Hollywood Utopia

towards an ever more exalted state of humanity’ (ibid.: 45). An Enlightenmentinspired
faith in the ‘progress’ of humanity, through space exploration, remains at
odds with an ideological reading of such travel that endorses the promotion of
nationalistic and scientific virility. This contradictory utopic expression of space
has continued as an important subtext in science fiction representation.
However, this apparently innocent utopic vision of space travel coupled with the
preoccupation with the earth’s fragile eco-system soon faced more pervasive
opposition, according to Bryant, as spaceship earth became saturated and
commodified as a dematerialised image rendering ‘space, time and experience
depthless’ (ibid.: 59). Bryant connects such ‘regressive’ representations with the
beginning of postmodernism and its preoccupation with simulacra, surface
imagery and relativistic agency. 10 The potent symbol of eco-awareness had, he
believes, in many ways been emasculated by the forces of commodity capitalism
and concludes that the only way forward to assert our eco-conscience and ‘to
disrupt this flat veneer’ is to embody a ‘radical otherness’ which is not taken in by
such commodification (ibid.: 61).
While Bryant’s critical objectivity with regards to the commodification of planet
Earth iconography in the service of ideological regeneration is convincing, his
demands for ‘radical otherness’ which signal the possibility of separateness from
the fickle mire of postmodern simulacrum is somewhat problematic and will be
fully explored in the final chapter. The potency of sublime images of the planet,
together with natural features like the Grand Canyon, cannot fully be reduced to
the technical and mechanical means of their reproduction. Suspect intentions
embedded in the construction of such potent images - as with the analysis of
special effects and Jurassic Park in Chapter 2 - while important, do not necessarily
invalidate or negate the positive and productive utopic potentialities within these
mythic metaphors as they continue to address and reflect on human consciousness.
Conceptual and creative forces are not necessarily crippled by the corruption, or at
best impurity, of a range of myth-making representations. This evolving complexity
and plurality of meanings embedded in the planet can be appreciated by drawing
comparisons between the earth-bound, pre-space travel evocation in The
Incredible Shrinking Man and the more knowing yet conventional idealistic
appreciation of the planet and space travel in Contact (1997), which appears
surprisingly ‘old fashioned’ - even endorsing conventional modernist ideals. In
particular, the following reading can be framed around its inability to endorse
Bryant’s critique from a feminist standpoint which finally renders ‘space, time and
experience depthless’ (ibid.: 59).
4 Conspiracy Thrillers and Science Fiction 153