In Defense of Science Fiction and “Surrogates”

When some people think of science fiction, they think of aliens in rubber suits, clumsily constructed robots and unbelievable plots. When I think of science fiction, I think of contextually safe morality plays. Here's what I mean by that.

If we make a movie about Native Americans (and of course many have been made), we are stuck in the current vocabulary of cultural knowledge when telling the story. For example, films made fifty years ago could collectively describe Native Americans as “Indians”, could portray them as unapologetically savage, could even show them committing atrocities against Europeans. Films from the last twenty or so years, however, can do none of those. Native Americans are referred to by the names of their separate tribes (sometimes in their original language), are always shown in complimentary ways, and are always the victims of the European colonial invaders. This has been a positive move overall for our culture, but there have been some trade-offs. What was in history an incredibly diverse group of people has been transformed into bumper-sticker sized cultural icons like dreamcatchers hanging from rear-view mirrors or turquoise jewelery. Were (and are) most Native American tribes peaceful? Undoubtedly. Were there some that were violent and aggressive, certainly, but we're not going to see those stories in film. Recently, scholars have been debating whether the ancient Anasazi tribe were practicing cannibals. The physical evidence is persuasive. The reaction was immediate and severe that the research was racist and was trying to portray Native Americans as ignorant savages. In an “unsafe” politically loaded discussion, objective reality or even a discussion of objectivity have no place. (Here's a good article about the controversy.)

That is the purpose of science fiction. When Ray Bradbury wanted to tell stories about Native Americans, he simply changed them to Martians, and we are left with the amazing group of short stories called The Martian Chronicles. In this way, science fiction can tell stories that are removed from their context, rendered “safe” by that conceptual distance.

In “Surrogates” we find this type of classic science fiction. The story is ostensibly about robotic avatars and their use in a future world, but like all good science fiction, the story is really about us. It is a story about human excess, and how our desire for physical perfection could backfire. It is a story about how humans, and especially Americans, tend to deal with their problems by running away. It is a story about online gaming, online dating, and online living. The “Surrogates” stand in for our public selves, the “self” that we show to other people on our terms. Our public selves walk around for us so that the real emotions we might experience can stay safe and ugly at home. This was the theme of one of the important sociology books of the twentieth century, Erving Goffman's 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. I have no idea whether any of the people behind “Surrogates” are familiar with Goffman's work, but it might serve as a starting place for those seeking more information on the issues raised in the movie.

The film will disappoint those looking for mindless action, and while the “twist” won't go down in movie history, it is compelling. You know what's going to happen, what should happen, and you're satisfied when it does. The film makes an argument for the beauty that only comes from imperfection, for the satisfaction that only comes when things are little off. People that are ugly become attractive, and the perfect-looking surrogates become ugly by the end of the film. Most of all, it asks us to examine which parts of ourselves we show to the rest of the world, and which parts of us have been at home hiding beneath the covers the whole time.