6
Popular Culture Review
in structural terms, the archetypical Fantastic narration introduces a basic
opposition between an highly identifiable reality and a supernatural element,
which, by its mere existence, not only becomes the very reason for the narrative
conflict, but underlines as well our epistemological limitations. The irruption of
an unexplainable element or event within a realistic context—the very definition
of the Fantastic genre5—suggests that our comprehension of the real is
incomplete, and that therefore our cognitive tools are tragically inadequate: we
have constructed a reassuring, rational view of a world we cannot know, and the
irruption of the supernatural phenomenon shatters such illusion.
If the Fantastic genre by its very conception implicitly challenges our
certainties regarding our ability to comprehend reality in rational terms, many
Science Fiction narrations turn the question into a central theme by presenting
reality itself as an exploitative construct,6 thus rejoining the concerns of many
postmodern theorists who argue for social constructionism. However, whereas
the repeated attacks of social constructionism against objective reality appear
unattainable, especially when confronted to the hard facts of scientific
knowledge, the artistic domain of Science Fiction provides the necessary
flexibility to articulate a coherent, albeit imaginary, representation of this
fundamental epistemological issue; it allows to say what is, as of now,
inexpressible.7
Often merged with Fantasy and Space Opera, Science Fiction is still in the
process of being generically defined, and its significance as an important
narrative genre depends in part upon this definition. Narrations such as Star
Wars or Star Trek, two shining examples of the Space Opera genre, do not
convey the same type of significance as for instance Do Androids Dream o f
Electric Sheep? or The Matrix, do not correspond to the same type of recipient,
and probably should not be studied in the same manner. Structurally, a narration
such as Star Wars follows a fairly predictable pattern, very reminiscent of the
traditional epic that opposes two very basic forces and primal moral values, and
exhibits the same narrative motifs, which are either adapted, i.e., horses are
replaced by flying mopeds, castles become space stations, and Merlin turns into
Yoda, or simply transposed, i.e., there is still a princess held prisoner and a oneon-one sword fight between the hero and the villain. Star Trek responds as well
to a pre-established storyline, similar to that of Sinbad’s travels, the sea having
become deep space and the ship having turned into the Enterprise. In this sense,
Space Opera is very close to the Marvelous, for it presents a narrative universe
having very little relationship with ours, where supernatural phenomena are no
longer surprising, and that establishes narrative authority by creating an
independent, coherent narrative structure based upon the same principles as
those of any chivalry book. Space Opera, along with Fantasy as represented by
Star Wars, Avatar, The Lord o f the Rings trilogy or the Harry Potter saga, can
be seen as modem evolutions of the most elementary narrative structures, and do
not place the questioning of reality at the center of their narrative universes, but
rather use it as a simple narrative motif. We find for instance the concept of