In the U.S. and Canada there is a push to re-imagine our economy, to be creative and use ingenuity to create a new world.  This is true in particular for those who've lost their long-term jobs and industries that have lost their viability.  It is also true for countries attempting to reduce their carbon footprint.

What does 're-training' look like?

How do we change the way we harness and distribute energy?

What happens when some of Canada's oldest and largest employers shut down?

How do small single industry towns survive?

To answer these questions, it takes imagination, new ways of thinking, and bravery to face the unknown.  After World War II, people in Canada and the U.S. similarly had to face the unknown and chart a new course.  Out of this re-imagination came better recognition for civil rights movements, greater advocacy for Indigenous peoples, and added momentum to women's liberation.  The courts began making decisions based on greater respect, equality, and compassion for those challenging dominant norms.  The voices of the oppressed were being heard and even occasionally favoured by judges and legislators.  Now we have judges and legislators who are beginning to represent our diversity.

Watching how Hollywood has incorporated, rejected, and responded to these changes since World War II can give us some insight into the questions that mainstream North America is willing to ask themselves on Friday and Saturday nights with their hard earned money.  They are the stories of our culture most broadly consumed.  Given the unknowns of our future, I think science fiction films that depict the unknown are particularly relevant.

Hollywood science fiction films have traditionally been used to suspend disbelief and turn the lens back on ourselves and our society.  In the 1950's and 1960's, science fiction film plots often involved a leading man protecting his family or community.  The threat was often depicted as a physical menace, a large robot, a 50 foot woman, a blob, to name a few.  The underlying social commentary related to mass panic, paranoia, and gathering our resolve to defeat the unknown menace.

Hollywood has, in the last 15 years, been trying to revive the blockbuster science fiction film.  There have been re-makes of old sci-fi classics such as War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Star Trek.  There have also been new movies such as Signs, K-Pax, Starship Troopers, Independence Day, and Men in Black.  These science fiction films, like the re-makes, tend to re-enforce the traditional storyline of leading men, and women in secondary roles, with the earth somehow in jeopardy.  Even films like Gattaca tend to use this traditional male centered gender role dynamic in order to sell films.

There are a few science fiction films that have successfully turned a lens back on society through the eyes of a leading woman or prominent female character.  I am thinking of Contact, Aeon Flux, Serenity, Matrix, and Alien.  I am not saying these films do not use a traditional male centered plot.  However, to me, these are lightning rod films because the genius professor, renegade, oracle, and character who holds the answers for a re-envisioned world is a woman.  Interestingly enough, each of these films highlights an enemy or corruption within ourselves or society rather than an outward scary slimy alien like the one Will Smith shoots in Independence Day.  Shooting that alien as Will Smith did is a perfect example of the way masculinity is popularly shown to react to a 'menacing' unknown.

The menacing unknown that we are now facing is not a slimy alien that Will Smith can shoot for us.  It is a world without clean air, access to food and water, and affordable energy.  Like in the films Contact and Aeon Flux, there are enemies from within, corruption in the system that we have allowed that make it difficult to see the truth or find the answers we need.  The underlying social commentary of these films is how we respond to our own mistakes, identified errors and corruption.  And to me, it is absolutely relevant to the discussion of our collective future that it is women and the presence of women in mainstream political culture, or mainstream Hollywood, who are continuing to shine light on these flaws and injustices.  Sorry men, but it is no coincidence that women have increasingly gained the right to vote around the globe and we are now using words such as human rights, equal access, sustainable, and creative economy.

Thankfully, in 2009, there are some hints that we are getting to a point of "all being in this together."  There are global leaders of both genders facing the unknown.  Not surprisingly, there are signs of cooperation.  And not surprisingly, the new world we are very slowly building is beginning to look more and more like something out of a science fiction film.  Case in point - wind farms, remote control surgery, nuclear waste storage 1 km beneath Lake Huron, grey water filtration.

We are catching tiny glimpses of a new world, and not on the big screen, no, this is in real life.  How brave it will be and whose voices it will include has yet to be seen.

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Robert is a teacher, writer, and aspiring chef-at-home living and working in downtown Toronto.