If you'd asked me in high school or college, I would have told you that I didn't like science fiction. Now, I grew up on Steven King, Dean Koontz and Anne Rice, but I considered that clearly horror, not science fiction. I also watched Buffy like I'd found my new religion, but vampires were not science fiction. It was similar to the way Blackstone told me for years that he hated Mexican food.
One day I had to lay it out for him - "You eat tacos, nachos, quesilidias, burritos and enchilidas. You have to stop saying you hate Mexican."
It wasn't until I found myself teaching a science fiction class to a bunch of high school seniors that I realized I was a science fiction fan. I finally had to admit to myself that it wasn't just horror that made my heart beat faster. It was my first exposure to Orson Scott Card and I was in love. I actually read Speaker for the Dead first, before Ender's Game. It didn't spoil any of the experience for me. Ender's Game is my favorite book of all time. And if you've seen Avatar, which of course I have, you'll see quite a few similar themes and correlations. All the way from space travel and aliens, to the mother tree and the very gray area between science and religion. Actually, Blackstone will tell you it's Dances with Wolves in space. I disagree. I hated Dances with Wolves, but I do see where he's coming from.
If you haven't seen Avatar yet, you should get on that. It definitely deserved the Golden Globe for best picture.
My love of horror and science fiction appears to be genetic. And it's not just my love either, it's Blackstone's too. We're not generally one of those couples that fight over which movie to go see. It annoys me no end when he starts reading one of my books before I'm finished, which has happened on more than one occasion. It's limited to science fiction, though, and he's not into vampires, so it's not a constant problem. We've both read the entire Ender and Bean series and all of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter novels. So it's not surprising it's in my kid's genes too. Well, I'm not sure if LT is coming to it quite so independently or fanatically as Trouble. He hasn't had much option in his exposure. Trouble, however, was probably one of very few two-year-olds asking to watch Frodo.
A few months ago, I started getting Supernatural from Netflix. Polly had raved about it and it seemed right up my alley. I was also hoping that since it was a prime time show that it wouldn't be too racy and violent for the kids. Honestly, it's gotten quite racy and violent as the show progressed. It's not something I would recommend watching with your five and eight-year-old. The recent episode with the AntiClaus would be more than your average kid should be exposed to. But my kids are already hooked. Blackstone turned his nose up the first time I put it on. That lasted all of about five minutes and Sam and Dean had him. I think the cool car and the classic rock didn't hurt. So Supernatural has been our family viewing series of choice. We unfortunately just watched the end of season four last night. It was very sad. We have been watching season five, though I think we missed some of the start of the season.
Trouble definitely has some fantasies of himself and his brother growing up to be Sam and Dean Winchester. It's quite ironic that Trouble is the blue-eyed, fair-haired older brother and LT is the brown-eyed, dark-haired younger brother that I can totally see growing up to tower over his older brother. Trouble is still taller now, but LT eats his brother under the table and they're only a couple of sizes apart. Trouble's also a serious junk food junkie. It's really kind of eerie. Of course, I'm not dead, and none of us are demon hunters, so that's where the similarity ends.
The great thing about science fiction is that the story lines are truly limitless. You can travel through time, die and come back, visit heaven and hell, dream walk, or get trapped in a sitcom. Nothing is impossible. My favorite episode is where Sam and Dean get trapped in a series of sitcoms by the Trickster. That one is precious. Sam and Dean frolicking in the park, all smiles and sunshine and puppy dogs. I thought I was going to bust a gut. Sam forced to do one of those terrible commercials for genital herpes medication. Who hasn't dreamed on forcing that kind of misery one of their enemies? And their dad, the same actor that played Denny on Grays anatomy showing up as ghost in Dr. Sexy MD? Or when Dean caught ghost disease and was all of the sudden afraid of his own shadow and started screaming like a little girl at the slightest provocation? Hilarious. I have witnessed Polly scream like that when we went to see Candy Man. Screen cut to a toilet bowl and Polly screamed for all she was worth. It wasn't as entertaining as watching a tough guy, demon hunter scream like a girl, though.
So dish. Science Fiction. You love it or you hate it? Are you Sam girl or Dean girl? I love the episode where they realize Chuck has been writing novels about them not realizing that Sam and Dean are real, and then they find their fan groups online and discover that some girls are Sam girls, others are Dean girls and others are both.
"Don't they realize we're brothers?" Dean asked disgusted.
Uh, yeah. I'm sure they do.
But the beauty is, that in real life, they're not.
I'm all about Dean. He's such a smartass.
As for screaming in Candy Man, well, the toilet was awfully dirty. And then nothing happened. Oops.
But since I want to be sure that those who don't watch the show get that last reference, the Sam and Dean fiction refers to slash fiction, a concept that Kit introduced me to...so it's Sam/Dean, as in for the sake of the fiction there's Sam on Dean action. Ick.
I want that car.
And the next episode airs on Thursday so I'll be at the CW website accordingly to watch the show.
Posted by: Polly | January 18, 2010 at 07:25 PM
@Polly - Yeah, let's gloss over the whole Sam/Dean thing. It's much sexier that way.
Posted by: Diosa | January 19, 2010 at 05:17 AM
I LOVE Supernatural. Love and I have been watching the show since the beginning. I personally don't choose between the two brothers...although I guess if I had to choose I'd go with Sam. Mostly that's because I've had a tiny crush on him ever since his days on Gilmore Girls way back when...but that's beside the point. Also, Polly, you can't have the car cuz I claimed it ages ago. :)
Posted by: Equipoise | January 19, 2010 at 06:57 AM
@equipoise, you totally just reminded me of my elementary school days when me and the girls down the street used to watch the Smurfs together and fight over who got to be Smurfette, not for the purpose of acting out the show, but just for the purpose of watching. We did the same thing with Mochi on Fraggle Rock.
Posted by: Polly | January 19, 2010 at 11:10 AM
So, I have never seen an episode of Supernatural in my life but, my best friend raves about it.
However, my take on sci fi is that I'm okay with it, as long as I have something to look at. I mean, something needs to be easy on the eyes. I can't call myself a Trekkie because all the keeps me watching Star Trek is the beautiful Chris Pine.
Posted by: Pandora | January 19, 2010 at 04:17 PM
I have never seen the show you are talking about and don't even know where the WB channel is on my cable box but I will be looking for it now. As far as Sci fi I am a huge...huge fan. Not the kind that gets surgery to make my ears more pointy but I am not above a women pretending that she is a Romulan while we are making love. Because I love lists here are the top five sci fi movies of all time
5. Star Wars
4. Terminator
3. Aliens
2. Serenity
1. The Matrix
Only narrowly missing the cut was Barberella with Jane Fonda...I mean a machine that kills you by having too many orgasm's was pretty hot to a 15 year old boy that had no business watching it, and had no idea about a female orgasm anyway.
Posted by: Mattie | January 19, 2010 at 04:53 PM
I want to slag SF for being dull and cliche at this point, but really I've just stopped reading as much of it as I used to, preferring the cliches of detective fiction. There are still a handful of SF authors I'll read new books by - Iain Banks, Neal Stephenson, Gene Wolfe, Samuel Delany - tho most of them write all sorts of things. I did read Against the Day. Now that's solid SF!
But this seems to be a conversation about film and TV - in both media I prefer horror to SF. To my mind most contemporary SF movies indulge too much in snappy visuals, losing sight of the intellectual charms the best SF fiction offers in between bouts of silicon-suited laser tag. I think Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video is a better SF movie than admittedly pretty Avatar.
The movie Primer is a rare exception, as is my favorite movie of 2006, Southland Tales, starring the Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and two Seann Williamm Scottts, not to mention some terrific TV comic personalities (Lovitz! Poehler! Nora Dunn! Larroquette!). And when I say love, I mean I regularly rotate SMG's porn star character's dance pop parody "Teen Horniness Is Not a Crime" into my mix of Britney and Lady Gaga.
Posted by: Kit | January 19, 2010 at 05:09 PM
You know, I guess I like sci-fi more than I've admitted. Maybe Rex and I will have to make this our new post-putting-the-kids-to-bed show or even kids-are-at-dad's-lazy-TV-marathon-weekend show.
Kit, you don't by any chance happen to live in Fresno, do you?
Posted by: The Model | January 19, 2010 at 06:46 PM
@Equipoise - I don't want to choose either. I think Dean would be more my choice, but that's only great for my fantasies because in real life Sam is definitely my kind of man. Well, aside from the drinking demon blood.
@Pandora - I've never been much of a Star Trek fan, but I used to watch it back in the Wil Wheaton days. Seriously dating myself here.
@Mattie - I believe the WB is no more. At least it is around here. You want to look for the show on the CW. You know, I remember hearing something about the Barberella you speak of.
@Kit - I think my tastes are much more mainstream than yours. I'm not a Lady Gaga fan. But I'll have to check out some of those authors, and the movie Primer.
@Model - That was my point. For a while, I didn't want to admit I was a sci fi geek. I don't see much that's geeky about Supernatural, though.
Posted by: Diosa | January 20, 2010 at 03:46 AM
I hate to admit that I don't have a sci fi bone in my body. Television and books are different though so it's entirely possible that I'd love the show. I'll check it out on Netflix since this isn't the first time I'm hearing how great it is.
So do you still let the boys watch it even though its getting racey?
Posted by: Alice | January 20, 2010 at 08:18 AM
@Alice - Yes, I do. I just FF through the racy parts.
Posted by: Diosa | January 20, 2010 at 02:04 PM
I'm not sure Supernatural is technically scifi in the Jules Verne actually-tries-to-anticipate-scientific advances, sense of the genre, as much as it is, well, supernatural. I mean, they never bring science into it although they dabble lot with fantasy and horror. That said, the audience has a suspicious amount of overlap.
Posted by: Polly | January 20, 2010 at 04:00 PM
I haven't watched Supernatural, but I'm going to check it out now on Netflix.
I *love* the Ender's Game series. Also one of my favorites of all time. Though, I have to say, I don't think Xenocide stacks up well with Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. I've read Ender at least four times, and Speaker a few times, also. (And OSC went totally off the weird Mormon end of the pool at some point. I don't read his newer stuff. It's religious and weird.)
I love SF, but I guess I'm picky about it, and I don't like stuff that creeps over into the horror genre. I don't like to be terrified. I did just read a book called To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis, that was brilliant. Brilliant, I say. Funny, funny dialog and a crazy plot. Time travel stuff.
Posted by: The Dol | January 20, 2010 at 04:29 PM
I'm late on the reply here, cause I've been out of the country. I like both Sam and dean. If I had to choose, I'd probably pick dean because of his sarcasm, but I'd not say no to a double winchester. :)
Posted by: Danielle | January 20, 2010 at 04:29 PM
@Polly - I get what you're saying about Supernatural not necessarily being sci fi. But there's definitely overlap between horror and sci fi. I know some people who would lump that together and others that wouldn't. Really depends on your perspective and the story line. This may be good news for some of you.
@Dol - I haven't read any OSC in a while, that's dissappointing.
@Danielle - True Dat
Posted by: Diosa | January 20, 2010 at 05:08 PM
I wouldn't call myself a sci Fi fan, and my DVR queue is limited entirely to drama, comedies, and competition-style reality shows. But oh, how I love Ender's Game. And paranormal remonaces, the steamier the better.
Posted by: Bookgirl | January 25, 2010 at 02:28 PM