Whatever happened to the future?

[hecubot]

I pulled Storming The Reality Studio off my bookshelf the other day and was shocked to see it was fourteen years old. This was my favorite of the cyberpunk primers, because it included so much of the theory behind the movement (pieces by Baudrillard, Derrida, Jameson), non-fiction essays and influences (Pynchon, Burroughs, Acker) along with the

Comments

[e_juliana]

One of the critiques of Gibson's writing, especially the character Mollie in Neuromancer is that she's a man in woman's drag.

Huh. I've never thought that, but then again, I'm not noted for my critical analysis. :)

Mollie's gender is a neutral value for me. She's a Warrior, period. I suppose since Warrior characters tend to be men, she has male characteristics, but I've never picked up on her being particularly Male.

The characteristics I think of Mollie having are: cool, unflappable, determined, likes sex, fierce, self-protective, perceptive, and knows which questions not to ask. I'm most likely skewed, but of the above list, I can find just as many women as men fitting that description. Not as many in fiction, but real-life, definitely.

What do you think?

[hecubot]

I think Mollie has all those characteristics and there's nothing intrinsically male about them.

I think the critique has more to do with her apparent lack of an interior/emotional life. Gibson doesn't give much of a glimpse behind her mirrorshades. Which is definitely part of her cool, but perhaps makes her read more male to some folks. Or gender neutral.

[fatoudust]

I always loved her and related to her. Of course, I'd have to check my archives, but this was probably during my strongly androgynous phase, so I'm probably not the best person to check with for gender definitions.

[hecubot]

Like I said, I couldn't explore the question too deeply without getting lost in Gender Studies-land. Would anything have to change about Mollie's characterization if she had been born with a cock? I don't think so, but I'm not certain that cockfulness matters in this instance. Which may be the point.

[fatoudust]

The other thing I wanted to respond to is that I've always enjoyed the predictive nature of scifi. But the question is, what do we do with it? If I could have known upon reading Neuromancer for the first time what was going to turn out to be accurate, could I (or humanity) have done anything to shape or change things?

Could we have deescalated Christian/Muslim nation tensions had we been able to recognize it futher?

[hecubot]

> Could we have deescalated Christian/Muslim nation tensions had we been able to recognize it futher