A unique advantage of genres such as science fiction and fantasy is the possibility to invent and explore a fictional culture. Beyond simple entertainment, invented cultures in novels, series, and multimedia franchises investigate meaningful questions: What if people valued different things, acted in different ways, or related to each other by different world-views?
When done right, these storytelling devices encourage audiences to abandon their assumptions and biases linked to the real world, in turn permitting them to extract new perspectives that might otherwise be difficult to reach. On the other hand, cultural appropriation is a common risk of these devices. Real-life cultures, typically by the hands of authors from outside those cultures, end up as “inspiration” to create “fantastical” or “alien” stereotypical stand-ins for real-life groups.
Among the most thoroughly analyzed examples of cultural appropriation for use in a fictional culture is James Cameron’s “Avatar” franchise. These films take several real-life Indigenous cultures and place them on a fictional species of aliens threatened with genocide and colonialism. Beyond the logical gaps of an “extraterrestrial” species mirroring human cultures, these films utilize cut-and-dry stereotypes about technologically simple “natives” who are in touch with nature, are peaceful and innocent (despite being honorable warriors), and grow to accept a White human as their leader. These narrative structures retell a time-worn story that romanticizes Indigenous peoples as idols who, by heroically resisting a colonial force, seemingly exist only to convince White Euro-Americans that extractivism and colonialism are evil. We can consider “Avatar” as the ultimate example of what not to do when composing a fictional culture: real-world stereotypes as plot dressing for a fantastical story.
In the television sphere, the original “Game of Thrones” series also had problems with racism. However, its prequel series “House of the Dragon” illustrates a different kind of fictional culture-building gone astray: the culture of worldview. Set in a medieval fantasy world, the plot surrounds a woman who is forbidden from ascending the ruling throne on grounds of gender, thus instigating a war of succession. The series alludes to the fact that this patriarchal law originates from a fictional polytheistic religion, but the audience is never told what this religion has against women in power. This leaves the audience to ascribe the biases and world-views of real people onto the characters; that is, to think: “it’s just a drama story based on medieval Britain, nothing more to see here.” The omission of a fictional culture where there should be one presents a missed opportunity. “House of the Dragon” spends a lot of time showing dragons burning things, but does little to seed deeper lessons about how morality and religion influence society beyond what is needed as a backdrop for raw entertainment.
The opposite is true in the television series “Dune: Prophecy.” While the “Dune” films appropriate Arabian, Islamic, and Bedouin culture, the “Dune: Prophecy” series, centering on a different part of the franchise’s sci-fi universe, does not repeat this failing. In “Dune: Prophecy,” the Sisterhood is a sect of women who train to tell truth from lies, in turn asserting political agency in an otherwise authoritarian, oligarchic feudal empire. The Sisterhood draws moral authority from religious scriptures, which, following a war where humans wiped out AI “thinking machines” that had “enslaved” the human populace, venerate the authentic human mind and soul. Beyond fueling conflict in the plot, the Sisterhood’s world-views pose a radically different perspective about the role of religion and morality in a technologically advanced society like ours: one where humanity and authenticity are more important than any benefits gained from AI.
The award-winning novel series “The Kindom” by Bethany Jacobs is a strong modern example of a well-developed fictional culture in full. The titular society practices a fictional religion under a unique “kin” government where clerics, bureaucrats, and warriors share power. Notably, in “The Kindom,” children are not assigned a gender at birth and only pick one when they are old enough to choose. This alternate vision is relevant given the real-life debates about traditional gender norms. At the same time, it fuels the plot (not without deeper questions): in an abusive religious school, children are objectified by the pronoun “it” until they come of age. Meanwhile, sectarian conflicts in the Kindom lead to ethnoreligious discrimination and genocide — key themes in the novels.
Paradoxically, the fictional nature of the culture depicted in “The Kindom” deepens its impact. Instead of presenting a story about real-life ethnoreligious conflict, these sci-fi novels separate the audience from Earthly headlines. The fictional culture forces the audience to relate differently to the characters; people cannot read a few words and immediately drop the book, up in arms about “crimes against ____ people.” Through vivid characters divorced from stereotypes and real-life assumptions, the audience experiences a range of perspectives; as ought to be the goal of the fictional-culture device, biases dissolve in favor of windows into deeper understanding and meaning.
