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The real reason behind this trope. "I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since (publishing 'Player Piano'), and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."
—Kurt Vonnegut
So, you're watching television and come across a show that's set on another planet and has aliens, spaceships and time travel in it. Clearly a work of science fiction, you would assume. However, you also happen to come across an interview with the creator, who is taking pains to stress that his or her work is absolutely not science fiction and anyone who thinks it can be described as such is misguided or just plain wrong. But it has aliens, spaceships and time travel in it; how can it not be science fiction?
Because of the Sci Fi Ghetto. The Sci-Fi Ghetto reflects a long-existent stigma which has been applied towards the science fiction genre, which frequently leads creators and marketers to shun "Sci-Fi", "Science Fiction" or "Fantasy" labels as much as possible, even on shows that have clear science fiction or fantastical elements. It also reflects the tendency for critics, academics and other creators to near-automatically dismiss or disdain works which cannot escape this label being applied, regardless of relative quality or merit.
A lot of this has to do with snobbery. A (somewhat contradictory) perception about science fiction in general is that it is somehow both too complex for mainstream audiences with 'simple' tastes and and yet simultaneously not literary and sophisticated enough for critics and academics.
For a long time, science fiction as a genre has been seen as one of two things. In the first place, as a lightweight, formulaic rubbish churned out by talentless hacks who never met a cliche they didn't enthusiastically regurgitate. Bear in mind that, considering the most popular and visible science fiction were things like Buck Rogers, Lost In Space, and the first Battlestar Galactica, this wasn't necessarily an unreasonable thing to conclude. On the other end of the spectrum, science fiction is often seen as aloof, dreary Doorstoppers more concerned with tediously bashing an overly-complicated idea into the ground than presenting a plot or characters that might interest or engage the audience, written by people who apparently have multiple doctorates in the hard sciences yet have somehow managed to never actually interact with another human before.
Unfortunate stereotypes of science fiction fans as a bunch of weird dorky obsessives hasn't helped this impression. However, whilst science fiction has traditionally focussed on Big Ideas more than story (to the extent that even classics of the genre can sometimes be lacking in literary merit in favor of intricately exploring a hypothesis), this approach unfairly prejudges a massive, wide-ranging genre by it's worst extremes.
Fantasy fiction suffers from this as well to a similar extent due to the difficulty of defining the line between Science Fiction And Fantasy. In fact, fantasy fiction often has it even worse, as it is speculative in a completely implausible way (science fiction is just mostly implausible) This possibly resulted from the craving for and excitement over science in the 1950s: science fiction, for its 'faults', was seen as at least a babysteps way to teach kids actual science so they could grow up and become scientists or engineers, whilst fantasy was associated more with the fairy tales of youth, and therefore were thought to be child-like (the supposed "childishness" of fairy tales themselves is another issue entirely). This is probably why a section in a bookstore containing science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative fiction genres will almost always be referred to as the science fiction section. The reverse of this also crops up, but it's somewhat rarer.
Some embrace the Ghetto eagerly. Some writers have few pretensions to attaining the True Art status their peers yearn for, and gleefully embrace the whole pulp pot-boiler aspect of the genre, or the chance to expand on a complex idea to a smaller audience they know will get it. Similarly, some fans eagerly embrace the ghetto and will prefer or, in extreme cases, only engage with media from within it, often dismissing those who engage with media outside of it as morons lacking imagination. This attitude, of course, tends to overlook the fact that it also takes energy, creativity and imagination to construct a fine non-Science Fiction work.
This is slowly changing, however; more and more creators and critics who aren't ashamed to acknowledge an interest and inspiration from science fiction and fantasy are producing and discussing more works of science fiction and fantasy which are gaining both mainstream accessibility and critical acclaim. The fact that the most popular and best-selling children's book series and a large number of the highest-grossing and / or critically-acclaimed films in recent history have been either science fiction and / or fantasy has also helped — although of course, this then leads some fans, creators and critics to focus on how popular these entities are when criticizing them instead.
For the sake of overall cohesion, terms like " Magic Realism" and " Speculative Fiction" have cropped to help distinguish the extent and degree of science fiction or fantasy influence in a work. Though some will complain that these are simply arbitrary distinctions having to do with stuffy ivory tower academics looking for excuses not to pay attention to "science fiction", a brief gander at those pages should indicate them as being clear subgenres. The terms themselves, however, can be misused for this purpose, usually by people who don't fully understand the distinctions between them. Graphic novels, by contrast, are a largely artificial term designed to make people feel less ridiculous when describing the artistic merit of Comic Books.
Compare Animation Age Ghetto, Not Wearing Tights, Not Using The Zed Word, Public Medium Ignorance, and Dead Horse Genre. Personal anecdotes go in Troper Tales.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Comic books form their own little sub-ghetto, often being treated as being less 'worthy' than literary science fiction and movie / TV science fiction (which are themselves often considered lesser than literary science fiction).
- This seems to be improving over recent years, with 'graphic novels' becoming an increasingly recognised and valid artform in mainstream criticism; it's still significant, that many of the highly praised graphic novels of late still have little to do with science fiction, and absolutely do not have anything to do with superheroes.
- Watchmen won a Hugo award and was declared one of the 100 best English-language novels by Time. When people read it, they are often stunned by its depth...when they read it. When they don't, they say, "Oh, if it's so good, why isn't it as popular as Batman and Superman comics?"
- Which, of course, ignores the fact that Watchmen is one of the best selling Graphic Novels of all time.
- ...suggesting that the answer is "because it's only one volume."
- The Hugo awards have a category for "Other Media" precisely to avoid this sort of thing. Or, if you are feeling cynical, to avoid having to give the "best novel" award to a comic book (again). However, the Hugo for best novel requires a certain word count, which a comic may not get. Since they don't fit as novellas or short stories, having another place for them avoids headaches, and gives them a chance to win something.
- Although the claim that comics are artistically "inferior" to prose is just ignorant snobbery, it is legitimate to argue that comics should not be judged in the same category as prose, because comics are a fundamentally different medium. Judging a graphic novel alongside a prose novel is like comparing the prose novel to a play, or to a poem, or to a movie, or even to a painting. They are self-evidently different types of storytelling. Calling them the same thing probably does aid comics in gaining the prestige that prose is afforded in our society, but it makes it difficult for a contest's judges to objectively compare the merits of two such different things.
- This is the argument that led the World Fantasy Awards to change the rules regarding qualification for the award after an issue of The Sandman (specifically Sandman #19, entitled A Midsummer Night's Dream) won in 1991. According to the revamped rules, comic books cannot even be entered for the award, much less actually win it again. Comic books can now only be considered for the Special Award Professional category.
- As mentioned in passing above, there's now a bit of a ghetto where the only "serious" or "artistic" comics are ones that have no science fictional or fantastical elements to them.
- Very recently there a was a controversy among the Spanish-speaking as some Spanish guy made an article slamming comics as not art, complaining that a prize was open for them by the "Ministerio de Cultura" of Spain. He even took it against Pixar animation calling it "chorrada de plastilina/plasticine shit". While is common for many people to talk like that, this guy is supposed to be a "serious" writer and filmmaker and the article in question was published in a important newspaper. So as you can imagine, all hell broke loose. Here have a link, in Spanish though http://www.tiempodehoy.com/default.asp?idpublicacio_PK=50&idioma=CAS_PK=58378&idseccio_PK=612&h=
Film
- Some fans of The Matrix refused to call it sci-fi, as apparently "It's not sci-fi unless it's in space/the future". Even though it was explicitly set in the aftermath of a Robot War. Not to mention that it was set in the future; the sequences apparently taking place in The Present Day are illusionary, a virtual reality transmitted directly to the brains of artificially-grown cyborgs.
- Some people will insist that Star Wars is fantasy masquerading as sci-fi due to the fact that it does not attempt to explain its technobabble (which, of course, all true sci-fi must do. While Star Wars does follow many of the classic heroic tropes of mythological fantasy (as described in Joseph Campbell's "Hero of a Thousand Faces"), claiming that it is "only" fantasy ignores the fact that Star Wars is no softer than most early sci-fi and the fact that something can be both.
- Hell, David Brin had a full-blown, foaming-at-the-mouth essay or rant, depending on your point of view and followed it up with an entire book called Star Wars on Trial with him on "prosecution." Matt Stover headed up the "defense." Charges levelled against the GFFA were that it was "mere" fantasy masqurading for SF, that it "dumbed down the genre," that GFFA was inherently sexist, feudal, and promoted ubermenchen and "midichlorine mutants" over the values that sci-fi was "supposed" to champion, etc. This Troper thought the whole thing was worthy of a good laugh, especially after playing Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect back to back.
- Some fans and critics go the other way and argue that use of classic heroic tropes rises Star Wars to mythological fantasy like the works of J.R.R Tolkien or Shakespeare rather than mere "sci-fi".
- Possibly validated by The Truman Show. It doesn't have robots and spaceships; all it does have is: the story of a person's life, and then the larger community around him, being transformed by a new piece of technology (specifically, the ability to create Reality TV); a deeply-relevant moral commentary on whether we should employ that technology just because we can; and a Hugo Award, which is science fiction's Oscar. But of course, those things don't mean anything. It's the robots and spaceships that are the real earmarks of science-fiction.
- Aside from the complexity of The Masquerade, I didn't see anything in there that was particularly science-fiction-y.
- That "complexity" makes it science fiction. To my knowledge, no one has ever made a TV show quite like the one in the movie. Truman unknowingly lives his life in an artificial world constructed entirely for him, is surrounded by actors, and watched by the viewers at home. Provide a title card announcing that it takes place in AD 2019 and it would automatically be science fiction.
- The Jane Austen Book Club has a sequence in which a female character (and member of the titular reading group) disparages sci-fi because it's not "real", to which a male character responds by pointing out that the same is true of Ms. Austen's books; technically, neither category of characters and events exist. Hilarity Ensued as the female character tried to defend her own prejudices and the male character patiently and thoroughly illustrated the logical flaws in her statements. As the basis of the entire argument was based on emotions, however, it ended poorly.
- Note that the author of the original novel, Karen Joy Fowler, is herself a science fiction writer.
- In the commentary on the film version of The Lord Of The Rings, actor Sean Astin, who played Samwise, explains that LotR doesn't seem like fantasy to him because of its level of verisimilitude and the amount of effort that J. R. R. Tolkien put into developing the setting and its history. This, of course, implies that fantasy cannot have those elements. This comment is especially odd considering world building is a major discipline in fantasy, sometimes even to the extend of sacrificing characters and plot.
- Also odd considering this is Lord Of The F'n Rings we're talking about here, the book that most modern fantasy tropes are inspired by, that even the jockiest jock knows as an epic fantasy tome. Did Mr. Astin leave his brain at home that day?
- Or he was simply referring to fact that such amount of detail makes settings seem like an actual world, not a fictional one. Which was JRRT's goal: create ancient mythology for England which lacked it ... something that his map drawing, trope following successors do not understand. It seems that Mr. Astin is just getting bad side of Fan Dumb.
- Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind had critics trying to explain how it "wasn't sci-fi" despite the plot being driven by a company with a technological way of erasing people's memories. The main argument put forward for it not being sci-fi was, of course, "We like it, so it can't be sci-fi".
- An interview with Alfonso Cuaron in a British newspaper around the time Children Of Men came out where Cuaron said he was wary of calling the film "sci-fi" because his vision of sci-fi was rooted more in '70s Doctor Who special effects.
- Complaints about the latest Indiana Jones film often revolve around people being unable to accept aliens in Indy, despite them not being any less plausible than the radioactive Ark of the Covenant or the frigging Holy Grail in the previous films. This is because religion-induced magic and SF-induced magic are worlds apart by fandom and by shelving. It could be more about the inconsistency. For many people, the presence of the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail are definitive proof that the Abrahamic God actually exists in Indy's universe. It is therefore presumed that interdimensional aliens would not be allowed to turn up and start teaching primitive humans advanced knowledge, less still to induce said primitives to worship them. Of course, you could equally argue that a) advanced aliens are a means to an end for God, or b) the Ark and the Grail are in fact technological artifacts crafted by said aliens, not divine artefacts.
- Also consider that the second movie validates Hinduism. So it's really more of a Fantasy Kitchen Sink.
- The case for the different elements in the stories goes back to the time frames in the movies. The first three movies were during the pulp age of comics and the last was around the time that Sci-Fi started to take off. If Indy lives and fights in the 80's I have no doubt that he would be in a gritty urban shoot out with drug dealers.
- Also, it may just be that many people thought it was very, very lame and not at all well done. Who could forget that immortal line, "Knowledge was their treasure; their treasure was knowledge." Said twice and with extra emphasis, just in case you weren't paying attention.
- Although there are other that argue that said emphasis was put on the line because SomeAnvilsNeededToBeDropped. These are works of fiction and the real thing is far more exciting.
- The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button was nominated for several Academy Awards and Golden Globes, including Best Drama and Best Actor. It's about a man who is born old and ages in reverse. That sound like Magic Realism to you?
- Godzilla movies tend to be forked straight into the Sci-Fi ghetto, for reasons that are very well deserved, though the original film is a scary and serious movie compared to its sequels.
- Donnie Darko is almost always interpreted as an allegorical Mind Screw rather than a sci-fi film about a Stable Time Loop.
- Despite the fact that Richard Kelly has repeatedly said it is a comic book movie, and Donnie is a super hero, and the Directors Cut drives this home. Also, not to nitpick, but the Time Loop is not stable. That's why Donnie has to fix it.
- But he does fix it, so is stable, so he was always going to fix it, so it always was stable. Time travel's funny like that.
- For some reason, action movies seem particularly prone to ignoring the ghetto. The Matrix, above, is a partial example, but a more illustrative one would be The Terminator, which is referred to as action far more often than sci-fi, and certainly called both more than action sci-fi. Then again, which is more important to the series: the fact that it has time-travelling robots, or the coolness of the fights those robots get into?
- Even complements can do this at times. Roger Ebert's review of The Dark Knight starts off by declaring
"Batman" isn't a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy.[..]This film, and to a lesser degree " Iron Man," redefine the possibilities of the "comic-book movie."
- Batman gets it the worst of any comic book related story, probably because most people associate him with the silly, campy Adam West show (or, to a lesser extent, the ridiculously over-serious Dark Age that one of his most-acclaimed stories originated), despite the fact that there were plenty of Batman stories that had as much merit as any other superhero story
Literature
- Sure, the Dune series is pretty much four books of mythology, religion and court intrigue with well-researched scientific speculation, deep philosophical tracts, and excellent characterization thrown in followed by two books of intrigue, scientific speculation, philosophical tracts, and somewhat-less-than-comprehensible characterization, but it's got space-ships and lasers and giant worms and drugs, so we'll shelve it next to the pulpy Star Trek Expanded Universe novels.
- Then again, the space-ships and lasers and giant worms are a pretty good case for considering them science fiction; the whole point of this trope is that mythology, religion, intrigue, philosophy, speculation and complex charactization don't stop a work from being science fiction just because it makes it weightier than Star Trek.
- Terry Goodkind will tell anyone who asks that he doesn't write fantasy, no sir. He writes deep novels of philosophical reach. Which, of course, no fantasy novel can be.
- There is a special reason for this: Ayn Rand, the sci-fi author that he writes his Author Tract in support of, loathed fantasy. Seriously, she hated it with the boiling intensity of a thousand suns. Therefore, since Goodkind knows that he is of course writing 'correct' books, they cannot possibly be fantasy in his mind.
- Ayn Rand herself is a good example of this trope. Her books are about philosophy! The sci-fi elements in Atlas Shrugged and Anthem are just there to support the plot! Don't you dare lump them into the sci-fi section...
- Terry Pratchett, however, is a fantasy writer and also has stuff to say. He's quoted as saying, however, that he doesn't like the term "Magic Realism", because it basically means "a polite way of saying you write fantasy and is more acceptable to certain people." He has also commented that all of his books are considered fantasy and nothing else, regardless of the other genres he dabbles in.
- He's also said that people from his publishers have told him that they've gone into bookshops and asked why his hugely successful books aren't being displayed in more prominent places. The answers amounted to "We don't like the fantasy to get out."
- This is an author who has been compared to Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain by serious critics.
- Margaret Atwood's near-future (at the time of writing) The Handmaid's Tale was obviously social/cultural science-fiction (and even won a prestigious scifi award), but she refused to admit that. Another Atwood novel, Oryx and Crake, is even more blatantly science fictional. Basically, genetic engineering has run amok and destroyed everybody except the protagonist. Yet, in creative writing departments of some universities, Atwood is a hero and Arthur C. Clarke is a hack, despite the fact that most likely none of the people dumping on him have even read his work. Go figure.
- Margaret Atwood also made the infamous comment that Oryx And Crake wasn't science fiction because SF is about "talking squid in space", which went memetic in the SF community. Later, her benchmark became "talking cabbages" and "Planet X".
- By the same token, there's a display in the window of King's College, London of graduates who have gone on to greater things. Susan Hill, Hanif Kureishi and Thomas Hardy are all "writers" or "novelists." Sir Arthur C. Clarke is specifically identified as a "sci-fi writer."
- Kurt Vonnegut would sometimes state he didn't write science fiction. The time-travelling alien-abducted protagonist of Slaughterhouse Five would probably disagree. That being said, his reasoning is right there at the top of the page.
- At the same time it should be mentioned that Vonnegut alluded the Sci-fi Ghetto repeatedly through his recurring character Kilgore Trout, the reported author of over 73 different novels (all published by different, now defunct publishers). In one book, a drunk Eliot Rosewater crashed a convention of Science Fiction writers to tell them that while they couldn't write, they were the only ones talking about the issues that matter.
- According to an article in the Sunday Times Online, Salman Rushdie's first novel, Grimus, was about to win an award for best SF novel of the year, but the publishers withdrew at the last minute. They didn't want Rushdie painted as an SF writer. If it happens to H.G. Wells, you'll know it's time to start the revolution.
- Works of science fiction are often not considered to be science fiction if the writer is already well-known and respected for mainstream fiction. All too often, these writers don't themselves read SF, and thus don't understand the basic conventions of the genre and rarely have a sense for what's been done to death; while they may end up writing good literary fiction—er, li-fi—they usually commit bad science fiction.
- As an excellent example: The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
- This even applies to writers who work on obviously science-fictional projects. It's a common criticism levelled against Russell T Davies, for instance—though Your Mileage May Vary on that.
- Never Let Me Go is another novel that has at least been accused of this.
- This is made hilarious when you realize it has the same plot as Clonus
- Interestingly, while Michael Crichton's works are usually under general fiction (despite all of them being somewhat sci-fi), his novel Timeline, for some reason, has been seen on the Fantasy shelf all alone. Maybe because it involves modern-day people traveling back in time to what's actually a very real and meticulously-researched Middle Ages past. Apparently, if it has a knight in it, it must be fantasy.
- Works by known science fiction authors tend to be classified as science fiction even when they're not. Isaac Asimov was particularly subject to that, given the breadth of his writing. An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule was in a local bookstore's science fiction section.
- Likewise, Andre Norton has written historical novels, spy stories, and gothic romances. Guess where you'll find them (if you find them) in a bookstore or library (granted, at least two of the romances have fantasy elements).
- Inverted by a local public library, which had Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South (a novel about time travellers changing the outcome of the US Civil War) classed as "Historical Fiction". The cover shows Robert E. Lee holding an AK-47.
- Apparently, when you get your Literature License you get a coupon entitling you to one free SF novel — preferably a dystopia or postapocalypse. Once the coupon is used, you're in danger of becoming a "genre writer" if you produce another one.
- Inverted by Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. In spite of it being a mixture of historical and contemporary fiction, he insisted it be published as science fiction, on the grounds that science fiction is not so much a genre as an attitude. Then William Gibson followed suit with Pattern Recognition, dubbing it "A tale of Future Present" and possibly giving a name to the movement, if it ever catches on. Which is ironic, given that William Gibson hates naming subgenres.
- The attitude is important, but the fact that almost half the book is set in fictional cultures or countries might also be important. The modern plot wouldn't have happened without the Sultan of Kinakuta's e-business policies, and the island of Qwghlm was too perfect a setting for the WWII cryptology plot to actually exist in the real world.
- The author Jonathan Lethem wrote four books that were usually put in the science fiction section of bookstores. Then he wrote a realistic fiction work called Motherless Brooklyn that met with great critical acclaim and won several awards. His books from before are now in the literature section. Nothing changed, besides the fact he wrote something that certainly wasn't SF.
- The Time Travelers Wife is likely the best science-fiction novel in years. Don't even get us started on how you won't find the book in the Science Fiction section; it's lost and alone in the amongst the mainstream literature. Never mind that the Science Fiction aspect of the storyline is right in the blasted title. It also stuffed in the "Romance" section, essentially trading one ghetto for another.
- John Ringo's works, in contrast, usually celebrate the fact they are in a SF Ghetto. He developed a good enough rapport with his publisher that, when he started writing special forces novels less Sci-Fi than Tom Clancy's, his spy novels are still found in that section.
- A number of recent authors, including Cory Doctorow, have commented on the advantages of targeting science fiction toward the Young Adult market. It's a rather broader ghetto: adult science fiction gets hidden away in the "Sci-Fi/Fantasy" section of the bookstore. Write a story about aliens and zombies aimed at teenagers, and it'll get shelved in "Young Adult Fiction", right next to The Outsiders and Gossip Girl. If you don't see why this is a big deal, ask J. K. Rowling.
- Inversion: The science-fiction trappings of I Am Legend often get exaggerated to the point of drowning its horror nature - two out of three movie adaptations calling the monsters mutants instead of vampires, and some copies of the book list it as science fiction rather than horror.
- José Saramago's books have included a story of the Iberian peninsular detaching from Europe, a mysterious blindness descending over a nation, a man meeting his doppelgänger, and a nom-de-plume character outliving his author by six months and exploring Portugal. But they aren't Sci Fi - he's won a Nobel prize.
- Except, of course, by him writing magical realism similar to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, rather than science fiction.
- An early Soviet edition of the Lord of the Rings which was heavily revamped to look like Sci Fi (obvious cause: publication of some "suspicious" "fantasy" was unthinkable, whereas Sci Fi had some respect). Just one quote: "It's not a Ring, it's some kind of gadget".
- An essay in a book called British Comedy Greats in which the author stubbornly and repeatedly insists that The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy is not really science fiction. Because it's satirical, apparently. It is likely that the author was trying to make the distinction between genre as driving force of plot and genre as setting.
- A valid possibility, but at the same time the author was also pretty quick to make rather snide comments about the "dweebs and spods and anoraks" who enjoy science fiction in general.
- Stephen King writes books involving magic, godlike beings, and aliens. He is best known as a "horror writer". While this is technically true, one notes that his most openly fantasy work, The Dark Tower, is also the one least known by the general public.
- JK Rowling is infamous for saying that she didn't realize that she was writing a fantasy story until she finished the first Harry Potter book. Her fellow British fantasy author Terry Pratchett's response "I would have thought that the wizards, unicorns, and magic might have given you a clue." This trope is presumably why the series has not won any notable awards. After all, you'd think a book series which gets lots of children reading and turns into a bloodbath towards the end would win every children's book award on the planet. It probably would if it weren't a fantasy series.
- The series did win a few awards for Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets when they were first released in the UK, while the series was still gathering a following. After Prisoner of Azkaban was published, JKR publicly announced that she didn't want Harry Potter nominated for any book awards because she wanted to let other children's authors get exposure for their work.
- Harlan Ellison is willing to admit that he writes speculative fiction, but hates the term "sci-fi" to the point that he's walked out of interviews on live TV. In Ellison's defense, he has no problem with the phrases "Science Fiction" or "Fantasy", he just hates the specific term "sci fi", because (as he has explained in a couple of rants) "it's dismissive".
- He once told a young writer Paolo Bacigalupi to get out of the genre while he could. Take that as you will.
- A lot of science fiction writers (and fans) hate the term "sci-fi". they much prefer the abbreviation "SF".
- They mean different things. "Sci-fi" is Fan Speak for melodrama, BEMs, ray guns, dogfights in space, sexy aliens with three breasts, etc.; what used to be called "pulp". The output of Badger Books is a good example. "SF" aims higher — mind-expanding ideas, the fate of space empires, the bleakness of the universe, humans prospering using rational thought and so on; think Asimov, Greg Bear or Stephen Baxter. Thus, when you called I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream "sci-fi", you were putting him on the same level as L. Ron Hubbard or Robert Lionel Fanthorpe. Note that neither style precludes nor guarantees a good story; that's down to the skill of the writer. Nor are the boundaries clear-cut,especially in the modern age. A third term, "Skiffy", is used to describe Guilty Pleasures or stuff that's got a certain charm.
- This quote from the New York Times obituary of J.G. Ballard: "His fabulistic style led people to review his work as science fiction.... But that's like calling 'Brave New World' science fiction, or '1984'." So Yeah.
- *headdesk*.
- To add to that, this was a quote from his editor making this asinine statement. And it was the closing sentence of the obit.
- Orson Scott Card wrote a foreword to Enders Game, railing against the Sci Fi Ghetto. Well, that and the fact he was accused of failing psychology forever by people working with talented kids and less so by actual talented kids.
Live Action TV
- A TV critic who wanted to emphasize that just because the show was Battlestar Galactica doesn't mean the viewer shouldn't give it a chance.
- Interviews with people from recent series (for instance, The 4400 and Battlestar Galactica) insisted that their shows are "so much more than just a sci-fi show". Because apparently, science fiction doesn't involve relationships, politics, or takes on current issues.
- TV Guide justifed their admiration of Battlestar by insisting, "Oh, it isn't really science fiction!"
- To make matters worse, when the new Battlestar first came out as a mini-series, an interview with the creators repeatedly called it "a gripping drama set in science fiction, with all the sex and explosions fans of the genre have come to expect".
- To start the argument up again, on the subject of Caprica, Ron Moore explains that it's a "Family Drama" that just happens to be set on a different planet, as opposed to a "Space Drama" such as Battlestar. Remember, this is a series with a premise of "Guy builds a robot killing machine based on the brain of his dead daughter."
- Despite all the above, let's be fair. The show was called Battlestar Galactica.
- Notable in Battlestar Galactica though is the complete absence of science. It's not about whether it's realistic or not - Word Of God decreed early on that the sci-fi idea or exploring the universe rules should never be allowed to predominate over character drama.
- Ditto with Lost, which is still more explicit in its combination of bizarre sci-fi elements (the present) with "realistic" drama (the "past" and "future").
- Lost fits pretty much all the requirements for Magical Realism.
- Since its time-travel heavy Seasons 4 and 5, the creators have been more vocal about categorising Lost as sci-fi, saying: "You can go, "Oh, it's not a genre show, because I don't like genre shows, but I like 'Lost.' Therefore, 'Lost' is not a genre show." That's the logic they apply. Well, we've been writing a genre show from the word go. We're sorry that it's getting more genre." Note though that this hasn't always squared with what they've said before or with the show's marketing (where it's usually described as a straightforward drama).
- Also note the use of the word "genre" in place of the phrase "science fiction".
- That may be because it's still a little unclear whether what we're seeing is indeed science fiction or fantasy (though it's most probably both). Are the various phenomena really caused by scientific anomalies, or is there some sort of underlying magic/mysticism at work? "Genre" is a pretty fitting blanket descriptor.
- Sci-fi comedies have their own ghetto-within-a-ghetto: despite the success of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Red Dwarf, The BBC remain very cagey about sci-fi comedy — taking years to commission a new one in Hyperdrive... which then turned out to not be very good, giving them an excuse to stop doing sci-fi comedies at all. Even the revived Doctor Who is not immune to this, with its shunting back and forth in the time slots a possible sign that The Beeb still don't really trust it. Why would they? It's only the most popular show in Britain.
- Speaking of Doctor Who, although it's one of those properties about which it is practically impossible to somehow claim that it isn't science fiction (or science fantasy or what-have-you) — at least, not without completely losing all credibility — this didn't mean that the producers didn't give it their best shot; notice how in the run-up to the relaunch of the show and subsequent marketing, the producers were and have been careful to stress that the show is now more about relationships (and romantic relationships especially) than it previously was, with the whole 'adventures in time and space' which was primarily the central focus downplayed. Considering that the show prior to 2005 was regarded as a creaky, slightly irrelevant old relic and post-2005 is now a major media juggernaut seemingly beloved by all — most especially critics — something obviously worked.
- It's hard to say whether Joss Whedon and his works suffer from this stigma or not. Whilst on the one hand he receives a fair amount of academic and critical praise and support, on the other his works are also prone to Executive Meddling — such as irregular scheduling and abrupt cancellation or being kept in development hell — and are repeatedly and notably overlooked for awards. Time will tell whether his latest project, Dollhouse, will get to have its cake and eat it.
- Yes. There was a point when admitting to watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer required larding it with caveats ("but it's really good!") and being careful to whom one confided this information. It was sort of like admitting that you religiously watched Romper Room.
- Well, I'd say: Dollhouse had its cake. Then it ate it.
- Despite the fact that Northern Exposure contained heavy elements of fantasy (Prescient dreams? Check. Ghosts? Check. Aliens? Check. A man who could fly under his own power? Check.), people tend to look at you funny if you actually point out that it was one of the most successful fantasy programs in network television history. Why? Because there weren't any elves or wizards in it.
- Its spiritual predecessor, Twin Peaks, is also written off as Magic Realism despite its heavy supernatural overtones.
- Heroes, where writer Bryan Fuller insists on describing the show as a character drama with sci-fi elements. During seasons 2 and 3 when he was noticeably absent, the series turned towards more fantastic plot-oriented and comic book-inspired plot lines. This corresponded with huge ratings drops and universal critical panning, and upon returning to the show Fuller said that he "no longer recognized it."
- Nigel Kneale is possibly the poster-boy for this trope. Throughout his professional and working career, he frequently and vocally expressed a disdain for science fiction; however, most of his works were either outright science fiction or heavily relied on science fiction elements and tropes. Of particular note is the Quatermass series, which is widely credited with pretty much spearheading British television science fiction.
- In its early years, the Scifi Ghetto and the FOX network actually became connected in a lot of people's minds, probably because its debut schedule included Werewolf and its first non-sitcom hit was The X-Files. People described X-Files as "a FOX-style suspense program", in such a way that "FOX" equated to "with scifi/fantasy elements".
- Chris Carter has tried to distance his creation from sci-fi, stating the The X-Files "takes place in the realm of extreme possibility".
Webcomics
Video Games
- A rare videogame example; when learning the writing skill in The Sims 3, the sim in question will learn a different genre at each skill level (at level 0, they can only write fiction and non-fiction). At level 1, the sims learns to write science fiction. At level 2, they learn the "trashy" genre. That's right, according the The Sims 3, trashy novels are harder to write than science fiction.
- Well it is. I mean, have you ever tried to make yourself write in long metaphors and bad poems? Its harder than you think.
Real Life
- The 'SciFi Channel' is apparently changing its name to 'SyFy' because it "more clearly captures the mainstream appeal of the world's biggest entertainment category, and reflects the network's ongoing strategy to create programming that's more accessible and relatable to new audiences." Or because of drugs. It's hard to say.
- What's the difference between regular action violence and Sci Fi Action Violence? No clue, but if you pay attention to the reasons movies are rated the way they are, you'll notice that there apparently is one.
- Perhaps it has something to do with lasers, monsters, and aliens? Maybe that's somehow considered more scary than stuff blowing up and people getting killed the ordinary way? -shrug-
- No, see, "Sci-fi action violence" is considered less intense than the "regular" variety because SFAV can't actually happen in real life, and therefore contains no imitable acts that parents would have to worry about. Fantasy action-violence is even farther down the ladder. It all boils down to whether the acts performed in the movie / TV show would be a real danger if performed in Real Life.
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