Sunday Spotlight: Afrofuturism

"Afrofuturism" is becoming a real trend. As it gains ground, many people want to know more about what it is, what it isn't, and how one might get on board.

It should be noted that Afrofuturism is difficult to define because it can have different meanings to different people. Some even argue that "Afrofuturism" is a misnomer. For the purposes of this blog, the definition is anything pro-black or pro-Africa that has an impact in science fiction books and movies. But it should also be noted that the phenomenon extends into music, comic books, paintings, and other forms of art.

Certainly the phenomenon begins with the emergence of great black sci fi writers, and the two most cited (for good reason) are Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler. During the New Wave era (roughly 60's and 70's), Delany blazed the trail with edgy science fiction which was blunt in its depictions of black characters, cultural rebels, and homosexuality. But he did this with a beauty of literary form seldom matched in any genre. In the decades which followed, Octavia Butler rose to prominence, sometimes mentored by the iconic Delany. By the 1990's, she was a beloved fixture in the sci fi community (other sci fi writers called her "Estelle," her middle name), winning Hugo awards, and seeing her work cited by professors of English Literature as idyllic in form and style. Tragically, she died is 2006 after a fall. Had she lived only a little longer, she would have been able to ride the tide of present-day Afrofuturism to unprecedented levels of fame.

In retrospect, Nichelle Nichols' role as Lieutenant Uhura seems like something of a throwaway role - a comms officer who does little more than relay messages. Yet her impact in Star Trek was so overwhelming that even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. urged her not to leave the show. The very presence of a black, female, senior officer on the Enterprise was one which gave the entire civil rights community hope, as well as black people in general. Star Trek would later be more inclusive of black characters, although it had to suffer the growing pains of casting far too many blacks as Klingons or other aliens. Casting Kunta Kinte himself (LeVar Burton) as chief engineer helped, but fans would have to wait until Deep Space Nine before seeing a black Captain, and he had to get promoted to that rank after being a Commander for two seasons. Still, Star Trek did lay some groundwork for later Afrofuturism, as Discovery's character of Michael Burnham finally showed.

In cinema, the first example of black-themed sci fi came to my attention in 1984 with a movie called Brother From Another Planet. Bill Cosby's poorly-reviewed super-spy comedy, Leonard Part 6 (1987), might be considered another attempt, but that was more a silly spoof than anything else. Unfortunately, there was little else along those lines during the 80's. Then, Blade (1998) took the box office by storm. Wesley Snipes performance as a day-walking vampire who lives only on synthesized serum and hunts other vampires, took off in popularity, setting the stage for sequel films, much more to come later on.

During the 90's, Afrofuturism received a push from a white writer named Mike Resnik, who held deep ties to Kenya, and frequently set his science fiction stories in that country. In particular, his Kirinyaga series of stories helped push the theme of an Afro-centric world of technological development and scientific achievement, and it set the stage for everything that came later.

It should be pointed out that The Matrix (1999) continued the trend. The characters of Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, and The Oracle, played by (at first) Gloria Foster, provided two more great African-American characters to bear in science fiction, and ones that were pivotal to the overall plot. And while it's true that the main-hero, Neo (Keanu Reeves), was white, so too were the main antagonists, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) and the traitor, Cypher (Joe Pantoliano). In all, there were more black protagonists in The Matrix than in any previous science fiction blockbuster, and that was a breakthrough.

By the 21st Century, the trend was in full swing. Jamaican-born Nalo Hopkinson rose to prominence as a science fiction writer, as did others, like Nnedi Okorafor and Tonyi Onyabuchi. 

Spike Lee jumped into the genre in 2004 with an alternate-history mocumentary called CSA: The Confederate States of America. It asked the question, "What if the South had won the Civil War?" Another movie, a comedy, called 'Destination Planet Negro!' came out in 2013. In it, a small group of black people, fed up by Jim Crow in the south, build their own rocket and blast off to colonize Mars in 1933. But their rocket time-loops instead, returning them back to earth in 2013. This allows the astronauts to experience racism now vs. racism then, and the effect is not only comic, but insightful.

By 2016, the emergence of N.K. Jemisin cemented things once and for all, as her Broken Earth Trilogy won the Hugo award for three years solid. It also won a Nebula. One Hugo award might have been written off as an outlier, or possibly a reaction to the expulsion of the right-wing Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies voting blocs. But a Hugo AND a Nebula? Impossible! Two Hugos settled the question once and for all that Jemisin was utterly deserving of the honor. But three in a row? That's the stuff of legend! Jemisin is now considered THE marquis SF writer today. As of this writing, her novel 'The City That Became' is being considered for Jemisin's FOURTH Hugo, and it would not surprise anyone in the least if it won.

Of course, Black Panther was a game-changer in cinema. Much has been said about how the depiction of Wakanda, an African technological Utopia, will affect future generations of both black people and black writers. Perhaps the most interesting part of the movie is that Killmonger, the main antagonist in the film, is exactly the sort of American street-gangster that many young black men have wrongly looked up to in the past. The net benefit of young black men choosing King T'Challa over Killmonger, may never be fully measured, but it is significant.

In 2020, Nalo Hopkinson was named a Damon Knight Grandmaster of Science Fiction. It's quite clear that N.K. Jemisin is soon to be named for this honor, and who knows how many afterward?

Other developments have made it clear that Afrofuturism is here to stay. The casting of an integrated cast in A Wrinkle In Time (2018) was one of these. 'See You Yesterday' (2019) depicts two young teenage prodigies from Brooklyn building a time machine to save their brother. HBO's The Watchmen (2019) depicted not only more great black protagonists but also shed much-needed light on the atrocity of the massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1920's. And last, but certainly not least, HBO's Lovecraft Country (2020) depicted not only Afrofuturism, but retro-futurism (even though it was mostly supernatural fantasy) in a way which ripped racism to shreds.

It's an exciting trend in science fiction. Where it goes from here is entirely up to us.

Eric

*