![]() Snowpiercer does more than that, though, it gives us the present-day realization of what capitalism is today. Most indispensably, Snowpiercer especially does that, draw attention to “the struggle between classes,” singular in mainstream cinema these days. As Marxist scholar Fredric Jameson has suggested, we need an aesthetic that “reinvent(s)…possibilities of cognition and perception that allow social phenomena once again to become transparent, as moments of the struggle between classes” (212 Afterword in Aesthetics and Politics). That is Bong’s core focus, giving us an allegory for capitalism. In short, Snowpiercer does that, “bring into focus…an imperialist capitalist modernity and its world system.” Director Joon-ho Bong has explicitly stated as much suggesting that if “humans are doomed to wreck our own habitat…that it’s not humans per se, but capitalism that’s destroying the environment”. I think no film realizes all the above more so than the remarkable Snowpiercer. (14 Shockwaves of Possibility: Essays on Science Fiction, Globalization, and Utopia) One of the fundamental and less commented upon lessons of Suvin’s work is that, from its emergence in the late nineteenth century, science fiction represents a significant global modernist practice, its estranging visions of other cognitive worlds providing a way of bringing into focus the dramatic transformations and conflicts that define the experiences of an imperialist capitalist modernity and its world system. Wegner also posits a connected theory to the above, how science fiction can teach us something about our present globalized capitalist world order: (Spoiler alert! I assume you have seen these films.) Snowpiercer (2014, Joon-ho Bong) In the Photo: Curtis sucked back into the downward spiral of capitalism. In what follows, I will look at what I consider the most important 21 st Century progressive science fiction films, films that exemplify these ideas, how these films “estrange” us from our own reality, thereby giving present day issues more accentuation, indeed, bringing clarity to the root causes of our most pressing issues, and, most importantly, open up alternative ways of being and alternative historical directions. ![]() (His italics, 230-231 Shockwaves of Possibility: Essays on Science Fiction, Globalization, and Utopia) It is precisely these lessons that make science fiction…so threatening to the reigning concern. Science fiction encourages us…to glimpse once more the infinite possibilities that surround us, and to recall our immense collective capacity to make new worlds. Science fiction is also one of what I name…the evental genres, teaching its audience new ways of thinking about history, and brushing against the postmodern and neo-liberal commonplaces that drill into us the myths that history is finished, fundamental change is impossible, and there are no alternatives. Science fiction in this affirming vision is understood to be a form, not unlike the works of Homer or Shakespeare, that delights and teaches, conveying through popular narrative forms the most significant truths.
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