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Sci Fi, Aliens and the Future

The question “What was your first contact with science fiction?” reminds of the encounter with an alien species. Science Fiction as a literary or film genre is something special in Germany and I wanted to know, if it is more common in the US. What kind of contact do the people in North America develop towards science fiction? The purpose of the 30 minutes Skype interview with a student from Minnesota was to learn how science fiction is depicted in the US and which significance it has there.

My initial question was about the first contact with science fiction and I really had to think about what my own answer would be. In contrast my interview partner answered very quickly. She had already read science fiction in elementary school and felt confident, that this early contact at the age of eight or nine is normal in the US. This is remarkable when considering the missing education about the climate change in US-schools, which we talked about a few minutes before. Here in Germany the first lessons about pollution and the meaning of the ozone layer start very early; however, I can’t remember that we talked about science fiction in school before class ten. We already see here, that these topics have different local values.

Although my skype partner and her friends are not into science fiction, she could confirm my assumption that science fiction is very popular in the US. Primarily movies, but also literature of this genre are on the same level with romantic comedies or dramas which are the most popular. But what does “popular” mean? Is science fiction a “popular” genre, if many people see a blockbuster movie about extra-terrestrials or is it “popular” if there are a lot of books and movies published? Does it depend on the number of consumers of this genre or is it rather the looking into the meaning of science fiction in schools and university?

It is obvious that more people get in contact with science fiction because in the US there is a wider range of movies, books, series and computer games of this genre. That there is also a very early contact with this science fiction in school could be a hint, that the academic treatment with this topic is more important than here in Germany. When I asked about the possibilities of science fiction, my partner talked about the relationship between the present and imagined future and that science fiction stories often point out and exaggerate problems in reality. This is a very precise analysis of the function of science fiction, which I just learned in my university class. Her answer showed that she had already learned how to deal with this genre, even though she is not really interested in it. In the US there seems to be a deeper engagement with science fiction than in Germany. Nevertheless she could not mention a female author to me, which seems to show that they are not as visible as they should be.

All in all the results of the Skype interview confirmed the content we collected in the seminar so far: Science fiction is a popular genre in the US (a wider offer and a deeper understanding) but like here in Germany, not everybody is interested in it. Some watch science fiction movies for entertainment, others read books more seriously. Science fiction offers possibilities to think about the future and about what could be realistic. My partner, for example, believed in the improvement of medicine or implanting computer chips into people as a possible future. Science fiction always tells us about topics, which are relevant today.


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