As I was reading
about this visionary fiction in these possible uh future worlds, utopias,
things like that, I also got me thinking about how
this may or may not at all relate to the
current popularity of dystopian y A fiction. It seems like

(22:54):
kids these days and adults these days are really into
I don't it wouldn't necessarily constitute science fiction, but it's
still reimagining worlds and bringing up similar kinds of issues
from time to time. So I was just wondering what
your insights were on that. I think it. I think
it counts to science fiction that there's a lot of

(23:14):
sort of dystopian y a out there right now that
deals with a lot of these these issues, and I
think they're popular because, um, they feel a little bit familiar.
Often you know, it's teenage. It's the characters are often
teenagers who are sort of going through teenage troubles of
trying to fit in and trying to deal with their parents,

(23:34):
but they've got the added issues of their in a
dystopian society. It's falling apart and everyone's about to kill
each other, and so, you know, there's there's a couple
of good examples of this. There's a there's an author
I really like named Nelo Hopkinson UM, and their work
focuses on sort of teens in a in a slightly
changed future society where suddenly everything starts getting weird. You know,

(23:58):
there's UM like sort of weird and powerful forces that
show up and everyone gets weird different powers, UM and that.
But it's actually a story about sort of being a
teenager and grappling with the world and trying to figure
out where you fit in and trying to deal with
the stuff that that you're handed at at birth, like UM,
like your grace and your parents and your family, and

(24:20):
trying to fit that into this weird changing world. Another
example I really like is UM a BBC show called Misfits,
which is about a group of rather surly teenagers who
are doing community service. They're like on probation and they've
been sentenced to community service and then there's a freak
lightning storm and they all inherit um really bad superpowers,

(24:41):
and so they like have to deal with having these
kind of cursed superpowers and how they've changed their bodies
while they're still trying to like get along with each
other and get along with the world. And I think
that that's a story that like young people really relate to,
where you're both trying to deal with, you know, your
body changing and in your social situation changing and trying

(25:02):
to figure out how you fit into the world, which
also makes you reflect on why the world is the
way it is and how a lot of it is
really screwed up. Well, So we've talked a lot about
imagining and how books like this help us imagine alternatives,

(25:25):
and I'm interested in hearing about some of the things
that you are imagining because you know, um, we've seen
a lot of elements of past science fiction come true
in our world. We have touch screens, we do have
Big Brother in the n s a UM, And I
was wondering what elements of social justice science fiction, or

(25:47):
really any science fiction you've seen come true or that
you might predict or hope come true in the future. Oh, geez,
this is a tough question because the stuff I read
about is really dark, and you don't have to come true.
It's often more like like a path that I don't
I hope we kind of don't take. A lot of
the science fiction I read is sort of deals with

(26:09):
an Earth or an earthlike planet where there's been massive
climate change and so much of the race has died off,
and how do these scrappy survivors come together in in
this horrible time? And so I hope that that doesn't happen,
you know that that sort of when I think about

(26:30):
the future, I can't help but get a little or
very cynical. You know. It doesn't like touch screens aside.
I feel like, you know, as as a as a
human race, we're not going to a to a good
place in the next hundred years because of the way
that we've been treating the planet and building our societies
on inequality, and so in these the works that I

(26:53):
read are often more of a cautionary tale of things
you don't want to have happened. So, for example, a
class think example of this would be Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale,
which a lot of people read in school um, which
is about a very controlled and police society where women's
reproduction is tightly controlled and there are certain women who

(27:13):
are assigned to be breeders basically. Um. And this speaks
a lot to our current politics around reproductive rights, policing
of women's bodies, and the lack of of women to
have the ability to choose their reproductive healthcare. And so
when you read, when you read a story that like
a handmade's tale that envisions what this is going to
look like a hundred years from now or if things

(27:35):
get to the extreme, it makes you. It makes me
at least reflect on current politics and be like, oh, geez,
if this is where it's going and we need to
stop right now. And so I think a lot of
these stories can be sort of inspirational horrible tales from
the future, of cautionary tales what not to do better,
pay attention or else or else we're doomed or else odd, no, big,

(28:00):
We're just doomed. So I do love the outfits on
Star Trek. If we could get one thing from the future,
I would love like a Hora's dress, and yeah, that'd
be good. Um, but that's maybe space travel maybe, But
I kind of think we should fix our own planet first.

(28:22):
That's if I can go off on a little bit
of a rant about the movie Interstellar, I did not
like that. Oh my gosh, that movie. I was like,
it felt like time stopped in the movie. I was like,
we're in the fifth dimension. We are here, and we're
stuck with Matthew McConaughey exactly. And so I mean that movie.
I think it was really the whole basic premise of

(28:44):
that film was upsetting to me. If you haven't seen it,
the film is basically like, there's massive climate change on Earth.
Everything is dust, horrible dust. The fields have turned to dust.
And so of a band of can do scientists sort
of make a rocket ship to send humans to another
planet to try and colonize another planet? And there are
somehow with like four or five hours of mishaps in

(29:04):
the middle there, and but the the but the whole
framing idea of it is we could we should use
science to find another planet to colonize. And I'm like, guys,
why don't you use your science to try and fix
our own planet? That's I thought that that was gonna be.
Like the thrilling conclusion of the film is that actually
we figured out a way to to improve our own

(29:26):
atmosphere and our own like way of approaching um agriculture.
That's more sustainable. We've we've don't need to go to
space after all. Uh, that was not the point of
the film. But then, but then Jessica Chastain wouldn't get
a chance to ugly cry on camera? Can't you ugly
cry over like the carbon in the atmosphere? Apparently not

(29:48):
app I want you to re edit Interstellar because I
haven't seen it, and I only want to watch your
re envisioning. Ever now, I felt I felt a lot
better about Interstellar once I imagined it to be a
group of five short films. Um that helped me like
it a little bit more. But anyway, well to possibly

(30:10):
and our discussion on more of a hopeful note not
in the dust and Jessica Chastain's tears. There was one
quote that I wanted to get your feedback on because
to me, it's really bold and hopeful and says a
lot about this whole the importance of visionary fiction. And

(30:32):
it's the mission statement of Willita E Maritia and Adrian
Marie Brown and Octavia's Brewed and they write, we believe
it is our right and responsibility to right ourselves into
the future. And that to me sounds quite promising and hopeful,
and I just wanted to get your take on that. Yeah,

(30:56):
I think that's a really beautiful statement that that sums
up a couple things. And what is just a general
lack of of diversity of representation in fiction, including science
fiction UM, where a lot of people these days, especially
people of color, are saying, we're represented in these stories.
We need to make our own stories to tell to

(31:18):
make sure that sort of race isn't isn't an absent
artifact in the future, or oftentimes there's science fiction movies
and film and books where almost everybody in the movie
book is white and you're like, wait, how is this
the future? That's that's what happened here, that's weird. Um.
And then the other aspect of that that's more philosophical,

(31:39):
is that to write ourselves into the future, as they say,
is we should try and imagine the kinds of societies
and the kinds of um cultures that we want to
exist in in the future. And I think science fiction
is a great tool for that, and the visionary fiction
is a great tool for that because we can imagine
sort of what is the future world that we want

(32:00):
I have and can we write fiction about that? Now
that gets people thinking, and gets and freeze up people's
imaginations to sort of look at the world and all
the horrible things that are going on in it now
and think, how can we change this? What kind of
better future look like? Well, in your answer, too, touched
on something that we didn't directly ask you about, but
that we talk about all of the time on the podcast,

(32:23):
which is what happens and how things change when you
bring more diversity to the table and more perspectives. And
that came to mind when you were talking about Earth
lay Laguin writing about you know, this futuristic theme of
gender and what that means, what would it mean to
not have gender and the fact that we have a

(32:44):
woman of color, Octavia Butler, who is touching on all
of these themes. So, how does science fiction change when
you bring more diversity to the table. It sounds like
it only gets better and better. And that's actually a
central theme of Octavia Butler's books, a sort of a
central idea around a lot of her books is that
diversity helps society. That instead of squashing diversity or saying

(33:09):
we need we need a one track vision for how
this should go, which is often how a lot of
science fiction is oriented where there's like, you know, one
one surviving hero who saves the world um by by
doing some sort of courageous violent act like blowing up
the death Star, instead of saying it's on it's on
this one guy to save the world, or it's on

(33:29):
this one surviving government to change society. A lot of
what Octavia Butler's writing is about is how diversity actually
makes us stronger. She actually has a great vampire science
fiction novel um called Fledgling, which is about a group
of vampires and they Their whole idea is that the

(33:50):
mixing of sort of different abilities such as vampire abilities
uh with with human with normal human abilities makes the
makes the society longer. But people are afraid of it,
and they don't like change, and they don't like new ideas,
and they don't like the idea of sort of uh
decentralized course of action that doesn't have a specific clear

(34:12):
plan that ends in blowing something up, and so people
often fear that and so Actvia but are a lot
of the writing, a lot of her work centers around, oh,
a diversity of ideas and a diversity of biology can
help make ours a whole culture stronger. I don't want
to make you repeat yourself, but I would love to
hear some recommendations for books or TV or movies or

(34:36):
comic books or anything, UM that you feel would really
make an impression on science fiction newbies or visionary fiction
newbies who are looking to sort of get a start
reading this genre. Okay, this is a tough task because
there's so much good stuff out there. So I'm just
gonna talk about what I like. And you two already

(34:56):
mentioned that it's in the movie Alien. I like Alien
a lot. I think that it's a good place to
start with the tales of Ellen Ripley Um. I think
I also I like to read a lot of books,
and so I would recommend the three authors that we've
talked about today, Ursula La Gwin Um her book The
Left Hand of Darkness or the one I talked about
on the show today, The Dispossessed, are both great um

(35:17):
and then uh Octavia Butler Um. My favorite book of
hers is called The Parable of the Sower, and I
think that's a really good place to start. It's a
it's a really interesting story that grabs you about dystopian
future l A and how a young girl sort of
manages to survive and in a hellish culture there. Um.
And then Margaret Atwood who wrote the book Handmaid's Tale,

(35:41):
and I also love her work, Rix and Craik. I
would I would recommend all three of those authors, um
for people who are new to science fiction and want
to check something out. Yep, great, I know that I
am adding after talking to you and reading it for
this episode, I am adding so any books and movies

(36:01):
to my list. Yeah. We do a summer book episode
every year on the podcast, and we might just have
to make it sci fi theme this year, Caroline, if
only to make sure that we read all this stuff
and also get input from our listeners, because I know
that we have some sci fi fans listening right now. Yeah.

(36:22):
As much as I reread Enders Game, there is more
out there. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for coming
on the podcast and sharing all of your knowledge with us.
Was there anything about sci fi, visionary fiction, social justice
that we didn't specifically ask you about but that you
would like to add? I think you covered it pretty well.

(36:46):
Oh well, thank you. We thank you covered it pretty well, Sarah. Well, Sarah,
if people want to learn more about you, about Bitch
and papaganda. Where can they go to find out more? Oh,
I think the best place to go is our website
bitch Media dot org. Um, and you can listen to
the podcast if you go to iTunes and you just
look up bitch Radio, which is fun to type in. Uh,

(37:07):
you can see the podcast. It comes out every week.
We have a new show and it's all about feminism
pop culture, so movies, books, TV music from a feminist perspective. Um.
People like your show. Our show deals a lot of the
the same issues, and I think people will like it
because I like your show. I love it so yeah,
and we like papaganda, so they will love it. Listeners,

(37:29):
you have no choice now other than to go and
listen to propaganda and check out bitch Media, which again
we cite all of the time, all the time on
the podcast. So thanks again, Sarah, Hey, thank you so much,
you too. So Now, listeners, I know there are some
science fiction fans out there and we want to hear
from you. Who is your favorite science fiction author or

(37:52):
your favorite sci fi title or series and do you
think that science fiction or visionary fiction can possibly change
the world. Let us know all of your thoughts. Mom
stuff at how stuff works dot Com is our email address.
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages
to share with you when we come right back from

(38:14):
a quick break. So I've got a couple of letters
to share about our Stalking one oh one episode because
we keep getting so many of them and really want
to keep everybody informed about the kind of feedback that
we've been getting. So here is one from Amy who writes,

(38:38):
like basically every listener, I'm always looking for a reason
to contact you, amazing ladies, and finally here's one, a
super depressing one, but still I work as a criminal
prosecutor and listened with great interest to your discussion about
protective orders for victims of stalking. I strongly encourage victims
to brave the bureaucracy and get a protective order. Here's why.

(38:59):
The enough proof for a protective order is much lower
than it is for a criminal charge. Proving something beyond
a reasonable doubt is much more difficult than proving something
to a preponderance of the evidence. That means it's going
to be easier for a victim to get an SPO
than it is for me. To prove a stalking charge.
In addition, many state stalking laws include elements that are

(39:21):
incredibly difficult to prove and won't apply in many stalking cases.
For example, some states require that we show a victim
was in fear of death or physical injury based on
the stalker's conduct, which may not be present in every case.
As your podcast explained. However, most states also have a
statute against violating a stalking protective order, and those are

(39:43):
generally much much easier to prove, especially where a victim
is diligent and collecting information about her stalkers continued contacts
with her. Then all we need is the order and
the proof of the contact and we're good to go. Thus,
if a victim gets an SPO and it's violated, we
can prove that more easily and a stalking charge and
give the victims some measure of protection through a criminal

(40:04):
conviction like jail time, probation, or continued no contact orders.
Getting protective orders can be really intimidating, but many communities
have domestic violence shelters that employ legal advocates who can
help victims way through the paperwork and understand the court process.
I always encourage victims to seek that assistance if available,
and to persevere. Thank you so much for your work,

(40:26):
and thank you for your work and for your insight, Amy,
We really appreciate it well. I have an email here
from Katrin. She says, I'm a first time listener, and
stalking one on one prompted me to email you and
let you know about my own experience with stalking and
how my roommate and I got the big kiss off.
As my father, a former police officer, calls it. My
roommate had made friends with a gentleman who was from Japan.

(40:48):
I should also note that at the time she had
a boyfriend and I didn't. She and I had met
studying abroad there and enjoyed making friends from that location
to practice our language skills. After having been friends with
him for a few months, he ended up in a
roommateless situation and needed a place to crash. He asked
if he could crash on her couch for two weeks
while he looked for a new apartment. Our third roommate

(41:08):
and I had no problem with it because we often
had various friends from random countries or states crashing while
they visited the city we lived in. In terms of
a temporary roommate. He was pretty terrible, but in normal
ways MESSI played music too loud, too late at night,
but he never actually seemed strange. It wasn't until the
two weeks was up and he had left that we
got suspicious. At the time, we've been talking about where

(41:28):
she and I were going to live once our lease
was up. He would often be around when we were
talking about it, and somehow misunderstood and thought we would
all live together. Her boyfriend ended up kicking him out
for us. Soon after that, she started to receive texts
saying she should be with him instead of with her boyfriend.
He also texted me things like hey, what's up, which
I would ignore. It progressively got weirder. First he accused

(41:50):
me of not being his friend, and he kept declaring
his love for her. Then he started to say he
wanted to be with me and I should date him.
We both received threats of rape and violence, although hers
were far worse than mine. Finally, we went to the
police station and told the officer what was going on
and that we wanted to file a restraining order. He
asked if either of us were romantically involved with him,
and we said no, and I could tell he didn't

(42:11):
believe us. He then informed us the guy would have
had to actually come on our property and physically assault
us to file a police report, but we could actually
go to the courthouse and file a restraining order. But
without a police report, it costs three dollars to file one.
So we never did and we did eventually move. And
new phones make it really easy to block people, so

(42:32):
it's worked out. Every time he changes his number, though
I do get a call or text from him, but
I just block it. My father, the retired cops, said
that if we had asked for the officer's badge number
or to talk to his superior officer and showed him
the text and tell him it was a threat of
bodily harm, which is illegal, we could have gotten it filed.
So I thought that might be good information for your listeners,
and it is catrent and so thank you so much

(42:54):
for writing in. We appreciate it, and thanks to everybody
who's written into us. Mom Stuff at house to works
dot Com is our email address and for links to
all of our social media as well as all of
our blogs, videos, and podcast with this one, head on
over to stuff Mom never Told You dot com, and
be sure to check out Sarah Mark and Papaganda over

(43:15):
at bitch media dot org as well for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is It How Stuff
Works dot com