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As much as it pains me to say it, Avatar is indeed science fiction.
It was trying pretty hard not to be science fiction, though. Its characters, you may have noticed, were pretty weak. And its plot definitely didn't need to be science fiction to get its message across; numerous people have noted that the plots of Avatar, Dances with Wolves, and Disney's Pocahontas seem to have been created by filling in the same Mad Libs sheet.
So what is it that makes Avatar science fiction? In short, the "avatar" concept. By including this concept in the film, James Cameron created a reality that asks the question "What makes us human?" And it asks the question really, really well.
No. In my opinion, Superman isn't science fiction.
"Why not?" you may ask. "Superman's an alien being! He's from another planet! He visits an Earth that is clearly analogous to our own!" Yes, all valid points. But none of these things make the film true science fiction.
First, examine the setting in which Superman takes place. It is indeed an Earth very much like our own; it's got a Grand Canyon and a San Andreas Fault and a United States and all sorts of other Earth-y things. But it's also got a Metropolis. Not only is "Metropolis" not an actual city, but it's a city that was designed specifically to be an allegory for every major... metropolis in the United States (hence the name; they may as well have called it "Big City"). Furthermore, while Metropolis is located somewhere in the US, it isn't explicitly or implicitly located in any particular state. Metropolis is not an alternate reality, rather it's a mere metaphor for reality, lacking the depth and specificity of a fully fleshed-out world. The characters follow this same pattern: Lex Luthor is a villain, Superman is a hero, Lois Lane is a love interest. These are not actual people populating an actual reality; these are symbols of good and evil populating a fable.
Science fiction is a topic about which I am very, very passionate. I will, if you allow me, talk for hours and hours about science fiction. I'll expound on dystopia and wax lyrical on post-apocalypse. And I'll do all this for a genre that, really, lacks definition.
I'm sure that you have some idea of what science fiction is--or, at least, what the phrase means to you. But bookstores and genre literary magazines (not to mention the ridiculous SyFy cable channel) tend to lump science fiction and fantasy together in a larger "speculative fiction" category. I find this abhorrent. To me, science fiction and fantasy represent completely different concepts. On opposite ends of the spectrum. Diametrically opposed. And for whatever reason, I can't find anyone else who gets this worked up about it.
So I've started this blog. Every week, I'm planning on coming back and addressing a work of TV, film, or literature, then explaining why it deserves or does not deserve to be called science fiction. Hopefully, someone out there in the vast internet collective will be as passionate about this topic as I am.
