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Techno-Orientalism and Afro-Futurism in science fiction, and how to promote inclusivity in fictional future societies in TV and film.

(9/16/2022)

As a genre, most science fiction movies and shows take place in the future—maybe an obvious observation to make, but an observation that begs the question: who gets to be a part of these fictional future societies, and what does that say about the actual world we live in?

If you pause your screen at random intervals during any given sci-fi film, odds are you’ll catch at least one glimpse of the following tropes: the neon glow of a future society; signs in Japanese, Chinese, or Korean; a rainy Tokyo-esque backdrop; or other signifiers of a nonspecific but still vaguely Asian setting, even if the lead characters are not Asian themselves. (Because they usually aren’t.)

Techno-Orientalism is an established aesthetic and ideology prevalent in sci-fi—so much so that it can appear par for the course in the genre. In addition to the examples above, scenes may even include cyborg ninjas, android geishas, or noodle stands on rocket ships, for example, which despite being present in a fictional futuristic society, are “all signifiers of the [very real] pre-modern East,” explains University of Utah professor of English and Director of Digital Matters David Roh. (Roh, who wrote a book on Techno-Orientalism, compared cyborg ninjas to watching sci-fi and seeing robot cowboys or cyborg pilgrims.)

This aesthetic and ideology is a manifestation of a longstanding anxiety by the West about the East, Roh says: “a way for the West to think about the East that renders it forever pre-modern, forever primitive,” both irrational and exotic compared to the rationality of the West. For example, in the ’70s and ’80s, Japan started to rise as an economic threat and competitor: cue 1982’s Blade Runner.

“At first glance it might seem that Techno-Orientalism is operating in opposition to that [notion], because it’s saying that the East is the future and hyper modern. But there’s a weird double logic at play, because the future might look like Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, but it’s always the background, and serves to undergird the protagonist who is usually a white, cis, straight male, and this is not the future he wants.”

Writers discussed Techno-Orientalism and Afro-Futurism at a recent virtual panel event, “Futurism: Who is a Part of It?”, presented by the WGAW’s Genre & Asian American Writers Committees with Storyline Partners. Among the panelists were writers Carlos Cisco (Star Trek: Discovery), Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Cowboy Bebop), J. Holtham (The Handmaid’s Tale), moderator Colin Costello (From Russia with Motive), as well as FX Vice President of Development Megan Reid, and Roh.

In film and TV to date, future societies have not been portrayed as particularly diverse or progressive, as entertainment narratives borrow from Asian cultures without centering them and largely ignore Black lives altogether. How can we evolve the imagination of sci-fi films that borrow from Asian cultural traditions and aesthetics to stop perpetuating Techno-Orientalism? How do we create inclusive narrative possibilities that increase BIPOC representation in a diverse future we collectively imagine?

Who gets to be a part of the future, and, basically, why is sci-fi so white? The answer may be in our country’s own (shameful) past.

“The idea of the western frontier maps on nicely to sci-fi because it’s about exploration and the untamed wild space,” Roh acknowledges—and western expansion is what this country was founded on, after all. But, as we know, “settling the West” was not some fairytale featuring an altruistic, chiseled cowboy at the helm of a pack of covered wagons, cutting through uncharted desert and headed to do good deeds for the natives already inhabiting the other half of the country. In reality, western expansion meant colonialism: explore, conquer, settle, exploit.

Sci-fi loves a good allegory: of slavery, of civil rights, of colonialism, etc., but with the allegory in the background, is the story still centering whiteness? If the story never truly touches on cultural nuance, and uses an alien race to represent people of a different ethnicity instead of detailing a real culture, isn’t the story still about the settlers and their point of view?

“We are, as a culture, struggling to really reckon with what our past means,” says Holtham. This is the stuff a lot of sci-fi “likes to skip over.”

Holtham says the trope of America as a post-racial, post-oppression society prevalent in sci-fi is “based in that post-WWII sense of, America is the land of the free. Here in America, we are all equal, and you will rise by your merits or fall by your merits. And that’s why that’s the goal: the goal is this classless, raceless society where everyone is equal, but of course it was all represented by straight white men in charge of everything, giving the implication that when everything is equal, they’ll still rise to the top.”

Panelists noted that allegory can leave true cultural differences unaddressed and in turn “homogenize” real-world cultures.

“As much as I do love allegory . . . let cultures be cultures. Let them be what they are,” Holtham says. “That one-to-one stand-in is pretty tired.”

The genre can gloss over or borrow from real-world cultures in many ways, in addition to visual aesthetics. For example, is everyone speaking Chinese but there are no Chinese people—or no Chinese leads? Or are there prominent Black characters but no explanation for how we magically arrived at a “post-racist” America?

Reid said she is currently developing an adaptation of Kindred, a novel by Octavia Butler that “is an Afro-Futurist novel that takes place in the past.

“You have to deal with what the reality of the transatlantic slave trade meant for many Black Americans, which is, the way many of us got here was through sexual coercion, was through violence,” Reid says.

In science fiction, there is “a lack of Black history in the future, like history has ceased to exist. Except for the occasional namecheck of Martin Luther King, it’s as though no other important Black person ever existed again,” Holtham says.

He adds, “we haven’t really developed what an African-American future is. What is a future that centers Black culture, that centers Black American culture, that is separate and distinct from Africa? As a Black person there is always that pressure of, you know, Africa’s the homeland, Africa’s the motherland, your heart is really in Ghana and that’s where the real people are. But I don’t know—I’m from America! This country is my home. And I think there’s still a lot to be reckoned with that.

“When it comes to genre spaces,” Holtham continues, “you get steamrolled by the notion that neutral is white.”

All of this is not to say that there are no sci-fi movies or episodes that handle race head-on, without falling into the “trauma porn” arena: panelists noted Black Panther and Wakanda as a response to the “blaxploitation” of the ’60s and ’70s; Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Cassian Andor, the first Mexican Star Wars character; and even the multiculturalism of Star Trek (specifically the 1998 episode “Far Beyond the Stars” in Star Trek: Deep Space 9, teleplay by Ira Steven Behr & Hans Beimler, story by Marc Scott Zicree, series created by Rick Berman & Michael Piller).

“It’s basically a time travel episode that actually directly addresses these [issues] in a major way, but it’s absolutely stunning,” says Cisco. “You could show that episode to anybody, and they will come away from it feeling hollowed out.”