Using the Program Guide of the World Science
Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland in August 2019 (to which I will be unable
to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against,
and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the
Program Guide. The link is provided below where this appeared on page 25…
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE HAS POLITICAL AND DEEPER-THAN-USUAL CHRISTIAN OVERTONES. DON'T READ IT IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY SUCH.
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE HAS POLITICAL AND DEEPER-THAN-USUAL CHRISTIAN OVERTONES. DON'T READ IT IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY SUCH.
Introduction to hopepunk
Alexandra Rowland
coined the term ‘hopepunk’ in a Tumblr post in 2017, saying that: ‘…the
opposite of Grimdark is Hopepunk’. Our panel will discuss what the term means
and how hopepunk intersects with other speculative subgenres such as grimdark,
noblebright, and solarpunk, as well as offering reading recommendations.
Sam Hawke: Lawyer, writer.
Jo Walton: Hugo and Nebula award winning novelist, blogger
at Tor.com, poet.
Alexandra
Rowland: Game monitor at
an escape room company, seamstress, and writer.
Lettie Prell:
Science fiction writer.
I have never heard
of this, but it’s probably what I’d write if I could get it published.
Of course, it EMPHATICALLY
does not include me: in the article resourced
below: “Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something,
anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission
or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in.
It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder
world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as
hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts.”
It's obviously
about excluding Christianity as an ultimate hope because (it seems), God isn't a necessary component for goodness.
Rowland, the
article points out, “…was responding to the idea of “grimdark” — a literary
descriptor for genre texts and media which evoke a pervasively gritty, bleak,
pessimistic, or nihilistic view of the world…in which cruelty is a given and
social systems are destined to betray or disappoint.” It’s also, apparently
political as the article subtitle makes clear, “In the era of Trump and
apocalyptic change, Hopepunk is a storytelling template for #resistance — and
hanging onto your humanity at all costs.” And of course, the prime advocate of
this #resistance had no political connection or motivation and was merely a humble
representative for a political party that had the good of all people everywhere
in mind: Andrew Slack noted that JK Rowling and JRR Tolkien ‘readied us for a
message of hope, change, and global citizenry [that was advocated by] Barack
Obama,’ he wrote, noting that Obama’s presidency was also ‘met by a giant swell
of popularity around fantasies that dwelled in the darkness: vampires,
dystopias, and Heath Ledger’s nihilist Joker.’ In essence, grimdark.”
Of course, the
movement apparently feels Jesus was “a good man” as Rowland was quoted in an
article that followed up on her Twitter invention of the new literary category:
“…she crucially offered examples of both mythical and real-world political
figures: ‘Jesus and Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Robin Hood and John
Lennon’ — heroes who chose to perform radical resistance in unjust political
climates, and to imagine better worlds.”
Wow! Jesus (who
was, apparently, mythical) resisted…Rome? The Jewish establishment? living in
an “unjust political climate”, and accordingly, imagined a better world. Through
sacrificing His life?
According to the
author of this piece, hopepunk is “…a perfect aesthetic accompaniment to the…philosophy
that aggressively choosing kindness, optimism, and softness over hardness,
cynicism, and violence can be a powerful political choice….[it] says that ‘kindness
and softness doesn’t equal weakness,’ Rowland wrote in her expanded definition,
‘and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a
political act,’ [combining] the aesthetics of choosing gentleness with the
messy politics of revolution…”
The end of the
article elucidates the books, stories, authors, and trumpets the advent of a spectacular
new concept apparently invented by Millenials: “Rowland’s original hopepunk
definition has now been widely shared and discussed throughout the sci-fi and
fantasy community, in online forums and in panel discussions at a number of
conventions, and writers have frequently started to describe their own works as
hopepunk…panel[s] on hopepunk and optimistic sci-fi/fantasy…N.K. Jemisin, whose
works carry themes of resistance in a time of apocalypse and bear sharp
signifiers of hopepunk…As the first black woman to nab the top prize in 2016,
and then the first writer to win it three years in a row thanks to her 2017 and
2018 repeat wins, Jemisin’s 2018 win became a moment of convergence in which
literary hopepunk evolved into real-world activism — a show of defiance in an
ongoing battle against radical right-wing extremism within the sci-fi/fantasy
community. [Which, oddly, appears to have been unnoticed since the inception of
SFWA in 1966.] In recognizing her work, with its themes of finding humanity and
love amid apocalyptic change, Hugo voters sent a message that they would not
allow blights like racism to undermine the sci-fi community’s humanism and
idealism [which they HAD been for nearly a century...which see, one example:
the identities of James Tiptree, Jr. and CJ Cherryh and the consistent snubbing
of any number of SF/F writers]…Ever since, Hopepunk has seemed to be suddenly
everywhere, becoming a true force in the literary landscape in the last couple
months of 2018: At IO9, Eleanor Tremeer argued that we need utopian fiction now
more than ever; the piece didn’t explicitly identify hopepunk, but many of its
readers did…The Verge announced its upcoming Better Worlds science fiction
series, intended to promote sci-fi…Tor wrote about “high epic fantasy hopepunk…As
the idea of hopepunk has caught on, many people have expressed gratefulness to
Rowland for coining the term. When I first introduced and explained the term to
Slack, for example, he wrote me an ebullient 15-paragraph email, exclaiming,
“This is some seriously important and sacred [crap]!”…Part of the reason that
hopepunk feels so important in the current moment is that two years into Donald
Trump’s presidency, it’s arguably difficult for many people to stay motivated
and alert to the many political crises happening at once. Hopepunk, then, is a
way of drawing energy and strength from fictional inspirations in order to keep
fighting the good fight in the real world…This is not an easy task,” Slack
wrote. “It shakes us to our core. But hopepunk reminds us to thank…goodness
that we have such a beautiful core.” (Apparently hopepunk includes the vigorous
use of vulgarity to emphasize how devoted you are to its ideals…)
This shining
movement, a testament to all things Humanly Wonderful, has totally ignored at
least one author who wrote peaceful, tranquil science fiction decades ago and
whom few people read now because he DIDN’T write about empires, kingdoms, and
Obama. He wrote hope in an era spanning the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, past
Vietnam, through the Iranian hostage crisis (overseen by then president and a proponent
of not only hopepunk, but of old-fashioned HOPE, Jimmy Carter) and almost to
the Fall of Communism.
Clifford D. Simak,
I daresay, was one of the original hopepunk writers…oops…sorry, I guess he can’t
be. He believed in God, which also appears to be a necessity for being a
hopepunk writer…
Dang! I was hoping
I could be a hopepunk writer, but I wouldn’t qualify. At least I’m in good
company…
Program Book: https://dublin2019.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ProgrammeScheduleWeb.pdf,
https://dublin2019.com/whats-on/programming/programme-schedule/
Resource: https://www.vox.com/2018/12/27/18137571/what-is-hopepunk-noblebright-grimdark,
Image: https://fq8ku9wqwk7gai1z3frl16nd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/HOPEPUNK-100-996x515.jpg
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