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The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
The Five Marks of Clintonian Science Fiction

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RAHfanboy
11/08/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
Just a side note. The general and pervasive cynicism in America caught flame with the Kennedy assassination and ensuing cover-up. I fear it will always be with us.
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rebrad
11/08/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
I think you need to look at an earlier era. Obama seems more Carteresque than Clinton like.
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RAHfanboy
11/08/08

@rebrad: VERY Carteresque. So many Obama voters don't remember the "Misery Index." I guessing it's never mentioned in the government school History classes.
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Shai_Hulud
11/08/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
Don't forget the music was better in the 90s, too. There was just more unique, vibrant creativity going on--as opposed to the emo-fied blandness of the Bush years.
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Meirelle
11/09/08

@Shai_Hulud: It depends. Pop was definitely better in the '90s. Rock... eh...
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bluewyvern
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
Very nice article -- longer and more detailed than I was expecting, too. It is interesting how the tone of science fiction shifts with the zeitgeist. A few remarks.

1. So, in the example you've given -- Gillian Anderson represents sunniness and light, but her pants are the dark underside?

2. I see now why Clinton could never have defeated Obama in the primaries. Sisko has to come before Janeway.

3. And does that make Condoleeza Rice the Communications Officer?

4. We'll we see a cyberpunk comeback, or more shows and movies about virtual reality, now that the technocrats are back in charge? Maybe so, but just please don't let William Gibson write any of it. His two cyberpunk episodes of the X-Files made me want to tear my cerebrum out through my nostrils.

5. Nice X-Files pic. There must be a shortage of X-Files screencaps on the internet...that was one of the only ones I could find in 1999 when I was designing an X-Files VHS box for my graphic design class. Hey, did you have to correct the color balance on yours, too? Way too much yellow, am I right? Good times.

6. Hmm. Now I'm going to have to look into Picket Fences. I remember my mother watched it, back in the day, but I didn't pay it any mind -- I thought it was a straight-up small-town drama. Didn't know there was any weirdness involved. Now I think I know why she watched it.
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RAHfanboy
11/08/08

@bluewyvern: Technocrat? Ha! That reminds me of a joke...

Many years ago there was a fledgling political party called the Technocrats, and they were polling the population to see if they were making any inroads.

One day one of their surveyors knocked on the door of an Italian immigrant family and the wife answers the door. "Excuse me, Madam," said the surveyor," are you and your husband Tecnocrats?"

The woman looked a bit puzzled, turned around and yelled up the stairs to her husband, "Hey Tony, you Technocrat?"

"No," Tony yelled back, "I'm a shave!"
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Mark 2000
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
Also remember the first Star Trek of the 21st Century: Enterprise. It featured a return to white machismo and reactionism. Scott Bakula even looks a little bit like W. Bush. So there is definitely an effect.
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geniusscientist
11/07/08

@Mark 2000: And Trip sounds exactly like him. Which was unfortunate, as he was the most likable character.
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Sproing
11/07/08

@geniusscientist: Hell with Brolin, that dude should've had the lead in W. I had him pegged to play GWB in a telefilm someday. Hasn't happened yet.
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lightninglouie
11/08/08

@Mark 2000: "Way to kill off the franchise, Bakula!"
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Meirelle
11/09/08

@geniusscientist: I had fantasies about Trip slamming me up against the bulkhead and having mad, passionate sex with me. Yes, he was the most likable character indeed.
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lightninglouie
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
I dunno about the cities. More and more affluent young people have been moving into urban areas and raising their families there. I suspect the dilapidated McMansions of post-recession Slumburbia and the strip mall detritus of the exurban hinterlands may become the new landscape of postmodern dread.
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MonkeyT
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
You argue as if these things were the by-product of the Clinton years, but most of them were actually conceived / dreamed up during the Reagan era (I think it's appropriate to include the first Bush presidency as Reagan era). THAT was the birth of the made-for-TV, politically correct, "We're all friends" behavior which we all suspected included an "as long as you act like I do" clause.

The cynicism was a Reagan era by-product, the confidence to bring it out in the open and play with it was a Clinton era side-effect. (Note that Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect talk show was also launched in 1993) The cynicism was seeded and well-earned long before the Clintons came along, and, as it turned out, it has served us pretty well since.
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Charlie Jane Anders
11/07/08

@MonkeyT: No, it's totally true that most of that stuff was conceived during the Daddy BUsh years. But it became popular in the Clinton era, and it was shaped by the same cultural forces that made Clinton president in the first place. Political change and pop culture both have gestation periods.
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lightninglouie
11/07/08

@MonkeyT: Funny, I always thought of X-Files as a throwback to the Nixon era.
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AmishJohn
11/07/08

@MonkeyT: Standard political procedure: Take credit for anything good, blame all the bad on your rival.
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RAHfanboy
11/08/08

@AmishJohn: It's worked quite well for the Democrats. Maybe the Republicans should try it as well.
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happysquid
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
I'm looking forward to an X-files 3 movie...where the picture on the FBI office wall can be Obama's. Not George W.'s.

I think the X-files deserves to span 3 presidential terms!
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cowboy_k
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
...about a young girl who receives a copy of the eponymous book The Diamond Age...

The book that Nell receives is called "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer", not "The Diamond Age". The novel itself is "The Diamond Age, or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer".
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Charlie Jane Anders
11/07/08

@cowboy_k: Whoops yeah, let me fix that.
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diverguy
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
Mmmmmm Gillian Anderson...

sorry.. I'll be back after I clean up...
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OW-Holmes:Bringer of Fear
11/08/08

@diverguy: Seriously. I have now idea how wet Gilian Anderson has anything to do with the article but that picture is too epic to pass up.
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RAHfanboy
11/08/08

@diverguy: Did you see the ghost?
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Sproing
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
I might argue that SF is an inherently cynical genre, since it so often deals with disruptive forces that either infiltrate the existing culture, or attack it in broad daylight. Dread is an element that pervades the form, whether society is tilting left or right at that particular time.
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Rasselas
11/07/08

In reply to The Return Of Clinton Futurism?
Wasn't Gibson's "Bridge" trilogy written during the Clinton years and set during the first decade of the 21st century?
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