These Artists Are Decolonizing Science Fiction
A handful of publishers and film distributors are finally catering to a large and growing audience of color
Whether set in the lush, turquoise plains of an Earth-like planet several centuries in the past, or rooted in an artificial intelligence-dominated apocalypse 50 years into the future, there are common threads within science fiction and fantasy.
Imaginative realms.
Epic adventures.
Fervent fandom.
And let’s not forget the most common thread of all: a world-building perspective that is overwhelmingly White and male.
Though things are changing, a Euro-centric (some might even call it colonizer) canon serves as the majority viewpoint in the field, impacting even the film and television adaptations of popular novels. For example, HBO juggernaut Game of Thrones featured plenty of White kings and queens clashing amid flame-breathing dragons and wizened White Walkers, but offered little to deepen the series’ superficial and stereotypical storylines about Brown people. Yet even devoted fans of color reeled when they saw the cinematic portrayal of that world’s bronze, enslaved populations liberated by an ivory-skinned, ice-blonde-haired heroine named Daenerys Targaryen.
