Why Are So Many Sci-Fi Films Left-Wing?

IBD's Capital Hill ^ | 1/11/2009 | Ed Carson

[Slyscribe]

“Avatar” is wowing audiences with its groundbreaking 3-D technology (too bad the characters are one-dimensional). But in another way it’s ordinary: a science-fiction film that plays to leftist fantasies about capitalism and the military.

Yet many sci-fi fans are on the political right. So why are sci-fi films and TV shows typically liberal?

Hollywood films tend to be liberal, sure. But science fiction in particular lends itself to utopian visions that the world’s problems can be solved once and for all.

[Slyscribe]

Science fiction movies, as opposed to novels, must explain their futuristic worlds ASAP. In this context, socialism is very efficient: It takes hardly any time to simply assume that all decisions, political and economic, are in the hands of a unified government.

[Doogle]

because liberals live in a make believe world

[beebuster2000]

Why Are So Many Sci-Fi Films Left-Wing?

There, fixed it.

[Red Badger]

Why Are So Many Sci-Fi Films Left-Wing?

Because their makers are..................

[Le Chien Rouge]

Sci-Fi is either Utopian in nature(Star Trek) or Dystopian (Mad Max).

[Perdogg]

I disagree that all sci-fi films and TV series are liberal. Star Trek TOS is not liberal, it is anything but liberal.

[depressed in 06]

Because so many left-wing ideas are fiction.

[montag813]

Atlas Shrugged, if they could ever actually make it (mini-series would be best) is great Conservative Sci-Fi.

[STONEWALLS]

....none the less, when I first saw “Blade Runner” it knocked me out...even now after all these years, it’s still a remarkable film...little did I realize at the time, how fast the street scenes in the movie would come true in many American cities.

[The Louiswu]

I believe that Sci-Fi authors and screenwriters who write sci-fi scripts tend to be Liberal, not all, but many. I have found that in recent sci-fi novels there is lots of doom/gloom, Earth is ravaged by global warming/climate change, man has wrecked the planet, etc, etc, so much in fact I have tossed a couple of authors off my shelves because they draw from that particular well too often.

I find that Sci-Fi authors use sci-fi as a mirror to what they see wrong with "society" and see themselves as the hero who can fix what is wrong with the world.

Gadgets like star ships are just ways to move the story from one planet, to many planets.

[Perdogg]

I am not seeing where Blade Runner was liberal too. It’s been a while since I have seen the movie, but the novel was not left wing.

[Seruzawa]

Thinking back on the Golden Age authors I can only think of one that was liberal, Isaac Asimov. A better question is why are most of all movies liberal? Scifi is probably less liberal than most movie genres.

Avatar was a sort of joke. A $500 million dollar joke. I’ve never seen a more visually impressive while abysmally stupid movie. “Plan 9 From Outer Space” was a monument of creative ideas compared to Cameron’s “Dances With A blacklight”.

[Androcles]

Firefly is not liberal. Neither was Starship troopers (even though the film was a far cry from a wonderful book). Nor was Babylon 5. Oh, and neither was either version of BSG.

[NativeNewYorker]

This is a must see for those unfamiliar...James Tiberius Kirk reads from the Constitution...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gutY7NnNuyA

[petro45acp]

For a break from the scifi norm, try...

Serenity - “...and that’s not incense...”
Firefly - the series, “...with a ship you can get work, with a gun, you can keep your ship...”
Dune - the original theatrical release version
Any Indiana Jones movie and the Young Indiana series

For starters. Interesting thought though, what are the strong non-lib scifi movies out there...

[Oztrich Boy]

Neither was Starship troopers

Yes it was.

[Tax Government]

I don’t think Avatar is left wing. One needs to read the sub-text.

Republicans are the blue people, living in harmony with their economic environment, attacked by powerful outsiders.

[Vaduz]

Obama + Hollywood =Utopian visions to solve the world’s problems.

[Londo Molari]

Avatar was about the basic story of the American West only based on another planet. We have to face the fact that there were lots of treaties that were broken by our government back then, that is for sure.

I wouldn’t call Babylon 5, Stargate or Battlestar Galactica anti-military or socialist.

[stuartcr]

Maybe because they are works of fiction and their sole purpose is entertainment.