Little green men

I came across an interesting article by Dominic Sandbrook in a history magazine recently, which was looking at science fiction’s interest not only with going out into space to explore, but with alien visitors coming to our world, either as explorers or invaders. When I was younger I loved science fiction, and it was my favourite genre… it doesn’t seem to intrigue me quite as much now, but the article I read was very interesting.

The article was making the point that behind the sci-fi novels, films and TV series, were concerns about perceived threats from terrestrial and actual sources. The article mentioned the following works:

1. Jules Verne’s novel – ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ may have been the inspiration for all science fiction work and film which followed
2. H.G. Wells’ novel – ‘The War of the Worlds’ has very obvious parallels to the real fear of invasion from other terrestrial countries
3. Karel Karel Čapek’s play – ‘R.U.R.’ – Karel Čapek invented the word robot – to mean forced labour, and echoed the past as well as the present fear of technology and the age of machines
4. Fritz Lang’s film – ‘Metropolis’ – although in some ways to our eyes it may seem dated beyond having any value, it does present a very dark picture of the future, and may even be described as prescient
5. Don Siegal’s film  – ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ maybe an exploration of Macartheyism, or the Soviets and fear of communism
6. BBC’s TV series- ‘Dr Who’; according to the article, it is fascinating ‘how faithfully it has echoed the cultural trends of the day’, including the fear of technology, feminism, green issues, political debate and even the Iraq War of the 2000s
7. Ursula K Le Guin’s novel – ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ explores gender issues and social values
8. George Lucas’ – ‘Star Wars’ portrays a fight between good and evil, and has aspects of what the article describes as ‘geopolitical parallels
9. William Gibson’s novel – ‘Necromancer’ – Gibson invented the word ‘cyberspace’ and his work seems to foreshadow the internet and virtual reality
10. Neill Blomkamp’s film – ‘District 9’, which explores issues of race, immigration, and native people’s rights through a story of interned aliens

http://www.historyextra.com/issue/december-2014

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01yqk7d/episodes/guide