5 ms·

Well, Terminator 2 was 1991, and obviously filmed before that. If we're being honest, there's a small confluence in that Soviets were often portrayed as roboti

by bsanr 6y ago

Well, Terminator 2 was 1991, and obviously filmed before that. If we're being honest, there's a small confluence in that Soviets were often portrayed as robotic, and anxieties about Communism were often pushed onto various movie monsters: robots, aliens, zombies. I think the common denominator is "Future Shock," fear of radical changes in society (that book was 1970).

mrtksn 6y ago
I think the reception of the work by the public gives it away, not the work itself. There are people who do work of all kind all the time but when the public is ready to take it it becomes iconic, that is, it represents the psyche of the popular culture. Sometimes when the public is ripe and there's no current work of art to match the public, you can see old movies, books and music that went mostly unnoticed for years suddenly become popular. So, it's not like movies/books/music push public opinion but they can become icons of an idea. A materialisation of a thought that people were trying to put into words but they couldn't until they read a book, watch a movie, listen to music. Sometimes the creators of the art hate it when their work becomes an icon of something they do not support.
- bsanr 6y ago
  I'm not sure where you're going with that, as all of the mentioned works still represent a time before people in general were forced to reckon with a post-Soviet world. Even with it on the horizon, it would be several years before we would fall into the thought and habits of what that "means." One other thing to note of the pre/post-Soviet dissolution sci-fi media: the contrast of dominance over the enemy vs surviving within a status quo that is unlikely to change. That may be part of why you see protagonists "befriending" AI; it's more a reflection of hope than expectation. Once you get to post-9/11 media, relationships with AI become more complex and nuanced: I, Robot, Ex Machina, Her, Transcendence. (Perhaps a reflection of our decidedly mixed, toward the negative side, experiences in the Middle East; as well as the multiple crises that threatened the "end of society" and the subsequent recoveries, all within a generation.)

by bsanr 6y ago

mrtksn 6y ago

I think the reception of the work by the public gives it away, not the work itself. There are people who do work of all kind all the time but when the public is ready to take it it becomes iconic, that is, it represents the psyche of the popular culture. Sometimes when the public is ripe and there's no current work of art to match the public, you can see old movies, books and music that went mostly unnoticed for years suddenly become popular. So, it's not like movies/books/music push public opinion but they can become icons of an idea. A materialisation of a thought that people were trying to put into words but they couldn't until they read a book, watch a movie, listen to music. Sometimes the creators of the art hate it when their work becomes an icon of something they do not support.

bsanr 6y ago
I'm not sure where you're going with that, as all of the mentioned works still represent a time before people in general were forced to reckon with a post-Soviet world. Even with it on the horizon, it would be several years before we would fall into the thought and habits of what that "means." One other thing to note of the pre/post-Soviet dissolution sci-fi media: the contrast of dominance over the enemy vs surviving within a status quo that is unlikely to change. That may be part of why you see protagonists "befriending" AI; it's more a reflection of hope than expectation. Once you get to post-9/11 media, relationships with AI become more complex and nuanced: I, Robot, Ex Machina, Her, Transcendence. (Perhaps a reflection of our decidedly mixed, toward the negative side, experiences in the Middle East; as well as the multiple crises that threatened the "end of society" and the subsequent recoveries, all within a generation.)