Wow… that’s a hell of a term. Was that the one you used in class? (Though, if so, it makes sense I can’t remember it, unlike “The Magical Negro” or “The Noble Savage”… it’s so long!) Hmmm.

I have to wonder whether the trope itself predates science fiction? It sounds like some kind of colonial-era meme to me. Like those Anglo-Indians who became “more Indian than the Indians,” ahem, sure, whatever.

One of the things about teaching in Korea is that rhetorical questions — designed for the prof to answer himself or herself — seem to be much more common than real questions asked of students, in terms of the teaching style of many of my Korean colleagues.

The result is that students are trained NOT to answer questions, and I always have to begin each semester by explicitly explaining that “When I ask you a question, I really do want you to attempt an answer, however nerve-wracking that is… not to merely guess, or to try get the ‘right’ answer, but to think about it and express your idea or opinion.”

But it always takes a few weeks for people to actually start doing that, even when they’ve taken my (or other foreign profs’) classes before.

So what little response I got to asking why, focused on two things: different versions of, “That’s just the way it always is in films,” and “I dunno, why, teacher?”

We agreed that we would all have been shocked if the Na’vi had killed Sully; we all agreed we would have been surprised if the Na’vi had banished him for bad behaviour after “marrying” Neytiri and breaking the traditional line of succession, but had gone on to mount an effective resistance without his help. Actually, I suggested such a plot might be more interesting or inspiring, and they laughed hard. When I asked why they were laughing, they seemed at a loss to explain it, at least at first.

Then one student said, “Well, it’s an American film!” as in, it’s evident that American media will be slanted in that way. (With the further implication that all media is slanted by its “country of origin” or the dominant majority within it — creators and audience alike.)

But when we got far enough, the idea that they’d internalized all kinds of discourses from popular culture seemed to resonate with them. (Especially when we talked about how sexist and classist discourses (among others) could be present in Harry Potter despite the author being a woman who isn’t upper class herself.)

I asked them to think more about it, but we probably won’t talk about Avatar again. However, I will be asking them to look at the discourses embedded in the (American or English-language) popular culture artifacts that, in first week, they selected as their favorites, to see how well they’ve grasp this kind of analysis.

The true test, though, will be to see whether they can overcome the intellectual bulwarks and see, for example, analogous discourses in *Korean* media without immediately scrambling to excuse, defend, or justify them.

I’m curious to hear your theories, though, when you have a moment to share them.

The term is “Not-So-Subtle-Race-Allegory-Science-Fiction-Theatre”, and I believe it’s from Juba Kalamaka, though it may be from Janine DeManda, or they may have come up with it jointly. I’ll ask them. It refers specifically to the romance of the magical biracial saviour who comes from both the dominant culture and from the culture it’s dominating, and who can finally absolve the dominant culture of its guilt.

Why did your students think that your version of Avatar would never happen? I have my own theories about why it apparently doesn’t tend to, and I’m curious to hear theirs’.

Yeah, Avatar… What was with that? Is that some kind of American meme? He basically acted like, well, like a dickhead, trampling their culture — actually, a lot like a middle class American tourist in Southeast Asia! — and he got constantly rewarded for it!

(Then again, the dickiest Western tourists in Southeast Asia *do* seem rewarded for their behaviour, sadly.)

I asked my students, “Can you imagine a story where he approaches the Na’vi and says, “I want to learn your ways,” and they say, “Get lost,” and flip him the bird and chase him away or kill him, and then mount a resistance and succeed without the help of the Heroic Virtuous White American Male. When they said no, I asked, “Why not?”

Then we had a talk about internalized discourses… Ha, and then they wanted to talk about whether there were such things in Desperate Housewives and Harry Potter!

Anyway, if you do figure out whose term it was, I’d love to know. (And what the term was, too!) Thanks!

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“The Last of Hanako” and “The Grey Snowman” both came to mind when you mentioned shunning… and then, there it was, you mentioned it as an example.

As for no tragic heroes: that’s an interesting observation. I haven’t read enough Korean fiction to say, but it’s hardly a surprise to me.

Actually, I found that same dilemma — where comes the hero? — in my attempted retelling of the Sado Saeja story. Who could be the hero? Saeja himself was too much of a psycho nutball to really be a tragic hero, and nobody else seems sympathetic enough except maybe his child bride… who couldn’t do much and was scooted away immediately when he was boxed up. My solution? I shattered the narrative and threaded the ghost of the still-alive (but dying) Saeja into the lives of a bunch of other characters, one for each day he spent in the box. (Gotta revise that and send it out again.) Others have responded in other ways, like Margaret Drabble’s use of Lady Hyegyeong (and her writings — and, I gather, a modern protagonist? I just picked up the novel on the cheap in Bali, haven’t yet read it.

By the way, one reason you haven’t gotten into any Korean SF in translation is because almost nothing has been translated so far. I think the only real cache of the stuff is… let me go find the link… aha, here it is.

I think you are right about “coming together” rather than going it alone. One thing I noticed in Korean Modern Fiction (excluding SF which, oddly, I’ve completely missed) is the near complete absence of the “tragic hero” in the Western sense and also a markedly lower level of individual agency across the board.

When a character does “go it alone” they tend to be shunned, as in “The Last of Hanako,” by Choi Yun. I don’t think it takes an abacus to add this up as a cultural result of homogeneity and neo-Confucianism.

I’ve written a first piece, on my own blog, about this “hero-lessness” and intend to follow it up (someday!)