The slides for today talk about the rise of SF in pulp magazines beginning in the late 1920s and through the 1930s. Judging from the contents of Weinbaum’s stories and the material in the slides, who do you think read these magazines? What would be the likely demographic categories? Men? Women? Old? Young? Black? White? Affluent? Working-class? Feel free to consider other categories. In a paragraph or two, explain how one bit of specific evidence—a moment or language in Weinbaum’s stories or a detail from a particular cover posted in the slides—guides your thinking.
6 thoughts on “Who’s Reading the Pulps (Group 4)”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
We all seem to be on the same page here in terms of gender, sexuality, and race; these stories were likely enjoyed by predominately by white, straight men looking to escape whatever lifestyle they led. The education aspect brought up by Colin and Natalie is harder to nail down for me. On the one hand, I would agree with their assessment that the narrative devotion to seemingly scientific/technical characters and descriptions insinuates a more educated readership–however the pseudoscience of it all prompts some second-guessing. Not only does Weinbaum incorporate incorrect science into crucial plot points, but he does so with such confidence and trustworthy intellectual wording. When he tells us that “Venus does not rotate, but keeps the same face always toward the Sun,” you want to believe him because it is self-assured and pertains to a very real planet (not a fictitious one). His descriptions and vocabulary are written in the clinical voice of a scientist or astronaut disclosing their studies; indeed, A Martian Odyssey is even formatted as a character’s clinical recount of events. In other words, Weinbaum writes like he knows what he’s talking about. I imagine this lack of scientific basis would frustrate professionals in the field–thereby alienating many of them from his pool of readers. To me, the stories appeal to the interesting gray area of educated folks who can both appreciate the technical pretense of Weinbaum’s pseudoscience and thusly be persuaded by it. They would appeal perhaps to someone like me, as I am admittedly no expert. I also found Weinbaum’s reliance on pop culture-influenced German and British caricatures/archetypes to hint at an explicitly American audience–although that might’ve been obvious regardless.
I slightly disagree with the age range some of the other post have come to conclusion on, however. I would say (with literally no clue at all , but interested in knowing) that the pulp fiction would have more of a younger fan base. It allowed them to dream of these fantastical worlds, like the escapism that was mentioned in another post, but the escapism was for the white heterosexual boy. I fell like the writers and publishers found another way to enforce ideas of hyper-masculinity, racism, and colonialism. The covers having the hero saving the helpless, and over- sexualized woman in distress would pull in those younger readers. Then, they could aspire to be biologist and chemist, and work with those from foreign countries (still predominately white countries, Germany, France etc). “A Martian Odyssey” suggests the ideas that colonialism is okay, and Mars seemed to be a reference to people of other races and ways of living, (literally calling one of the cities Mud-Heap City). The alien life forms they encountered like tweel, were ONLY worthy of the colonizer’s friendship based on their intelligence levels?! These SF pulps were escapism, but the escapism was only to become a white colonizer. The pulps give chances to imagine, but only by the parameters of by who? oh White heterosexual men
I agree with my group members belief that the intended audience of these stories is white, educated, upper working class, heterosexual men. I make this assumption based on the social structure at the time where those with access to education and technology, two things one would think a reader of science fiction would have an interest in, were predominantly white males. However, I will not make the assumption that they are middle aged because I think a male high school or college student may be interested in this. The authors of these are also marketing to male readers by depicting the male gaze and the inferiority of women. The male gaze is depicted on the magazine covers shown in the slides where women are hyper-sexualized by being shown barely clothed and in distress. Within the stories, women are not seen as capable of doing anything exceptional rather, need men to save them. This has to do more with “Parasite Planet” where Pat Burlingame is constantly portrayed as weak and in distress.
Another aspect of Weinbaum’s “A Martian Odyssey” that I didn’t pick up on until I read Natalie’s response was the presence of colonial sentiments within the story. I think this is an outstanding point that in many ways the idea of space travel in this imperial period was viewed through the lens of colonialism. Like western countries did to their colonies, we see this dilemma of whether or not Tweeds culture is civilized compared to that of Jarvis, Harrison, and Putz. I also liked Will’s point about SF being an escape from the world at the time given these stories were read in the depression era, an extremely difficult time to live through.
I agree with Natalie and Elise’s points that the principal readers of these texts would likely have been white, middle-aged, working-class, heterosexual men. I make this assessment predominantly on the social and economic conditions of the late 20’s and early 30’s, namely, the Great Depression. To a certain extent, I imagine that SF as a genre permits a form of escapism for the reader (e.g. the literal escape of human protagonists from Earth to alien planets). The stories also detail acquisitions of wealth in some form (the healing stone in Martian Odyssey and the xixtchil in Parasite Planet), and demonstrate both stability in working class positions (e.g. the crew of the Ares) and expansion/exploration towards new opportunities (e.g. Ham and Pat’s sojourn). Although taking place in more fantastical settings, there is an abundance of work, wealth, and adventure in the stories that is not necessarily present in the lives of the readers of the stories.
I might contend that the portrayal of women on the covers and as characters furthers the idea of Depression-era escapism as well. If we consider that many working class families in the 20’s and 30’s may have consisted of men in the workforce and women in the home, the loss of employment threatens the traditional dynamic of the nuclear family/roles of the working husband and stay at home wife. Visual representations that reaffirm gender norms (male protectorship and the female damsel in distress) may serve as literary comfort in a reality where male workers feel they may have lost their ability to provide and protect dependent housewives.
I believe that Pulp Magazines’ primary readers were middle-aged, educated, white, heterosexual, working-class men. Weinbaum highlights several different groups working together on Mars (Germans, Fench, and Americans). The focus on the roles of the biologist, chemist, and engineer implies an educated class. Additionally, the blatant sexualization of women and the hypermasculinization of the “man saving the woman in distress” (specifically in the context of Ham saving Pat) plays into the heterosexual nature of these perceptions. Finally, the 1920s and 1930s were at the peak of European colonialism, with colonial influences being white (middle to upper class), men with Christian values.
When he discussed Tweel and his race, the conversation between Jarvis, Harrison, and Putz point to this underlying theme of colonial expansion and rationalizing with “other races.” The point he makes about Tweel being “worthy” of friendship and the belief that “somewhere on Mars—and you’ll find I’m right—is a civilization and culture equal to ours, and maybe more equal” (Weinbaum, 17). They are merely just conquering another planet. We saw the theme of colonialism in Parasite Planet, where they talked about items being the British’s property on Venus, and at the end of the story, Ham exclaimed that they were off to get married at “a good American Church.”
Given the origins of science fiction writing, with Gernsback’s focus on technological possibility, it feels as though these early magazines would be targeted toward white men, who had the privilege to be well-off enough to know about the intricacies of technology. As the stories became more sensational and clearly fictional, I can imagine the target audience age decreasing, but most other factors I believe would remain the same. The heroes of Weinbaum’s stories are men, and Pat Burlingame is the only confirmed female character in both stories, occupying the role of damsel in distress (as the slides mention). In particular, the cover of Weird Tales illustrates how women are not the central figures of stories. The woman on the cover, who doesn’t even really seem that helpless, does nothing to help the man except present him with her almost naked body.
These writers and illustrators are willing to make women unrealistic so long as they fall within conventional views of femininity. Women can be skinny and busty and naked, beautiful in their distress, but they cannot be the heroes of these stories. They can’t save themselves from monsters or make the same perilous journeys in the ways that men can. Weinbaum would rather present an extreme of unconventionality, an alien, who is, (surprise!) intelligent and knowledgeable, than present a self-sufficient woman.