Sci Fi Isn't All Horrifying

You can ask pretty much anyone what the meaning of life is and 95% of people will probably answer “42”. I haven’t met someone who didn’t at least know what Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy was, and I’ve never met someone who read it and doesn’t recall it fondly. I attempted to read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy years ago and was, unfortunately, not able to really get into it. I followed it up with the movie years later and was also not really enthralled with the story. Now, having listened to the radio show, I still can’t say I really love it.

                I found it hard to connect with a character who doesn’t really seem to care about anything. And if he does care he cares in what my mom describes as a “quintessentially British way”, summed up by this clip from an episode of The Tick (00:50-00:55 - https://youtu.be/1Wh2CruhrKk?t=50 ). Funnily enough, the sidekick character in this show is also named Arthur. Arthur from Hitchhiker’s Guide cares about the destruction of Earth in much the same way that he cares about the destruction of his house, enough to leave in the middle of his own protest. While I do think this is very funny and I enjoy the overall comedic tone of the radio show, its hard for me to care about a character that doesn’t really seem committed to anything. For me, it didn’t provide enough of a logical bases for the main character before then bombarding me with crazy weird characters and circumstances. That being said, I think this satire of the Sci Fi genre is much more compelling now that I’ve read more serious Sci Fi stories.

                Much of what we’ve discussed about the futuristic Sci Fi genre is it’s ability to contextualize our own present. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale puts a lot of these radical abortion bill’s in harsh lighting. However, Hitchhiker’s guide spins that on its head when it introduces a computer that can answer the ultimate question. However, the element that’s supposed to deeply contextualize our own present is… “42”. This is followed by the computer claiming it needs the calculate the ultimate question. Not to get all preachy, but the satire of a genre so devoted to commenting on our own society via uplifting messages or warnings indicates to me that spending so much time trying to make sense of our own existence is stupid because humans are just a tiny tiny part of a huge universe. The world is going to end one day and whether our society was morally “good” or not isn’t going to matter. Besides, I’m not sure many people will care about the end of our moral society as much as they’ll care that that’s where we keep all our stuff.