forthwritten | steampunk: my issues, let me show you them

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steampunk: my issues, let me show you them

I've been thinking about steampunk recently, prompted by

naraht's excellent sets of links (set 1, set 2). We ended up talking about it a couple of nights ago, then again when it came up in #dw last night.

I don't like being

forthwritten, Destroyer Of Squee, but there are things I find deeply problematic about steampunk. I'm not a srs Victorianist (and I hope not to embarrass myself in front of

naraht and

oursin) but my thesis does require some knowledge of late C19th/early C20th issues - politics, ideologies, what were current issues and concerns and anxieties, how the Victorians and Edwardians thought about things. There are some things that seem completely alien to my mind - the way that even those who supported women's suffrage supported it because they thought women were gentler and more spiritually pure, and with the rise of governmental interest in domestic issues they needed women on board to guide them through this unknown territory.

Victorian England was a world where the vast majority of people led difficult, uncomfortable, poor, exhausting lives, where 1 in 3 babies born at the same time as Queen Victoria died before their fifth birthday, where things like pensions or benefits didn't exist and the only relief was to be found in the workhouse (look up the 1834 Poor Law). Most people were not totally awesome explorers and adventurers and countesses.

In celebrating the figure of the adventurer and explorer, steampunk buys into certain assumptions. One: that there are places to explore and discover - the idea that a land can only be discovered by your culture, and has been previously unexplored even if people have been living there for centuries. Two: that, as

naraht points out, "deep down, or perhaps not so deep down, there's a sense in steampunk that having an empire must after all have been rather fun".
And I doubt this is deliberate, but it places people like me in a difficult situation. To shamelessly repost the comment I left on one of

naraht's entries, am I one of the friendly hilltribes who offers the explorers help? Am I a savage living in harmony with my wild forests? Am I untamed and beautiful and freakish, am I dangerous, am I irresponsible and childlike, am I sturdy and possessed of a certain native cunning? How am I going to be exoticised and made into a tragic character, a simple character, a loyal and passive character? I've read the early C20th anthropology books, I know what role I played in the Victorian psyche, and it disappoints me that steampunk doesn't do much to challenge that.
Even the terms are uncomfortable - how can you be a "orientalist" unproblematically, without knowing or caring about critiques of orientalism offered by post-colonialism? How can you be the thing that Said, in Orientalism, was questioning?

But

forthwritten, you cry, I don't care about the ideology! I just like my cool gadgety tech! I think being able to disconnect the two is interesting, yet enabled by the kind of technology steampunk celebrates. Steampunk focuses on engineering rather than the other technologies and sciences the Victorians were exploring - engineering rather than, for example, public health, infectious disease control, evolution and eugenics. Within that, steampunk focuses on engineering of a particular kind - Babbage but not Bazalgette.
And as

naraht asks, maybe that's because engineering itself is perceived as a a celebration of cool gadgety tech without having an ideology (comparative to, say, eugenics). As she puts it, it's "all about the uncomplicated triumph of objective, uber-cool science" - as long as you can build Awesome Rockets, who cares who you're building them for or how they could be used? Why does steampunk focus so heavily on weaponry? Who are they shooting with their steam-powered guns and rifles? It looks cool to carry around a big, artistically distressed gun, but why?

And perhaps this is the crux of My Thoughts on Steampunk: it's a superficial understanding of the Victorian age without wanting to understand the anxieties of the age. It doesn't even understand the technology beyond a superficial "ooh, shiny" delight - am I really the only one wondering how that steam must be produced, the miners and kids shovelling coal and smoke-choked cities and pea-soupers, or is there an explanation that ignores Victorian economics in favour of a C21st style fair trade explanation?

Perhaps I'm coming at this from the wrong angle - after all, my punk involves questioning social values and assumptions in a sometimes awkward but often genuine and well-intentioned way. I do understand the appeal of computer mods, and I can understand steampunk as a reaction to the sleek, disempowering kind of technology that says "no, you don't have a chance of understanding me, best get someone else to fix that". But I'm not sure how steampunk subverts and challenges our ideologies and anxieties through the lens of Victorian alternative history, and indeed what it is beyond an uncomplicated celebration of engineering and technology.

Or maybe it does - imperialism is still an issue today. Maybe steampunk is a way of making that safe and uncomplicated, of imagining it as gentlemen inventor-adventurers rather than soldiers, imagining guns and rockets that are beautiful and complicated and are never used to kill people. In which case, I think it achieves this at the expense of really doing something that reimagines the world and creating a genuinely alternative history.

ETA: thank you for all the thoughtful comments; I've greatly enjoyed reading them and seeing discussions unfold. I'm a bit swamped with work so I can't respond to everyone right now but I'd like this discussion to continue and I'll try to contribute if I can.

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I'm only just starting to dabble in the edges of steampunkery (it does very much feel like 'what goths do when we realise we're too old for pvc and if we keep dying our hair it'll fall out' ;p) but it does seem to take a lot of the interesting out of it to *ignore* all the problematic history and context, and I don't want my AU to either replicate the problematic race and class and gender stuff, nor just white-wash it away. It's something I've been chewing on recently.

(also worth noting that the few steampunk events I've been to in person have been even more majority-white than the goth/industrial/metal events I frequent, and it would be lying to say that those subcultures are hugely racially diverse to start with. They're less monochromatic than some might assume, but still broadly majority white.)

I am currently venturing into the world of H G Wells scholarship for a conference in September (aaaaargh!) - and have been thinking about his novels, and that although he had numerous women friends and lovers who were career writers, political and social activists, reformers, teachers, scientists, etc i.e. had interests and occupation beyond the sphere of lehrrrv, the female characters in his novels (and I don't there are any to speak of in the 'scientific romances' at all) never seem to have any ambition that goes outside hegemonic female roles of being supportive helpmeet wife, or, possibly, political hostess (which is helpmeety territory), and MOTHER.

And case can be made that Wells is the, or a, forefather of steampunk - even though he was, of course, massively about social engineering as well.

Dame R is naturally the most appropriate icon here!

Aaaiiieeeee. I think I love you. You've distilled a lot of what unsettles me about Steampunk into a single post.

I love steampunk, but the sanitisation of Steampunk's Victorian society has always seemed the more unbelievable aspect than water-powered rockets that take you to the pleasure domes of Venus. Much Steampunk seems to have lost the whole point of the 'punk' part of the name, especially when you look over to Cyberpunk. Where's the intrigue? The social outrage? The questioning of societal norms? The fight for something more than 'omg kewl'? I wish more people would dive beyond the surface.

Also: ever notice how most steampunk costumes are always corsets and top hats? I'd feel so out of place at a steampunk meet; dressed in grubby overalls, heavy goggles, and with oil and dirt all over me. Yet, somehow, I'd feel the most steampunk of the lot.

Anyway, an excellent post all round. It'd be an interesting discussion to bring about in the

steampunk community.

I think some of steampunk's appeal is for a time when 'fancy dress' really meant something, and there were rules, only this time we can make our own rather than listen to our grandparents.

I greatly enjoy history of medicine; the only time I was ever involved in a steampunk roleplay, my character was a doctor – so I think that might make me unusual, but it was public health & infectious disease control that caught my interest, not the gadgets.

And I always wondered, too – where all the steam power and coal came from. This is an excellent post, I must say, even if my comment isn't all that coherent or helpful.

So apparently the way to coax me over to dreamwidth is to promise essays, who knew?

I found this very interesting and important, anyway. Both steampunk and cyberpunk tickle my academic geek buttons, in that I'm fascinated by the superficiality of both - to a great extent, they're both aesthetics that essentially pick up and collect signifiers that have particular social and psychological resonances, and then sort of cobble and marshal them together into effects, rather than meanings. And that's a process that because I'm a degenerate postmodernist at heart, is something I find endlessly interesting and pick-apart-able. It was good to be reminded here that there is more at stake in both genres than just a psychologically and culturally interesting game of signs and citations, and to realise that my particular academic proclivities are, in accepting and describing/analysing it, rather than critiquing it, actually tying in with (or at least not really doing anything to correct) that tendency in the genre to ignore the bigger and deeper picture. Very well written, too, unlike this comment which from the start I think was doomed to convolutions and obliqueness.

Also, your last line = very much truth.

Both steampunk and cyberpunk tickle my academic geek buttons, in that I'm fascinated by the superficiality of both - to a great extent, they're both aesthetics that essentially pick up and collect signifiers that have particular social and psychological resonances, and then sort of cobble and marshal them together into effects, rather than meanings.

Really interesting. I must think more about this.

Thank you - people don't often say that about my ramblings, haha; I'm very flattered. I'd be interested to read your thoughts.

My exposure to steampunk is admittedly limited, but it does somehow seem rather superficial and more about the "looks cool!" factor than anything else. "Looks cool" has a time and place, and if that's all someone's interested in, fine. I have a weakness for pretty, shiny, old(-looking) things myself, and I'm OK with that since it's on a pretty small scale.

But if steampunk as a subculture is trying to be more than that, what precisely is that "more" made up of? The lack of direction, mixed with liberal appropriation, is what makes it hard for me to even get a handle on what it's about. I have friends who are active in the SCA, for example, and I can understand that, even enjoy it, for how much research generally goes into the actual history behind something. If someone makes modern alterations, they're usually pretty open about it, and try to disguise them. In short, there's a context. I'm not sure what the context for steampunk is.

Edited 2009-04-29 16:11 (UTC)

awesome post!

*nods* I have read very little classic steampunk, for some of these reasons. I've never been much into gadgetry for its own sake. I like it much more when the trappings are acknowledged to be there for the bling-factor, or as dramatization for particular characterization or plot-points. Girl Genius and Fullmetal Alchemist, respectively, come to mind, neither of them being at all in the classic mode. The authors of GG even chose a different word for it (gaslamp fantasy).

Setting something in the Victorian era and not dealing with the vast contradictions and social tensions, the linked colonialism and insularity, the anxiety of change, of borders and identity, does seem to me to miss the point of that setting.

Well, and GG could be set in outer space and the plot wouldn't really have to be any different. I think it was more that spaceships were not selling particularly well when they cooked up the concept.

I am bemused by the whole idea of "classic" steampunk, because I think of it as a set of concepts that emerged in the early 1990s...and then died off...and then came back to life as a sort of costuming/fiction subculture a few years ago, which was really quite weird to me.

But no, I've never thought steampunk was subverting much of anything.

*nods* Exactly. GG really is closer to the fantasy genre than any other I can think of; it just has rayguns too. And a lot of fantasy tends to be pretty, um, hermetically sealed.

Actually, by that measure, perhaps steampunk in general could be classed more with fantasy, despite the gadget-glee.

*snerk* Well, I'm a lumper, not a splitter, so I tend to be willing to call most things fantasies. Heck, I'll happily chuck most science fiction into the fantasy bin....

But yes, I think it's a set of essentially-imperialist fantasies about "a simpler time" (that wasn't simple at all) when technology was controlled by an elite rather than the little plastic boxes everyone has in their back pockets. And sure, aesthetically it can be quite lovely. But a lot of the conceptual underpinnings are not terribly well-problematized.

Yes! At my office, one of the guys has started working on a way to display information about our servers, and he's settled on nixie tubes. I've been drafted into building the case for the thing, and because the data's in nixie-tube form, I was thinking about going down the steampunk road. [I've not read any steampunk, or been to any steampunk events; my exposure has usually been "look at this awesome computer mod someone did."] So I've been scouring the internet for the last two weeks for steampunk resources, and finding myself more and more bothered, but I haven't really been able to put my finger on why. I think this articulates it very well, though, the sense of how much fun everything must have been, the seemingly unfettered celebration of what was actually a very difficult and problematic time. Hrm. Looks like I've got some more thinking to do, for sure. Thanks for this post.

I'm more interested in the Eugenics side of it all, because of my history studies, but yes - I've always wondered where these folks are all exploring? What roles do people who aren't European have? Stuff like that.

Thank you for posting this. Now I have much thinking to do.

I'm really glad you posted this. Good to have both participants in the conversation represented even though what we were saying did overlap a great deal.

Why does steampunk focus so heavily on weaponry? Who are they shooting with their steam-powered guns and rifles? It looks cool to carry around a big, artistically distressed gun, but why?

That is a seriously good point. Maybe they're just really keen hunters, who knows...

*is vegetarian and hunts tofu*

This is interesting and certainly valid, but based on a superficial steampunk. Not a relatively superficial understanding of steampunk, you'll note, but a superficial steampunk.

Worth remembering that, as a literary genre, steampunk is based on cyberpunk - which, to quote GURPS Steampunk, "suggests that social customs are a mask for opperession, exploitation, and conflict. Its heroes are the people on the losing end of this conflict, who recognize their situation for what it is and disgregard law and custom when they need to or when it suits them."

Hi-tech and lowlifes. The street finding its own use for things. Sticking it to the man.

But the "superficial" steampunk you're tackling in this post is several stages removed from this origin. In making the leap to a subcultural mainstream, it's moved a lot closer to steam-pulp. We're talking about the visual and the fetishistic ... the brass gears and flying goggles. Little more than a collection of tropes, shuffled to feed escapism and heroic fantasies. A movement that, in surviving, expanding, and marketing itself ... has had to become a broad tent.

To return to the genre's core, look at Mary Shelly's Frankenstein ... Michael Flynn's In the Country of the Blind ... Gibson and Sterling's Difference Engine ... the more recent batch of Pratchett's Discworld books (Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Going Postal, Dangerous Regiment) ... Christopher Priest's The Prestige ... Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials ... and Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

And have a look at the magazine.

It's not just a whitewashed nostalgia for the Victorian age. It's an interrogation of modernity ... a celebration of the anachronistic on its own terms; of the romantic, the gothic and the baroque.

'One who clings to Modernity will fall with Modernity. But one who builds water-powered Refrigerators will eat summer Fruits in Autumn.'
- A Steampunk's Guide to the Apocalypse

Worth remembering that, as a literary genre, steampunk is based on cyberpunk - which, to quote GURPS Steampunk, "suggests that social customs are a mask for opperession, exploitation, and conflict. Its heroes are the people on the losing end of this conflict, who recognize their situation for what it is and disgregard law and custom when they need to or when it suits them."

I agree with you entirely that this is the (or at least an) intention of cyberpunk, yes - I'm not sure, though, that it stands as a counter to the points made in this post. There are things that are problematic, both in this "manifesto" and in the realisation of it in specific texts - firstly, the fact that "its heroes are the people on the losing end of this conflict" is often (although by no means necessarily) true only for certain values of "people on the losing end of this conflict", whereas others remain invisible. Secondly, the model of resistance that cyberpunk offers - essentially, learning to work first within and then outside the structures oppressing them - doesn't really sit well with the reality of a lot of people's experience of oppressive structures. For many people on the losing end of this conflict, renegade-hacker-style "sticking it to the man" is not only a far more complex and ambivalent proposition (simply as a function of how complex any one individual's relationship to the structures that both oppress and support her is), but it can also be an unviable and even dangerous proposition. And both those problems are still tied up in the sort of things that this post is talking about: privileging, even in discussions of marginalised members of society, some experiences and models of experience over others.

I also definitely see your point about steampunk being an "interrogation of modernity", and can understand how that would and does work - but just because the other things that forthwritten and apparently many others see at play in steampunk are subordinated to or marshalled in the service of a different and laudable purpose, doesn't mean they're not still there. You're invoking big, unwieldy problems and discourses when you set images or versions of the past in opposition to "modernity", and if you don't actively engage with them then they're going to be there floating around in the play of the text, leaving nasty tastes in people's mouths and undermining what the genre's actually setting out to do. None of which is saying that steampunk can't be rigorous enough to do this, but I'd be surprised if it does it more often than not.

One last thing: if you've the time/inclination, would you be willing to expand on why you'd call Frankenstein a forerunner of steampunk? It sounds like a really interesting idea, but I don't feel like I've got a grasp of exactly where you're coming from with it.

And all that said, just wanted to note that just reading the phrase "The street finding its own use for things" reminded me why I do still feel, despite all that, that both cyberpunk and steampunk are interesting and important genres.

Yeah, that's where I'm engaging with steampunk from. It's a way for someone with very little practical skills or inclination to engage with the philosophy and ethos of the DIY/Maker/Punk/Hacker culture (see: in Argentina, in Timbuktu, etc.), without having to invest too much in the way of praxis. Fellow traveller, if not a card-carrying member.

It's also got this "butch" romanticism, with an emphasis on the spectacular and the sublime ... which I find appealing.

And on the Frankenstein front, it's a very interesting novel - seems to rest at a weird point of convergence where romanticism + rationality --> science fiction, transhumanism, and gothic horror. It's about the power of science and technology, but also highlights the limitations of human knowledge and control, with nteresting questions about alienation and societal norms.

Steampunk is, as much as anything, about technological solutions to societal problems. Mad science. Trying things without knowing their impossible, and pulling it off ... even if that comes back to haunt you later. And Frankenstein is one of the earlier (and certainly the most dominant) instances of the "mad scientist" archetype.

I'm with you re. the appeal of the spectacular and the sublime - I'm working with those concepts in my thesis atm, specifically relative to modern special effects.

I like that reading of Frankenstein - I especially like the highlighting of the questions it raises wrt social norms, as I actually feel that in the discussion of the more obvious debates going on within the novel, the work that Frankenstein's creation as a device does as not just a challenge to moral norms etc., but as a foil for social conventions and a "blank slate" that offsets their arbitrariness tends to be overlooked. I've always seen the novel as more in dialogue with creation myths of various kinds first and foremost, with the exploration of the power of science and technology being part of that, which means I see it as positioned kind of obliquely relative to steampunk and sf in general - but at the same time, the "technological solutions to societal problems" sits quite nicely with me as a way of thinking about it. Interesting stuff.

Btw, I've happily friended you on lj, because you seem interesting, and I think I'd have fun commenting on your posts, but I just thought I'd better warn you that my lj is first and foremost a fandom journal - about 75% of the content is fic or otherwise fandom related. So if you change your mind about following my journal, I will understand and definitely won't be offended :)

Bugger it, not got the hang of this openID thing - the above comment was me.

Yeah. No worries. Don't really use LJ that much myself, and am not likely to be startled by fandom. And if even some of the remaining 25% is even remotely linked to any of this kind of stuff, I'll be more than happy. :)

I'm not sure what to make of those links - the first seems to be a tourist-and-expat view of things, with no interviews or discussion with people actually involved in the culture. I find it problematic that, in an article supposedly about the local economy, the very people creating it aren't present. The second is interesting but again it's not something written by someone actually *doing* it. They're not by people actually immersed in the culture and contextualising it from their perspective.

"Steampunk is, as much as anything, about technological solutions to societal problems"

I think the problem is that I don't really see where the social problems are being addressed in the wider steampunk movement. Okay, so there's a "serious" literary steampunk, but I don't know if it actually addresses the issues I'm talking about. In fact, I've been actively put off by some of those authors (white men who feel They Must Impart Their Unique And Special Knowledge) and I don't really see how they challenge the sort of things I'm interested in.

"suggests that social customs are a mask for opperession, exploitation, and conflict. Its heroes are the people on the losing end of this conflict, who recognize their situation for what it is and disgregard law and custom when they need to or when it suits them."

Problem being that, if you are part of a disempowered group, disregarding law is not always an option or safe or without dangerous consequences. You might find this collection of links about Somali piracy interesting - of course there are lots of factors in their piracy, but they are rejecting laws and custom and in doing so, are threatening the stability of the area, taking hostages and facing the death penalty as a result. Sticking it to The Man isn't romantic, it's not a V for Vendetta fairytale - it's dangerous and can be fatal.

ja_baby_ja makes some good points too.

I think this is somewhere where we differ - I see steampunk as the preserve of wealthy, middle class, largely white geeks. There's privilege in being able to "stick it to The Man" and not fear repurcussions, there's privilege in being able to access the books and graphic novels you mention (my local library's selection of sci-fi is mainly aging pulp stuff, and graphic novels are expensive), there's privilege in having the time and tools to make costumes and mod gadgets (dremels and bits are not especially cheap).
I don't think it does address questions of inequality and oppression. What you say is reminiscent of the original punk movement with its romanticisation of "fighting the power" by people who weren't necessarily disenfranchised.

Edited 2009-04-30 00:32 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to make of those links

Take some broad context from them, rather than criticising their lack of an emic standpoint. I was just trying to show that this exists, and orient steampunk in relation to it ... not make any specific claims about its participants.

Problem being that, if you are part of a disempowered group, disregarding law is not always an option or safe or without dangerous consequences.

Yes. Which is why it's a powerful story.

Sticking it to The Man isn't romantic, it's not a V for Vendetta fairytale

Why isn't it? In the real world, it might not be ... but when pirates (criminals "sticking it to the" nation-state) are comodified and sold back to us by Disney, turned into halloween costumes and birthday cake themes. Cowboy outlaws. Robin Hood. Indiana Jones. It's all the same, and it bears litte - if any - relation to the real actual history. I can't quite see how steampunk is any different.

I think this is somewhere where we differ - I see steampunk as the preserve of wealthy, middle class, largely white geeks.

I agree with this, as it stands. But there's nothing that says it has to be this way. The aesthetic is DIY, homemade - and, in an ideal world, it'd be a case of free zines (like the only devoted steampunk magazine I pointed you to), and second-hand mashups.

STEAMPUNK (all capitals - i.e. the "movement" at its broadest and vaguest) might not deal particularly well with issues of inequality and oppression as it stands, but that's not to say it's fundamentally incapable of doing so.

At its worst, it can look like this, sure ... but at it's best ... could it not be princess's stories of a world ending, and an empire burning in the white-hot flames of fury and insurrection?

Why isn't it? In the real world, it might not be ... but when pirates (criminals "sticking it to the" nation-state) are comodified and sold back to us by Disney, turned into halloween costumes and birthday cake themes. Cowboy outlaws. Robin Hood. Indiana Jones. It's all the same, and it bears litte - if any - relation to the real actual history. I can't quite see how steampunk is any different.

Commodified, inauthentic, appropriative... you're not really helping your argument here. If this is what we're promised from steampunk "sticking it to the man," then you'll have to excuse me for not being enthusiastic about the concept.

STEAMPUNK (all capitals - i.e. the "movement" at its broadest and vaguest) might not deal particularly well with issues of inequality and oppression as it stands, but that's not to say it's fundamentally incapable of doing so.

You and other people seem very keen on talking about what steampunk could do, but surely there are plenty of genres that could do this? All of them, potentially, when you think about it. What makes steampunk special and how long do you suggest we wait to see whether it delivers on its promise?

What makes steampunk special and how long do you suggest we wait to see whether it delivers on its promise?

Nothing, and I don't.

I've already outlined my arguments, which basically come down to - (1) there seems to be a criticism of steampunk-the-fashion-and-broad-watered-down-subculture, which I don't think applies to steampunk-the-genre-and-worldview, (2) there is plenty of evidence of individual stories, people, projects and otherwise who deal with issues of prejudice, privilege, and politics - discounting them as unrepresentative or inappropriate doesn't really work for the argument, because their existence is enough.

With something as wooly as the notion of "steampunk" (something that dissertations could be written on, no doubt), having any kind of constructive argument is going to be difficult ... because it's not a thing, so much as an assemblage of things. So when you talk about steampunk, you're probably not (as we've seen) talking about the things I'm talking about when I talk about steampunk. It's a worldview, a lens through which to view things, and a set of tools you can apply as and when you deem in appropriate.

As such, I could easily say certain books, comics, practices at which the bulk of the criticism seems to be levelled aren't really authentic steampunk. They miss the point of the genre/subculture/amorphous blob. But what's my word worth? Very little.

I've taken things from the steampunk-amorphous-blob that I feel have been useful for the way I approach and interact with the world. I've found it empowering, being able to draw on this geek-friendly romantic praxis in addition to the other ideas and tools at my disposal. Now, I'm not saying everyone will find it useful, and if you look, of course there are going to be things worth criticising, interrogating, and questioning. As with any other genre. And I'm not saying this one is special, or different, or worth waiting for special things from.

But I do think you should try reading the magazine I've linked to, in order to get a bit of a better feel for what I've been talking about when I've been talking about "steampunk".

[/massive defence of something I'm not really even that involved with]

The closest I come to being a steampunker is, I think, reading D. Gray-man, so do take this with a grain of salt:

You and other people seem very keen on talking about what steampunk could do, but surely there are plenty of genres that could do this? All of them, potentially, when you think about it. What makes steampunk special and how long do you suggest we wait to see whether it delivers on its promise?

By that logic-- and I do realize how sad a statement this is-- there's not much I could read, experience, love. I think the great promise of steampunk is that it's a collage-- look, we can take this Cool Stuff we love, take out the nasty unpleasant stuff, and come up with something better. The problem is that a lot of the people who want something 'better' are just passing on the old problems, as we're discussing now. But I don't think that inherently means it's not capable of getting there. (The underlying themes of colonialism may mean just that, but I don't know.)

I think there are definitely questions of how far the structural problems are surmountable. Beyond that, though, there's a question of whether people will necessarily be motivated to be a part of the movement and help to fix the problems when the tables are so obviously tilted against them from the start. Dealing with this stuff takes time and energy and I think it's entirely justifiable to say "I want to involve myself with something that's more welcoming from the start."

I think it's entirely justifiable to say "I want to involve myself with something that's more welcoming from the start."

Oh, absolutely. I think one of the things I was unconsciously resisting to was the thought that the people who are engaging-- and I'm not saying that this was what you were expressing, just where I realized I was coming from-- are wasting their time, and that implication bothers me. There are PoC doing cool shit in steampunk-- someone linked me to some art a week or so that just blew my mind-- and I'd hate to see their efforts denigrated as pointless.

I was reading this article about women in technology last night (the comments are an illustration of everything the writer discusses).

There are women doing some amazing things in technology, but they usually have to contend with a very male dominated atmosphere and other issues. I think the ones who are willing to work in that environment are fantastic, but I can't blame the women who don't want to deal with those issues. I don't think the onus is on the minority to change the culture - the majority have also got to make an effort.

And while I'm reluctant to say that women in technology are exactly like POC in steampunk, I do see some parallels. There are some POC doing cool shit with steampunk and it's not my intention to say their work is pointless; rather that for every POC willing to engage with a movement where they're a minority and exoticised, there are going to be more who don't want to deal with that.

Does that make things clearer?

Edited 2009-05-01 19:06 (UTC)

Yeah, I realized that was what you were saying eventually. (Sometimes it takes me a while, heh.) I just want to make sure that their work is valued, I guess. And the question is also what the onus is on us as observers. Do we write off steampunk? Do we focus on the efforts of POC in steampunk? I don't know.

Frankenstein may actually be the worst possible example of steampunk's "transgressive" nature that I could think of - for those who haven't read the book, the book ends with a polar explorer deciding that exploration isn't really worth the hassle based on Frankenstein's experiences with his monster (who it should be pointed out, only went bad because Frankenstein got scared and ran off to the nearest pub when he finally brought the monster to life), with the implication that there are somethings that Man Is Just Not Meant To Know or explore or question.

It's an utterly conservative book in most senses of the word "conservative", and I'm just flabberghasted that people keep citing it as an example of a source of the transgressive undercurrent in the whole steampunk movement. With Frankenstein as a template, well of course you're not going to have native north african scientist adventurers having to organise an expedition to find the source of the nile (Where a mcguffin that can be used to green the sahara or just because the money that the expedition raises can be used to build more steampowered well drilling devices that could provide plentiful clean water to drought and disease prone african villages) and the travails that go along with having to make sure the rich white twit, who the british authorities that funded the expedition insisted be brought along and get the credit for the "discovery" of the nile's source, makes it back home alive.

- Fridgepunk

This is probably starting to become tangential to the original points, but: I just wanted to say that however justified or otherwise calling Frankenstein "steampunk" is, I don't think this account of it does justice to how ambivalent and not-straightforward Frankenstein's treatment of Frankenstein, his creation, the process of creation, and all the myths, master narratives, and social norms it engages with actually is. I wouldn't say it's straightforwardly transgressive, either (and it's definitely not without its problems), but I really wouldn't call it unambiguously conservative in its treatment of its themes, despite the way the narrative wraps up. Too many complex framing devices, too much very careful, deliberate handling of allusions and context, too many interesting choices of language.

/probably irrelevant speech in defence of much-loved novel

To return to the genre's core, look at Mary Shelly's Frankenstein ... Michael Flynn's In the Country of the Blind ... Gibson and Sterling's Difference Engine ... the more recent batch of Pratchett's Discworld books (Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Going Postal, Dangerous Regiment) ... Christopher Priest's The Prestige ... Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials ... and Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Um. I can't help but notice that these are all white-authored books, and only one of them is by a woman.

(Yes, I've read most of them; yes, I've enjoyed most of them. But I'm not sure that this list is compelling as far as indicating that the roots of steampunk are particularly diverse or subversive, when your recommended reading list is overwhelmingly authored by dominant-sex members of the dominant culture.)

Oh, sure. No argument there. I wasn't trying to suggest that the roots of steampunk are particularly diverse or subversive, so much as pointing out that there's a fairly serious and slightly more nuanced literary steampunk, in addition to the "rivets & aristocrats" subculture / fashion / social movement.

Night Watch is a steampunk book? I firmly reject the notion that a mention of Leonard of Quirm makes a book "steampunk."

The more I look at steampunk (and cyberpunk), the more it looks like middle-class white people who have finally noticed the oppression all around them (usually, because they got touched by it in passing), and have decided to Do Something About It. Of course, that "do something" may be "disrupt the local economy so the local lords are very uncomfortable"--with no notion of how many of the local impoverished class are going to be executed, or just starve to death, for being around when it happens.

The characters in cyberpunk (with which I'm more familiar) are all capable of passing as the upper-class elite. They may come from the streets, but they're clever, sophisticated, knowledgeable about arcane things, and much more often than not, solitary. As in, cyberpunk stories don't center around single moms of twins, one of whom needs insulin to survive. Steampunk stories don't center around fathers of four whose mother is dying of tuberculosis. The stories are about heroes with distant or no relatives, not heroes whose families will starve if they're not at work by 9am every day.

The guy who stole parts from the evil overlord's factory to build the water-powered refrigerator? His brother wasn't whipped halfway to death for his audacity. His sister wasn't handed to the guards to be raped at their leisure.

There's a lot of denial of both context and consequence in the -punk genres.

Your comment reminded me of a couple of lines in Maus. It's a graphic novel about a man's relationship with his father, a Holocaust survivor, the long term effects it had on the survivors and the father's personal account of the Holocaust itself.

At one point, the son, possibly criticising his father for not rebelling, says, "Y'know...last night I was reading about Auschwitz... Some prisoners working in the gas chambers revolted. They killed 3 S.S. men and blew up a crematorium".

The father replies, "Yah. For this they all got killed. And the four young girls what sneaked over the ammunitions for this, they hanged them near to my workshop. They were good friends of Anja, from Sosnowiec. They hanged a long, long time".

As you point out, resisting power is dangerous and the consequences of doing so can be lost if romanticising it.

The stories are about heroes with distant or no relatives, not heroes whose families will starve if they're not at work by 9am every day.

That's a really good point-- there's a real continuing theme of the Solitary Hero.

There's a scene in The Magnificent Seven, where a pack of young boys is telling one of the gunfighters how they wish he'd take them with him. The boys say,

"We´re ashamed to live here. Our fathers are cowards."

And the gunman grabs one of them, angry, and says,

"Don´t ever say that again about your fathers. They are not cowards! You think I am brave because I carry a gun. Your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility. For you, your brothers, your sisters and your mothers. This responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. Nobody says they have to do it. They do it because they love you and they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule, with no guarantee what will become of it - this is bravery."

And while that's not the only kind of bravery, the only kind of nobility, its mention is conspicuously absent from the --punk genres. They pretend families and communities are backdrops, stages for the show they're putting on, not central reasons for people's lives and efforts.

There's a hidden message that, in order to Do Great Things, you must set aside your family, your community... your cultural identity... in order to succeed. Subtle whitewashing, even though both genres have a reasonable number of non-privileged-caste heroes.

IIRC, that's in the original Seven Samurai too, though it's been some years.

It's almost not even white-washing (or maybe not JUST whitewashing)-- there are plenty of white folks with cultures in the ground too, the Old Man back at the farm, the sisters left behind.

Now the wheels are really turning in my head....

I adore the aesthetic of His Dark Materials and love the theological stuff, but man, I wouldn't use it as an exhibit for sophisticated deconstruction of racial thinking.

It fetishises late nineteenth century racial thinking to the point of resurrecting archaic racial descriptors like "Tartars" and "Nipponese" to replace modern ones. Everyone in Lyra's world (except the Europeans) is defined by their racial characteristics, whether they're human or non-human; Mary is transformed by her experiences with a pre-industrial, primitive society and sent back to Civilisation armed with her new knowledge; and Mrs Coulter's hiding in the jungle wearing a immaculately ironed, stylish safari suit and pith helmet. (I may have hallucinated the pith helmet, but it certainly wouldn't be out of context. Aren't there even some savages around, at that point?)

I don't know, I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this. Maybe you could argue that the racial thinking in His Dark Materials is so overt it forces you to confront it. But really, I think I see Phillip Pullman as a pretty amazing example of how you can be a wonderfully subtle writer whilst simultaneously perpetuating some pretty problematic tropes.

(* does that work?)

Very interesting & smart post! You probably saw it on LJ a while ago & I don't think I memoried it, but there was a big post about this stuff from Oyceter & also another one I think written by an Asian guy who did a lot of steampunk costuming.

I admit I'm mostly just interested in the costuming, ha. I like pretty clothing, even if I'm usu. too lazy/cheap/bad at sewing to wear it. But just from my brief perusals over the years of, say, steampunk fashion sites, there are some disturbing things out there along the lines you mentioned...

one I think written by an Asian guy who did a lot of steampunk costuming

I recall

anachronaut posting (namecheck for reference).

There's a guy named Kit on LJ whose alias I believe is "anachronaut". His quote (probably badly mangled by me here) is along the lines of "I want a little more punk in my steampunk. It's not all air ships and tea parties. The world is ending and the Empire is burning."

I think that there's an aspect to steampunk that *does* engage in that sort of social deconstruction. It's not a huge movement yet, and yes, it's still a culture built more around cool mods for computers and making your own corsets, but some of us are also wondering about those things.

Steampunk is one of those things I know very little about. Just enough to refer to a pair of shoes as steampunk!governess ones but nothing much more. I do wonder if part of it is the fact that, unless you've gone away and done some reading, you do tend to end up with the sanitised version of the Victorians. You end up knowing that they made leaps in sanitation, were wishy-washy on what women were for, and generally seemed a bit dull. If you haven't studied them any further than GCSE (and maybe A-Level, I don't know. I studied the Russian Revolution and British Social Politics) then you haven't really encountered the harsh realities of what being a Victorian meant - physically and when it comes to ideologies and politics.

This doesn't, obviously, excuse anyone because, in my opinion, if you are going to be a part of something, like steampunk, you need to think about it, explore it, and understand it before you can join in fully.

Yes. A thousand times, yes.

BUT, inasmuch as steampunk--and I'm thinking here specifically of Pullman's His Dark Materials, which I'm not really sure I'd call steampunk--has the potential to be a genre of fantasy which does not automatically valorize monarchy and magic (and the medieval era or the far future) and demonize representative government and science (and the present era or the close past), I think it has clear potential merit--potential merit that it's largely failed to fulfill, so far. For which reasons I'd cite Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle as a far truer image of what steampunk could do as an engaged critic rather than a superficial imitator. Of course, those books aren't set in the 19thC, but in the 17th and 18th--which doesn't seem insignificant.

Edited 2009-04-30 01:04 (UTC)

One of the problems in this discussion is (IMO) that people seem to want to define steampunk so widely that it really starts to lose its meaning. Mary Shelley? Steampunk! China Mieville? Steampunk! Philip Pullman? Steampunk! I don't like the idea that we can take any piece of good non-epic fantasy and toss it into the balance on steampunk's account.

As you say, His Dark Materials is really questionable. It was inspired by Milton, who wasn't Victorian at all. It has zeppelins, sure, but god knows zeppelins aren't everything in life. Similarly, I do see what you're saying with regard to the Baroque Cycle, but steampunk before steam seems to be a bit of a contradiction in terms.

Basically I think that *all* fantasy has, or ought to have, the potential to not automatically valorize monarchy and magic. You're putting a great deal of expectation on the back of one sub-genre that--again, as you say--has so far failed to deliver. What is so special about steampunk that we should expect all these things from it?

Well, I certainly wouldn't want to give the impression that I consider myself any sort of expert on steampunk, because I certainly don't. And I really wouldn't consider Frankenstein either science fiction or steampunk, and I'd disqualify Pullman on the grounds that it's set in a contemporary timeframe, and of course, as you say, Stephenson is steampunk before steam (except in the third book, with the Engine For Raising Water By Fire). But I like to lump things, and I think toying with the idea of each of these works as steampunk helps put steampunk and the various books in perspective. For instance, what I'd say all these books (with the exception of Shelley and the inclusion of Miéville) share is a certain willingness to tackle genre conventions of place, time, and--what's the word?--viewpoint? So instead of medievalish monarchical fantasy or far future monarchical space opera, Miéville offers a Marxist urban fantasy, Stephenson offers a militantly liberal, this-world, past science fantasy tale, and steampunk seems to offer a Victorian, pro-science take on fantasy.

I agree that all fantasy ought to have the potential to automatically valorize monarchy and magic, but in practice works that don't are rather far between, at least in my reading experience. And speaking personally, I try to hold the hope of a different perspective in all my sff reading (since I could see arguments for steampunk as both science fiction and fantasy). I'm not sure I could say what makes steampunk so "special" (I wouldn't want to claim that it is special, really) but I do think that since it is explicitly (neo-)Victorian in its temporal location, that raises my expectations for it to at least flirt with not automatically being pro-aristocrat. I mean, historically speaking, the middle ages in western Europe (which, again, the majority of the fantasy I've read takes as a point of departure) was emphatically not the age of the peasant. But the mid to late Victorian era was the age of Dickens, the age of the industrial revolution, the age of failed European revolutions, the age of John Stuart Mill, etc, etc, so on that basis, I'd expect more of an acknowledgment of more echelons of society (both inside and outside the Empire).

Edited 2009-04-30 01:35 (UTC)

So instead of medievalish monarchical fantasy or far future monarchical space opera, Miéville offers a Marxist urban fantasy, Stephenson offers a militantly liberal, this-world, past science fantasy tale, and steampunk seems to offer a Victorian, pro-science take on fantasy.

Oh, I find it very refreshing that fantasy seems to be branching out from its post-Tolkienian rut. Perhaps we as readers are still flailing a bit in terms of how to categorize the resultant products. Personally I have some hope for the New Weird as a genre.

But the mid to late Victorian era was the age of Dickens, the age of the industrial revolution, the age of failed European revolutions, the age of John Stuart Mill, etc, etc, so on that basis, I'd expect more of an acknowledgment of more echelons of society (both inside and outside the Empire).

In a sense this is what makes steampunk so depressing. I'm a historian of the nineteenth century; I'm absolutely fascinated by Victorians and their contradictions, which is what got me interested in the concept of steampunk in the first place. And yet with rare exceptions--The Light Ages is the example that keeps coming to mind--I'm just not seeing any of that recognition of complexity that you might expect. As a concept it does have great promise, along with the enormous potential pitfalls of imperialism and sexism and all the rest of it. And what I've seen is that the genre has not developed at the promising aspects; instead it has exploited, in a blithely ignorant way, the worst cliches and prejudices of the period. It really is "steam pulp," to use a phrase that someone else coined in this thread. I suppose the reason why I'm angry rather than indifferent about steampunk is that I feel betrayed by it.

Edited 2009-04-30 02:01 (UTC)

It is a refreshing (though recent) tendency. And "steam pulp" is a great phrase. I may have to steal it.

I'm here from

metafandom so I apologise if I shove my foot in my mouth.

I come into this really liking steampunk. I come to steampunk by way of punk culture (as it functions in my area) and a love of history. Most of my steampunk experience, I admit, is through Steampunk Magazine, which doesn't seem to always be representative of the culture (as I discover as I write a steampunk piece).

Given, the tagline of Steampunk Magazine is "Putting the punk back into steampunk," and my original positioning, but I enjoy the steampunk that deals with the anxieties of the Victorian age - what happens when the masses rise, etc. - Essentially placing punk into the Victorian Age.

(This also said, I'm writing a steampunk piece in the thirteenth century. It is the Mongolian empire in this piece that has the steam power. The punk is the Europeans who are the oppressed under the Mongolian empire and interact with the powerful and gadgety Mongolians and Chinese. Some Central Asians also have the traditional steampunk-i-ness. This is to say - I think steampunk *can* be utilised to examine problems, even if many don't choose to use it that way.)

Punk is not a culture in which I'm particularly involved, so my grasp of that side of things may be a bit lacking. I've watched The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle, and made what was perhaps the mistake of believing it. So from that standpoint I guess I do worry whether steampunk is authentic or aesthetic rebellion, and whether it's possible to do both at once.

(Now I'm sure I've put *my* foot in my mouth... feel free to tell me off!)

(This also said, I'm writing a steampunk piece in the thirteenth century. It is the Mongolian empire in this piece that has the steam power. The punk is the Europeans who are the oppressed under the Mongolian empire and interact with the powerful and gadgety Mongolians and Chinese. Some Central Asians also have the traditional steampunk-i-ness. This is to say - I think steampunk *can* be utilised to examine problems, even if many don't choose to use it that way.)

I definitely like the idea of alternate versions of history where the Europeans didn't end up on top. I do wonder, though, whether your version of history might still privilege the Europeans *within* the story by letting them be the interesting and cool rebels. Obviously I don't know how it actually plays out. Just something to think about...

Edited 2009-04-30 02:58 (UTC)

Oh, my punk rebels aren't white. (I should also preface this with the part where I'm a medievalist? So I've got the complicated view of what race means in the thirteenth century.) The guy who's European who's rebelling most is Adalusian (a Muslim from Grenada, whose father fled the Samarkand). His buddy is Irish (and not educated as Ireland is the far West). The rebellion, though, is led by the Chinese and Central Asian groups. (Um, race is complicated and so is the plot - but the Chinese and Central Asians have to lead for plot reasons. I'm slightly more concerned about women's roles in the story.) - Also, this is heavily based in the actual history of the Monoglian invasion of Europe. (It happened - the Mongolians had an empire larger than Rome's. It was truly epic and primarily forgotten by Euro-centric history, which distresses me. I'll shut up, though, because this is my pet thing and I could go on forever.)

As for punk... I won't deny that there are plenty of people in it for the aesthetic of rebellion. On the other hand, I know many who are involved and care because it matters. (That's why I am involved in that kind of thing, I think to think. It matters. It's important. We need to do this. If we just sit, things will only get worse.) I assume steampunk is similar - some are in it because it's "cool" and some are in it because it matters.

(I think we can learn a lot from steampunk, just as we can learn from fantasy and cyberpunk and horror. Steampunk, especially, though can be a displacement of our 21st century American imperialism and function as a discuss of it that doesn't have the forced rhetoric of modern politics and pain of pushing a candidate or party or specific group-cause.)

(It happened - the Mongolians had an empire larger than Rome's. It was truly epic and primarily forgotten by Euro-centric history, which distresses me. I'll shut up, though, because this is my pet thing and I could go on forever.)

Sounds fascinating, actually. I wish you the best of luck with the story. :)

Here via

metafandom -- I just wanted to say that this post is really fantastic, and highlights a lot of issues that I had been hoping I would not discover if only I read more steampunk. Thanks for posting and for hosting such a great discussion.

I'm.... baffled. There are people who take steampunk seriously? I suppose there are a lot of replies citing the literature branch of steampunk. I approach it from the (American) hobbyist costume and prop maker's point of view and can't speak to that at all.

Alright. Going to try and put into words my perception of this genere. Here goes.

The blogs I read are full of people creating their own characters and realms. Pure and total ESCAPIST FANTASY. Truthfully,I've never perceived steampunk in any other way. It has about as much to do with Victorian England as the Elegant Gothic Aristocrat/Elegant Gothic Lolita fashions have to do with French history (or for that matter actual lolita fetishism). Same as my local renfest (dead in the middle of Kansas), full to the brim with fairies and elves and hundreds of princes/princesses/kings/queens. About as medieval England as the average 80's film about magic. Actually, that's exactly what my vision of it has been since I was made aware of it some 2+ years ago. It is like renfest rendered with a different loose set of fantasy props. Replace the shiny flowing dresses and store-bought-pattern tunics with leather pants, button up shirts, and frill/lace. Throw in a cameo. Replace your crowns and tiaras with goggles and pocket watches. Replace your swords and daggers with fanciful guns covered in gears and brass. A dozen each princes, princesses, kings, and queens walk the renfest mud-laden paths each weekend, and the net is full of self imagined aristocrats and scientists, adventurers. They exist purely in their own fantasy realms. I'd guess so few people getting into steampunk address the social issues of the Victorian age because, well, they don't REALLY perceive the two as being that connected. And, why should they? The fantasy genre seems to rarely limit itself to Europe's map or cultures. Or, hell species. It isn't just shiny gears and pretty, but it isn't reality either. It's something new that's building itself as it goes along.

As for the lack of attention you perceive towards the other elements of society.... I'm of the opinion that this will work itself out in time. Right now there's such a lack of identity and structure people latch onto the adventurer identity first. As the community continues to grow, other elements will emerge. People will continue to mish mash their fantasies with the literature and film they most identify with the genre and will graft on bits and pieces from the history books as decoration. You want a place for you in steampunk? Build it. Make it up. Run with it. When I first discovered steampunk, I didn't see much beyond the aviator/engineer stereotype you speak of. Now, the aristocrats are coming in hard core. How much longer before new elements and personas emerge? Before whole genres become common and then dominant. At the renfest I mentioned above, royalty isn't the dominant force. You're just as likely to see knights, bar wenches, bards, fairies, elves, craftsmen, jesters, etc. And then people who show up in tartans to continue to push the boundaries of the fantasy.

I also find fault in the notion that any adventurer or explorer has to discover something for a greater imperialist society. Why not themselves? Their personal adventure. Their personal discoveries. Seeing the world for their own eyes. Not every explorer has to conquer.

And, I wonder about the German influence in names and such that you mention. I guess it's just a UK thing. So much of what I see is steampunk elements tied into the American identity with names and cultural elements shoe horned in appropriately. It is what each person makes it. Each person invents their own place in the framework and continues to stretch it and redefine it.

But, what do I know? I'm just a costumer. I suppose I'm superficial by nature.

Agreeing with every word of this.

As someone who's been in and out of the Steampunk community over many years, I have to agree with every word of this.

I see a huge rift here between people who want to consider Steampunk as something serious and social and then can't find it and those who don't understand why anyone would do that to something fictional.

Yes, there are groups among those who identify as Steampunks/Steampunk fans who care about the deeper social or ideological issues that can be connected to the genre. Just like there are Pern fans who care about the implications of sexuality in Pern, 'classic' fantasy fans who care about the racial implications on their favourite fantasy works, and so on. But that's because they, as people, as individuals, care about these issues and wish to explore them in connection with other things they care about.

That these people exist does not create a responsibility for the genre to cater to these concerns, nor does it make their views the only valuable view on the genre. Calling the genre 'problematic' implies that it is supposed to cater to these views but fails do that. Granted, while there are Steampunk works out there that do indeed have the purpose of exploring certain issues, the genre itself never claimed such purpose.

Calling the genre 'problematic' implies that it is supposed to cater to these views but fails do that.

I don't think this is true. It's not about prescriptivism, about what a genre is supposed to do or what a genre has a responsibility to do - saying that a genre is problematic is saying that what it is doing and what is does do ties in with or reflects attitudes, practices, ideas and belief systems that the person making the judgement is not comfortable with, or is sick to death of, or is angry about. Saying, I wish steampunk would do more of this, isn't showing a misunderstanding of the genre's purpose - far from it, it's showing a solid understanding of what the genre's doing, and then saying, I'm not sure if I like it.

You can't separate your and mizuno_caitlin's readings of steampunk from forthwritten's and those of the other people who have commented in agreement here. That purpose you're identifying in steampunk, that is the problem that people are seeing. The fact that it is escapist fantasy is the problem. The fact that it is often purposefully superficial is the problem. In other words, the fact that "the genre itself never claimed" the purpose that people are wishing it did is the problem. It's not a defence of the genre in the context of this argument.

I agree with you entirely that genres should be judged on their own terms, and recognised fairly for what they are and how they work, but I also don't see anything wrong with judging the terms themselves - especially when we're not dealing with matters of personal taste, we're dealing with matters of personal ethics and social issues.

I think the problem (in the discussion) is that I can't understand how one can call something a 'problem' just because it is not what that person wants it to be.

Or, more precisely: I can't manage to see a 'problem' with Steampunk being mostly an escapist fantasy. I don't see this as 'problematic' at all. It just is what it is. It doesn't belittle any real issues of that era (or in general) because it never claimed to be about them or connected to them, and it doesn't stop people who are interested in these issues from dealing with them.

I think

spiralsheep had a nice point below. I also want to point out that escapist fantasies, as fun as they are, can often reinforce our own society's cultures and attitudes. No little girl would dress up and want to play 'princess' if all they knew about royalty was the fate of the Romanovs!

The fact that it is escapist fantasy is the problem. The fact that it is often purposefully superficial is the problem. In other words, the fact that "the genre itself never claimed" the purpose that people are wishing it did is the problem. It's not a defence of the genre in the context of this argument.

Hmm, I'm about to make a ridiculous generalisation which wouldn't stand up to being pulled apart but....

I'd like to point out that inclusive escapist fantasies which are attempts to remake human societies for the better are different from exclusive escapist fantasies which reinforce the status quo (whether intentionally or not). Escapism is probably the primary reason why I interact with fantasy as a genre. My complaint would be that there's not enough escaping from existing human societies in my fantasy rather than too much.

I hope that makes sense because I wouldn't want such an interesting discussion to get bogged down in a false escapism/realism binary which probably isn't especially meaningful/helpful within the context of this discussion.

Edited 2009-04-30 10:18 (UTC)

It does make sense, and I definitely take your point - I agree that it's very possible to do a lot of work re. engaging with and challenging the status quo through essentially escapist modes of fiction, and tbh I have a lot of issues with the fact that realism is often held up as the paradigmatic form for social critique. So yes, I hear you on escapism/realism not being a particularly sound or helpful opposition to set up - and hold my hands up to lazy thinking/writing there. Escapism is a loaded term, and a complex concept - unpacking it would probably make an interesting discussion in itself, tbh.

My complaint would be that there's not enough escaping from existing human societies in my fantasy rather than too much.

In this, you've summed up a whole year's worth of recurring niggling dissatisfaction while studying purposefully "progressive" sf better than I ever managed to put it. This resonates with me a lot.

inclusive escapist fantasies which are attempts to remake human societies for the better are different from exclusive escapist fantasies which reinforce the status quo (whether intentionally or not). Escapism is probably the primary reason why I interact with fantasy as a genre. My complaint would be that there's not enough escaping from existing human societies in my fantasy rather than too much.

THIS times a thousand. That is a very neat encapsulation of something that's been nagging at me for a while. Because I love my escapist fantasies, but the idea that "it's an escapist fantasy!" is a get-out-of-jail-free card strikes me as not just wrong but profoundly wrong. Yes, let's have escapist fantasies, by all means! But let's interrogate them and ask ourselves: why do I like this? What is it that appeals to me about it? Am I enjoying something that is reinforcing attitudes in myself that I deplore in others? And maybe the answer to that last one will ultimately be "no", but one can't take that for granted.

(And then you have the difficult fact that the oppressive structures of existing societies are inside our heads as well as outside, so that even fantasies intended to be inclusive generally have exclusive elements -- but a lot of authors aren't even trying.)

Yes, there are groups among those who identify as Steampunks/Steampunk fans who care about the deeper social or ideological issues that can be connected to the genre. Just like there are Pern fans who care about the implications of sexuality in Pern, 'classic' fantasy fans who care about the racial implications on their favourite fantasy works, and so on. But that's because they, as people, as individuals, care about these issues and wish to explore them in connection with other things they care about.

Many people care about deeper social issues because those issues affect them personally. It's not necessarily a choice, unless you consider it a choice not to want to feel like you've been slapped in the face every time you read your favorite genre.

That these people exist does not create a responsibility for the genre to cater to these concerns, nor does it make their views the only valuable view on the genre. Calling the genre 'problematic' implies that it is supposed to cater to these views but fails do that.

Steampunk doesn't *have* to cater to anyone other than white, middle-class, able-bodied Christian males. But wouldn't it be nice if it did? I don't think it's to much to ask that the community should be welcoming to "these people" as well.

This.

spiralsheep said below, the real, fundamental problem with escapist fantasy is that it doesn't actually manage to escape the problems and inequities of the wider society. It just unconsciously reproduces them because it's never gone through the process of examining its own assumptions. So what happens is you get a lot of escapist fantasy written that claims to have nothing to do with the real world, but mysteriously the hero always happens to be white and gay people always happen to get swept to the side. Or to use a costuming example: plenty of white people find it escapist to dress up as if they're from "the mysterious and exotic Orient" but fail to consider how this sort of thing affects people from the countries that are being exotised. It's easy to say "make a place for yourself in steampunk," but that sort of behavior sends a message to

forthwritten and other people that their place is as the Other, as explored rather than explorers.

The fantasy genre seems to rarely limit itself to Europe's map or cultures. Or, hell species.

Um, these sentences sound like they're making an analogy between non-Europeans and non-humans. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, so I thought I would point out how it comes across.

I also find fault in the notion that any adventurer or explorer has to discover something for a greater imperialist society. Why not themselves? Their personal adventure. Their personal discoveries. Seeing the world for their own eyes. Not every explorer has to conquer.

Theoretically, yes, but even so the explorer needs a place to explore. And correct me if I'm wrong but I haven't seen too many steampunk adventurers setting out for the Appalachians or Snowdonia.

You continue to talk about it as though steampunk has much unity or connection to your society. In stating that it is an escapist fantasy sandbox, I mean to call to light how personal it is. "The hero" in most of the steampunk I see is the individual who is playing. Everyone is their own main character, and so every main character is how they are. Everyone defines it for themselves. As such, if you like some elements, but don't see a place for yourself yet, it's just because you haven't made a place for yourself yet. Don't want to be an adventurer? How about a trader? Dignitary? Aristocrat? Inventor? Pilot? Something new? Go for it.

You two key into the origins being lifted somewhere and somewhen in the UK, which in your minds means it must adhere to the social norms and problems of that society as closely as a historical reenactment ought to. But, many Americans and Aussies have made it their own without much problem. I'm saying it isn't tied directly into a specific set of works or histories, so it's still free for every individual to write their own place in it. If you like certain elements of the genre, but hate everything else... make it your own by rejecting everything else! The steampunker's playground doesn't have to be Victorian England. It's rarely England in the stuff I come across. It doesn't even have to be Earth! Why should anyone else limit themselves to your world view? Why should you limit yourself to theirs? Cherry pick what you like, worldbuild, play.

Perhaps it is worth noting that the first mention I ever saw of steampunk in the media was the International Herlad Tribune article featuring these guys (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/05/07/style/0508-PUNK_index.html?scp=5&sq=steampunk&st=cse) who seem to not fit your mold of what a steampunker is or should be. I also tend to identify the movie Wild Wild West (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_West) as channeling steampunk, how ever terrible it was, and the people there don't fit your rigid definition either.

Um, these sentences sound like they're making an analogy between non-Europeans and non-humans. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, so I thought I would point out how it comes across.
What in the world?! No, hon. Pointing out how little connection to this world some fantasy works have. Different map, different laws of nature, different people. New religion? No religion? One language? Ten?

Theoretically, yes, but even so the explorer needs a place to explore. And correct me if I'm wrong but I haven't seen too many steampunk adventurers setting out for the Appalachians or Snowdonia.
Doesn't seem like you've seen much outside of a few circles of UK steampunkers and a few works of fiction. :/ Though, I've not really seen any costumers intent on exploring anywhere but the local abandoned industrial complex or their own backyards. I'm still not getting where the “explore and conquer for the Empire!” notion is coming from beyond the reasoning that this was how Victorians in England seemed to think, therefore it must be how all steampunkers think.

Are you really complaining about steampunk, or a specific work or specific circle?

But you guys seem pretty set in your ways, so I won't comment anymore. Everyone else says it better.

I don't accept the contention that steampunk is such an atomised movement that everyone defines it entirely for themselves. There are social norms and conventions that carry over and make it a community and a movement rather than a bunch of people all by themselves. Now, granted it is many different things--you have writers, costumers, musicians, the crafty people, etc etc--but you can look at each of those as communities, anyway. I'm most familiar with the fiction and with the costumes side of things via comms like

steamfashion.

From my reading, the impression I've got is that there are very few people of colour in the steampunk community. Possibly fewer even than are into goth stuff. Now, if you accept that as being true, then your conclusion has to be either "I guess they're not interested in that sort of thing" (which would be an odd and massive generalization to make) or "there must be something about the community that's unwelcoming." My own conclusion is that there are inequalities and issues that make it harder for some people to find a place for themselves within steampunk than others. Blaming the individual for not trying hard enough to fit is really the wrong approach.

Though, I've not really seen any costumers intent on exploring anywhere but the local abandoned industrial complex or their own backyards.

That's presumably where their photographs or parties take place but that doesn't mean that's the setting in which their characters/personas are placed.

I'm still not getting where the “explore and conquer for the Empire!” notion is coming from beyond the reasoning that this was how Victorians in England seemed to think, therefore it must be how all steampunkers think.

It seems to be very common if not universal.

steamfashion is a big community so I don't feel too off-base in using it as a snapshot. We have someone here asking about "explorer decor" and getting answers about British colonial style. Here is a discussion of "Raj steampunk." And there's plenty of further discussion about orientalism and suchlike if you poke around.

You continue to talk about it as though steampunk has much unity or connection to your society.

Seriously? Because there's clearly an identity, or y'all wouldn't be so busy defending it. (Which is fine.) And without Victorian society, which has a clear line to modern Western society, steampunk wouldn't exist.

You continue to talk about it as though steampunk has much unity or connection to your society. [...] But, many Americans and Aussies have made it their own without much problem. I'm saying it isn't tied directly into a specific set of works or histories

But it *does* and *is*. It's clearly based on Victorian England, and therefore a "Victorian explorer" is loaded with certain ideologies that are the responsibility of the explorer to dispel. Granted, I don't have a ton of experience here, but the second bit I quoted makes no sense. For one thing, Australians were British subjects in the Victorian era, and Victorian Americans had the same faults as the British in this respect. I just have no idea how you think steampunk is somehow divorced utterly from the actual past. It isn't. It's very possible and in fact highly probable that most steampunkers are not consciously aping actual colonialist attitudes, but from what I've seen the steam subculture is most definitely rooted in that imperialist historical culture.

if you like some elements, but don't see a place for yourself yet, it's just because you haven't made a place for yourself yet.

But what if someone is so put off by the atmosphere that they don't want to get involved? What if they aren't interested in steampunk as LARP? In this case,

forthwritten doesn't actually seem to be saying that she's confused as to what her role could be in steampunk circles. This is like telling someone who has a problem with the heavy Eurocentric bias in fantasy novels to solve the problem by writing their own.

What in the world?! No, hon. Pointing out how little connection to this world some fantasy works have. Different map, different laws of nature, different people. New religion? No religion? One language? Ten?

I'm not even going into how condescending that sounds, but tbqh most fantasy novels are clearly based to some extent on historical (medieval) European culture. Places where they differ usually seem to be intended to subvert those European tropes and are therefore still strongly connected. I'd be interested to know which books you find vastly and totally unrelated to this world.

I don't get what you're saying about a "rigid definition" of steampunk at all. It's kind of ironic that I'm saying this in a post about racism, but I think you're being too sensitive, and in your defense of a beloved genre (which is totally understandable) are missing the fact that it's easily read as idealizing an era of imperialism and racism.

Huh. My RenFaire experience is admittedly low, but I've always seen way more peasants than aristos.

Great post. Nothing to add really, beyond thanking you for a good read :)

Sorry; I don't know how to post via OpenID and I haven't got a Dreamwidth account yet. I'm chelseagirl47 on LJ, here via metafandom.

My grad degree is in Victorian lit and I've been dancing around the edges of Steampunk, thinking "this is something I could write" and yet not really getting very excited about it. I suspect it's for precisely the issues you raise; Steampunk is so tech-oriented, and my response to the 19th century is mediated through a whole series of other issues. Perhaps a post-colonial, feminist take on steampunk is needed, an sf equivalent to Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies.

Okay, I started out intrigued enough by

naraht's bit of the dialogue that I wandered over here and you are awesome. Thank you for a good read (several, in fact, scrolling back) and for poking holes at something I like but needs poking holes in.

I'm really enjoying reading all these discussions on Steampunk. I've been interested in it as an idea for a while now and having to explain it as a term has always been tricky. Someone linked above to The Steampunk Magazine (http://www.steampunkmagazine.com), and I'd recommend a brilliant essay in the first issue of it (page 4-5), a passionate discussion as to the nature of Steampunk. It tries to emphasise the /punk/ aspect, the revolutionary angry at the society in which they live.

In many ways it is escapism, but there are degrees to which people take it, making it hard to generalise about denizens of the Steampunk aesthetic and ideology. Admittedly there are problems in harking back to a culture that was flawed, but it also brings to light parallels with the contemporary: and not just in how much we've improved, but also how far we need to go.

I will admit a fondness for steampunk aesthetic, but I haven't really given much thought to the implications of the movement besides the idea that it's a reaction to the fast pace of technological progress by repackaging it with aesthetic signifiers of antiquity and imperialism. Which seems sublimely ironic to me.

I think you make a lot of good points, and it seems that as a subculture movement it's trying to claim the ethos but not the ideology when they can't really be separated.

I might have had a different reaction a year ago, but since reading the many fantastic posts during RaceFail I must agree. "Problematic" is probably the kindest way to describe it.

Yeah, I have this tendency to say "problematic" when I really mean "icky" or "made me want to throw my laptop across the room." But you'd be surprised at how badly people respond even to "problematic."

Well, you know, start off small, work up to the "are you serious" phrases once people start getting defensive and claiming that it's impossible for them to write non-white/non-male characters and they're not even going to try.

I think it's also worth noting that, as a researcher (albeit a junior one), I usually use "problematic" to mean "this raises interesting issues and I think it's worth investigating further".

Sometimes it does mean "I find this skeevy" or "this makes me really uncomfortable" but as you may have noticed, actually saying "are you serious?" tends to backfire. It's the tone argument again.

Yeah, I've used the word in more neutral contexts for papers as well, and for posts on something that I like but see a problem with. It's a pretty handy one, isn't it?

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steampunk: my issues, let me show you them

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