Effing the Ineffable is hilarious...

Did anyone stop and consider how hilarious Gregory Benford’s title was? “Effing the Ineffable”? I laughed really hard. Why can’t science fiction be effed with (colloquial) or more seriously ineffable? Isn’t Benford’s article an argument for science fiction studies being effable?  Anyways, my problem with considering science fiction anthropologically is that it literally defies the very definition of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of human kind and it’s origins. Science fiction, if we are using Benford’s definition, emphasizes the alien and knowledge production of the alien as the framework of the field. How can we understand the anthropology of science fiction if we aren’t considering humans and their origins?  We are considering aliens and the things that we find alien (intentional use of the word alien as a noun and adjective).  Benford suggest that the aliens should not be recognized and should create bewilderment and wonder for those that encounter them. But, I’m not bewildered I’m just annoyed.

            Benford’s description of erotica and strangeness with his story “In Alien Flesh” made me think about Her. The most alien things I found about this movie was that the main character and Scarlett Johansen’s voice had sex during the movie…WHAT?! How? Why? Huh? Why is it necessary to place such a human/animal trait into the operating system? How does the answering system know how to have sex…phone sex at that? I found this really bizzare and question if science fiction forces us to look at science fiction through the basis of our own humanity. Yet, if something is alien, why does it understand how to do something as human as having sex (and not for the purpose of reproduction)? There is this element of humanity that is not lost in the science fiction pieces I read. 

            For example, in Short Circuit, the female character in the clip yells at the robot, “Dead is forever”! The robot had no sense of intelligence that it had killed the grasshopper. This human, life-like element had to be explained to him. This makes sense. If the robot started having a conversation about having sex or murder, I would be very concerned because there would this assumed humanness that this artificial thing is aware of and fully understand. This is incomprehensible for me in both of these movies.  I don’t have as much issue with the humanity of “science fiction” characters when the characters at one point WERE human, like The Walking Dead. The “humanness” that the zombies posses is understandable…also the movie Lucy. Thus, I don’t know if we can safely say that out scientific query into that which is alien in fictional narrative is truly science fiction.