The African American Science Fiction Character in Literature, Television, and Film

CUYAHOGA COMMUNITY COLLEGE—METROPOLITAN CAMPUS
CLEVELAND OHIO

THE AFRICAN AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION CHARACTER IN LITERATURE, TELEVISION, AND FILM

JANUARY 21, 2003

BY

BEN DAVIS JR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ENGLISH

In 1951, Theodore Sturgeon, award-winning author of the acclaimed science fiction novel, More Than Human, defined the term "science fiction" as a story built around human beings with human problems and human solutions. In addition, it can be argued that science fiction in itself is a modern variation of "myth." Many exploits, based on some technological and/or scientific problem, of science fiction characters parallel those of their mythological counterparts particularly the heroes of antiquity beginning with the archetypal Mesopotamian "Eternal man/God-king" Gilgamesh, the Homerian Odysseus and Hercules, the Danish Beowulf, the French knight Roland, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and, in the pop culture sense Joe Shuster’s and Jerry Siegel’s last son of the planet Krypton, Superman. In many of the stories about these heroes is the quest of truth, justice, knowledge, and the same is said for many science fiction characters.

Additionally, science fiction, argued to be an extension of human myth most of the time using creative, extrapolative technology, allows readers to have perhaps the greatest of all experiences: The journey to the center of the human condition. Readers will also hazard adventures to the noble and sometimes darker recesses of the human soul while authors simultaneously predict astounding futuristic societies, create technological wonders and terrors, and formulate alternative realities.