Post by burrunjor on May 4, 2024 9:59:25 GMT
Ludders is right. Sci fi was perfectly mainstream in the 60s, 70s and even the early 80s. It was just another genre and men, women, kids and adults all loved it. Ask anyone from that generation, man or woman and chances are they'll have watched and adored one of the mainstream hits from that time.
I think that the demonisation of sci fi came from the elites. Ironically from the 60s-80s at least, sci fi WAS a genuinely left leaning genre. The likes of the Prisoner, Planet of the Apes, DW, Star Trek TOS, even the alien films all pushed left wing ideas and concepts to the masses in a way that even children could enjoy. The elites therefore wanted to make liking that a taboo subject, and so they started to smear and undermine it in the media.
You might think that is conspiratorial, but honestly it's what the elites do. Remember these are the people who monitored John Lennon for years when he became a leftie, and in the years since have attempted to demonise him to a greater extent than the other Beatles. (Despite all of them doing the same shitty things he did and in some cases worse!)
It absolutely did come from the Grade types, who used the media to smear the genre, but and I know this is my pet peeve, it is true that comedy became the most useful tool for them to attack the genre. Satire died out just as much as sci fi in the 80s, and comedians by and large became media shills, who would only go after targets the media deemed acceptable and so they piled on DW. (Notice how the genuinely satirical comedians like Rik Mayall vanish from our screens in the late 90s?) Sadly as comedians had up until then been genuinely counter culture, some people bought into their slander and sci fi was stigmatized.
Only thing I disagree with Iank is that this didn't exist in America. On the contrary it started in America. Sci fi had always struggled in America during the 60s and 70s compared to the UK, hence why Star Trek lasted 3 years. Non political sci fi like Star Wars became popular for a while in the 80s, but honestly even in the 90s and 00s sci fi was niche. All of these shows that we think were mainstream hits in America actually weren't.
Xena, Buffy, Charmed, Supernatural, Babylon 5 were all shown on smaller networks and were only successful by the standards of those networks and would have been axed on any normal network. Believe it or not Xena and Buffy never got as high viewing figures as Tom Baker era DW in America. The ratings for the Paul McGann movie would have been very high for Buffy, Xena, Angel or Supernatural (in fact Supernatural never came close to those kind of viewers.) However the difference is that the DW movie was shown on a mainstream network Fox. Meanwhile other sci fi series to be shown on mainstream networks generally tanked in that era like Firefly.
There were a few exceptions like the Star Trek series that by that stage had become part of a super brand, but overall sci fi was still niche in America, it was simply due to their larger industry they could afford to produce more niche shows than in the UK.
Sadly from the 80s our culture became more Americanized and stereotypes about nerds was one of the elements we picked up. Even with the success of New Who in the 00s and the MCU sci fi never returned to its previous status as stereotypes about nerds still abounded, they just became fetishized for a while like Tennant's Doctor and Osgood in all fairness and any number of annoying Arrowverse characters.
It's why I don't like nerd culture (well that and it can become incredibly cliquey and a magnet for hipsters, though maybe not as much now as the early 2010s.) Don't get me wrong I understand people using that phrase for practicality, which I'm sure I've done before and I won't go to war with anyone who uses it LOL, but yeah personally I want it to go back to the 60s-80s where it was just another genre.
Incidentally I also disagree with Iank that it lost its way when it became mainstream. That's the great irony, mainstream audiences, normal people will lap up sci fi and fantasy because again it's just a genre and everyone needs at least a bit of every genre. Sorry to say but these things died when the elites finally realised they could use them, and dumbed them down to promote their messages (toxic identity politics, celeb culture, support for establishment war mongering, blood soaked candidates like Hillary Clinton, bloody little poor strikers thinking they can hold us to ransom etc.) On top of that they were also killed by "nerd" culture that in a desperate, pathetic bid to be accepted by the same elites that had killed the genre sold out big time and who were also incredibly cliquey and career minded and had to take it over, or become the custodians of fandoms. Ironically all of these things dragged the genre down into a cesspit far more than mainstream audiences ever did.
Of course don't get me wrong here I'm not saying the masses are always great LOL. They can be stupid, tribal and sheep too. Still overall when it comes to sci fi and DW in particular, in all honesty their hands are clean. Put it this way DW that was popular among the masses just wanting to be entertained was William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison. Troughton only bombed because the show was seen as old at that point. (It had been on six years and wasn't quite seen as something that could reinvent itself as much.) Whilst C Baker and McCoy were actively sabotaged. Now it's true that Tennant and Eccelston were popular, but honestly that was because of the fantasy elements, NOT the reality tv shite.
However the eras that were for the commandants of fandom and when the Fitzroy Crowd had free reign to do what they wanted, were the Capaldi, Whittaker and upcoming Ncuti eras all of which were/will be huge flops.. It's just that the commandants refuse to A/ acknowledge that theirs is a flop B/ paint an idea that they are actually in touch with the public C/ rewrite the past so that classic who was only ever a niche interest in the UK and unknown abroad (which things like that annoying, hipster honest trailers shit pushes.) We need to wrestle it free from the elitist fans, the self loathing nerds more than ever.
I think that the demonisation of sci fi came from the elites. Ironically from the 60s-80s at least, sci fi WAS a genuinely left leaning genre. The likes of the Prisoner, Planet of the Apes, DW, Star Trek TOS, even the alien films all pushed left wing ideas and concepts to the masses in a way that even children could enjoy. The elites therefore wanted to make liking that a taboo subject, and so they started to smear and undermine it in the media.
You might think that is conspiratorial, but honestly it's what the elites do. Remember these are the people who monitored John Lennon for years when he became a leftie, and in the years since have attempted to demonise him to a greater extent than the other Beatles. (Despite all of them doing the same shitty things he did and in some cases worse!)
It absolutely did come from the Grade types, who used the media to smear the genre, but and I know this is my pet peeve, it is true that comedy became the most useful tool for them to attack the genre. Satire died out just as much as sci fi in the 80s, and comedians by and large became media shills, who would only go after targets the media deemed acceptable and so they piled on DW. (Notice how the genuinely satirical comedians like Rik Mayall vanish from our screens in the late 90s?) Sadly as comedians had up until then been genuinely counter culture, some people bought into their slander and sci fi was stigmatized.
Only thing I disagree with Iank is that this didn't exist in America. On the contrary it started in America. Sci fi had always struggled in America during the 60s and 70s compared to the UK, hence why Star Trek lasted 3 years. Non political sci fi like Star Wars became popular for a while in the 80s, but honestly even in the 90s and 00s sci fi was niche. All of these shows that we think were mainstream hits in America actually weren't.
Xena, Buffy, Charmed, Supernatural, Babylon 5 were all shown on smaller networks and were only successful by the standards of those networks and would have been axed on any normal network. Believe it or not Xena and Buffy never got as high viewing figures as Tom Baker era DW in America. The ratings for the Paul McGann movie would have been very high for Buffy, Xena, Angel or Supernatural (in fact Supernatural never came close to those kind of viewers.) However the difference is that the DW movie was shown on a mainstream network Fox. Meanwhile other sci fi series to be shown on mainstream networks generally tanked in that era like Firefly.
There were a few exceptions like the Star Trek series that by that stage had become part of a super brand, but overall sci fi was still niche in America, it was simply due to their larger industry they could afford to produce more niche shows than in the UK.
Sadly from the 80s our culture became more Americanized and stereotypes about nerds was one of the elements we picked up. Even with the success of New Who in the 00s and the MCU sci fi never returned to its previous status as stereotypes about nerds still abounded, they just became fetishized for a while like Tennant's Doctor and Osgood in all fairness and any number of annoying Arrowverse characters.
It's why I don't like nerd culture (well that and it can become incredibly cliquey and a magnet for hipsters, though maybe not as much now as the early 2010s.) Don't get me wrong I understand people using that phrase for practicality, which I'm sure I've done before and I won't go to war with anyone who uses it LOL, but yeah personally I want it to go back to the 60s-80s where it was just another genre.
Incidentally I also disagree with Iank that it lost its way when it became mainstream. That's the great irony, mainstream audiences, normal people will lap up sci fi and fantasy because again it's just a genre and everyone needs at least a bit of every genre. Sorry to say but these things died when the elites finally realised they could use them, and dumbed them down to promote their messages (toxic identity politics, celeb culture, support for establishment war mongering, blood soaked candidates like Hillary Clinton, bloody little poor strikers thinking they can hold us to ransom etc.) On top of that they were also killed by "nerd" culture that in a desperate, pathetic bid to be accepted by the same elites that had killed the genre sold out big time and who were also incredibly cliquey and career minded and had to take it over, or become the custodians of fandoms. Ironically all of these things dragged the genre down into a cesspit far more than mainstream audiences ever did.
Of course don't get me wrong here I'm not saying the masses are always great LOL. They can be stupid, tribal and sheep too. Still overall when it comes to sci fi and DW in particular, in all honesty their hands are clean. Put it this way DW that was popular among the masses just wanting to be entertained was William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison. Troughton only bombed because the show was seen as old at that point. (It had been on six years and wasn't quite seen as something that could reinvent itself as much.) Whilst C Baker and McCoy were actively sabotaged. Now it's true that Tennant and Eccelston were popular, but honestly that was because of the fantasy elements, NOT the reality tv shite.
However the eras that were for the commandants of fandom and when the Fitzroy Crowd had free reign to do what they wanted, were the Capaldi, Whittaker and upcoming Ncuti eras all of which were/will be huge flops.. It's just that the commandants refuse to A/ acknowledge that theirs is a flop B/ paint an idea that they are actually in touch with the public C/ rewrite the past so that classic who was only ever a niche interest in the UK and unknown abroad (which things like that annoying, hipster honest trailers shit pushes.) We need to wrestle it free from the elitist fans, the self loathing nerds more than ever.
You literally had mainstream mags like Entertainment Weekly trying to figure out the Conspiracy lol 
