Popular Culture Review Vol. 22, No. 2, Summer 2011 | Page 11

Popular Culture and Epistemological Doubt 7 “holo-deck” in Star Trek, that is of a trompe I ’oeil designed to replace reality; however, its existence never challenges the certainties of the Enterprise crew regarding their perception of “true” reality: there cannot be any possible confusion between the real and the virtual, for the “holo-deck” functions mainly as a training or recreational device.8 It is indeed significant to encounter an almost identical contraption in the narrative universe of James Bond, which by definition is based upon a very solid, fossilized conception not only of reality itself, but of an entire system of values: the last installment to feature Pierce Brosnan as 007, Die Another Day, presents a virtual reality training program, which is used by James Bond to perfect his skills and abused by Ms. Moneypenny in order to fulfill her ever-frustrated sexual desire for 007. As to be expected, both sequences are kept very short in the economy of the narration and the artificial nature of that virtual reality is immediately revealed:9 there can be absolutely no doubt about reality in the righteous universe of 007 for it would surely endanger the welfare of the free world. Hence, to equate the adventures of James Bond with Science Fiction, as it has been done in some instances,10 is to deny the intrinsic characteristics to the genre, which is then reduced to its most obvious paradigms, such as spaceships and talking computers. Moonraker may happen in space and include all the gimmicks of the Space Opera; however, it remains a James Bond adventure, which does not question at any moment neither the true nature of reality, nor the accuracy of our epistemological tools. If the genres of Fantasy and Space Opera—and that of spy films for that matter—tend to cater to our escapist tendencies and do not generally attempt to raise ontological questions, Science Fiction, on the contrary, has exhibited from the very start a definite affinity for the great philosophical issues, such as the nature of reality and the limits of our perception. From Jules Verne’s strangely prophetic scientific narrations to Phillip K. Dick’s dystopian novels, Science Fiction, as the Fantastic, is a genre centered around a serious reflexion regarding our reality rather than upon sheer entertaining qualities; in other words, the entertainment that is provided by Science Fiction resides in its capacity to stimulate some intellectual reflexion regarding our world rather than in its purely distracting features. Science Fiction, rather than separating us from reality as do Fantasy or Space Opera, forces us to consider it under a different light, as any scholarly worthy, “high culture” artifact would. The ambiguous academic status of Science Fiction is in itself indicative of a certain inconsistency within the selective process and amply justifies our intent, for if Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or George Orwell’s 1984 are generally considered part of “high culture,” equally significant dystopian narrations such as Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream o f Electric Sheep? or Stanislas Lem’s Manuscript Found in a Bathtub are confined to the status of minor works belonging to a popular genre. Contemporary Science Fiction, which we may call postmodern more for its affinities with the radical skepticism that characterizes most post-structuralist theory rather than for chronological reasons, tends to shy away from its usual