A challenge that most geek subcultures face is when they start to creep into the mainstream or when the mainstream starts to creep into their sphere. Hot off Tor.com’s Steampunk Week,tThis was the main topic of discussion at the “Steampunk 101” panel on New York Comic Con’s first night. A history of the community was hardly necessary, so instead a lot of the discussion focused on how steampunks feel when newbies and Hollywood start to explore their world.
One of the most incredible aspects of steampunk is that it’s advanced into the public sphere in only three or four years—much faster than other subcultures. The four portals through which people most commonly enter into steampunk are (in descending order of interest) fashion, music, art, and writing. (Boo! says the writer in me.)
pwQ(Q~~60_12.JPG "Steampunk 101 at NYCC")
When we say fashion, we’re not just talking one-of-a-kind Etsy pieces—Forever 21 has incorporated clockwork earrings and military-cut coats into its repertoire the past few seasons.
It’s this very visual, interactive nature that makes steampunk so accessible to newbies: The historical elements act as a sort of shorthand that make the subculture easier to understand than if you were dressing up as a manga character or even a vampire. Also, you can’t do it wrong! As long as you have the key elements, you’re in—and you’re nearly guaranteed to look great doing it. One panelist took an informal poll of the audience, asking, “Girls, who doesn’t want to see a guy in a nice button-down and vest?” and “Gentlemen, when does a girl not look good in a corset?”
Similar to what’s been going on with LARP, Hollywood has bogarted steampunk, turning a niche interest into an expensive movie designed to attract girls who love pretty boys, guys who like swordfights, and kids who are mesmerized by historical settings. The most glaring example is Summit Entertainment’s The Three Musketeers, which could be called a remake of the 1993 version starring Chris O’Donnell if it didn’t add in the kinds of steampunk elements we saw in 2009’s Sherlock Holmes. Logan Lerman dons an awful wig to play D’Artagnan, the impressionable youth who reunites the disgraced Musketeers. You also have Orlando Bloom, looking even more foppish than usual and an awesome-looking airship.
Surprisingly, the panelists were of the opinion that a Hollywood-ized vision of steampunk is still forward progress. One laughed, “I think the movie’s a travesty, and I can’t wait to see it!” And of course, we can’t forget that The Three Musketeers originally came from Alexandre Dumas, who was actually alive during the period that steampunk depicts!
What’s important, the panelists stressed, is that introducing a subculture into the mainstream gives those artists the chance for more exposure and attention. But new converts have to give them their due; otherwise, it’s all for naught.
Back to Hollywood: One of the panelists quoted a line from the film SLC Punk!, where the characters are arguing whether it was the Ramones or the Sex Pistols who invented punk: “Who cares who started it? It’s music!”
Natalie Zutter is a playwright, foodie, and the co-creator of Leftovers, a webcomic about food trucks in the zombie apocalypse. She’s currently the Associate Editor at Crushable, where she discusses movies, celebrity culture, and internet memes. You can find her on Twitter @nataliezutter. She really wants to buy a bunch of steampunk clothing now.
How is “The Three Musketeers” an introduction of Steampunk into the mainstream? There has been a stream of similar movies – League of Gentlemen, Steamboy and Van Helsing in the last decade, Wild Wild West, Young Sherlock Holmes, and the various Jules Verne adaptations before that. I don’t see this one as being unique in that respect. I believe that while the public at large is not yet aware of the term “steampunk”, the concpet itself has been an integral part of pop culture for decades.
BTW, I don’t consider “Sherlock Holmes” to be steampunk. It’s a period drama and the tech is appropriate fot the time, give or take a couple of years; the movie is set in 1891. The primitive “remote control” seen in the film is based on a spark gap transmitter developed by Marconi about four years later. Seven years later Tesla was able to demonstrate a remote controlled model boat. The gas used in the device was available at the time (The gas, HCN, is used in gas-chamber executions – and was used in the Nazi death camps)
“One of the most incredible aspects of steampunk is that it’s advanced into the public sphere in only three or four years…”
Stopped reading right there. What are you talking about, exactly? What markers define this period, would you say? Here’s a (very) truncated bullet point history lesson on “Steampunk,” from the coinage of the term:
Morlock Night by K.W. Jeter, published 1979
Time After Time, produced 1979
Homunculus by James Blaylock, published 1984
The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, published 1990
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., produced 1993
The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman, published 1995
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, published 1999
Steampunk is quite an old subgenre, older than cyberpunk. As far a it being “mainstreamed,” Miyazaki’s been mining it since the mid-80s and Disney — Disney! — took a shot in the 90s with Atlantis.
If you talking merely about fashion, corsets and top hats have been ongoing affectations since the 80s as well (the Goths discovered brown, and all that).
What Michael_GR said. This is quite a near-sighted premise for a blog post.
Let’s not forget The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne which was a series set firmly in the steampunk genre that first aired in June 2000 on CBC Television in Canada and in syndication in the United States.
It’s probably the purest example of steam punk done on television to date.
Steampunk has been around for quite a while indeed, often without people actually realizing something to be “steampunk”.
A good example in comics would be Tekno’s (Big (for one issue)) Mr. Hero, the newmatic man, created by Neil Gaiman.
A pic of the steam-driven hero…
It predates the term, but we could add Moorcock’s A Nomad of the Time Streams (1971). Wikipedia certainly considers it an ‘influential early steampunk trilogy’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nomad_of_the_Time_Streams
There aren’t many SF authors who are more successful or recognizable than Moorcock. In terms of steampunk genre in the mainstream, there’s been a swag of it (at least) since Wild Wild West.
However, I think it’s worth noting that when steampunk persons refer to the term, they sometimes seem to mean ‘the genre’ and sometimes seem to mean ‘the asthetic movement’… the later as a fully realised asthetic, arguably, is more recent, though certainly could be traced back through Gothdom.
Someone, somewhere could (and no doubt is) writing a thesis on it all as we speak.
Chris
I think the point Natalie (and the panel) is making is that while many SFF fans have known about Steampunk for decades, the general populace hadn’t heard about it until a few years ago. Disney wasn’t intentionally making a Steampunk animated movie with Atlantis, and they certainly didn’t market it that way. Same with Wild Wild West or anything by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. They have been backdated into the genre because they meet the qualifications. And dollars to donuts, a lot of the people reading League of Extraordinary Gentlemen hadn’t the faintest they were indulging in Steampunk. Count me in that group. Ask a bunch of kids what genre they think the His Dark Materials series is a part of and most will say Fantasy, not Steampunk. They aren’t associating it with Steampunk – probably because they’ve never heard of it before – and therefore don’t know they’re participating in that.
The reason I was attracted to Steampunk when I first heard about it (about 2 years ago) was that I realized many of the things I liked coincided with the genre; I had been participating without realizing it. Steampunk has been around for a while, but it most certainly wasn’t “integral” to pop culture except as cult status.
I think what makes this movie unique is that it is actively participating in – and marketing to – the genre. It’s also dumbing down the genre by taking all the thought out of it and saying “look how hot I look in a corset!” Like that episode on Castle a while back, they are utilizing the genre tropes in an overt manner and jumping on the pop culture bandwagon.
Milo’s got it! I thought it was clear that I’m reiterating/summarizing the discussion at the NYCC panel. I’m definitely not putting myself forward as any sort of expert on steampunk. I’m solidly in the middle of the spectrum, where I knew of plenty of pop culture examples of steampunk before The Three Musketeers, but I also realize that it’s more obvious to non-fans than what came before, thanks to those airships!
My wife knew what steampunk was in the late nineties, and she’s not exactly a genre junkie or SF afficionado.
Peripherally, I worked on the marketing campaign for Wild Wild West (not in the US). I remember that the word ‘steampunk’ was thrown around quite clearly, though not the details.
Perhaps Natalie’s just a younger writer. Understandable error.
Hm. I don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll jump in only quickly again… I’m not convinced that the general populace have heard of steampunk *now*. Only a year or so ago, ABC/rn’s bookshow did a steampunk interview, and the general feeling was ‘this is a weird thing that weird people are into… oh well, I suppose they must find it fun…’ It’s probably about as ‘integral’ to pop-culture as Conan the Barbarian or HP Lovecraft (sure, people are kind of aware of it), … and a lot less integral than, for example, superheroes, McDonalds, Vampires, Lego, Star Trek, Star Wars or Lady Gaga.
I’m afriad that I suspect that at best, the musketeers move is merely dog-whistling steampunk fans.
Also, to rephrase what I wrote above, I think there’s a divide here in what people are referring to:
Steampunk as a literary subgenre has been around for a long long time, and even moderately well-read SF fans have known of the term for yonks. I’ll call it Steampunk (One).
The other ‘Steampunk’ (which I called an ‘aesthetic movement’ above) I’ll clarify and rephrase into being a ‘common playground’, not a literary genre per se. This Steampunk (Two) is the thing that most fans are referring to: it’s a community and an asthetic and a public domain landscape in which people can invent and do cool stuff. It has been around only a few years at the outside.
The common playground Steampunk (Two) and the literary Steampunk (One) are connected, but not as strongly as you might suspect. A Nomad of the Timestreams is a good example: it’s considered a classic of the literary genre, but I don’t think it’s bled much into the community movement. It’s probably far too bleak and moralistic to be much fun in that regard.
Anyway, I think this has created a bit of a fan divide. Older and more widely-read fans view Steampunk (One) as tired, hashed to death already, or (sometimes even) morally questionable*, and younger fans can’t understand why anyone would want to rain on their shiny, fun exhuberant Steampunk (Two) parade.
Anyway, I don’t mean that to be an attack or anything. Just my perspective on it all. I think there are two steampunks and therein is the confusion.
Chris
* I’ve read too many accounts of woman suffering organ failure during the 1800s due to corsets to view them as anything other than creepy gender polictics devices
“And of course, we can’t forget that The Three Musketeers originally came from Alexandre Dumas, who was actually alive during the period that steampunk depicts!”
The author knows that ‘steampunk’ wasn’t actually a period of history, right? That it’s a fictional confabulation of a whole bunch of various ideas?
I think it would have been useful for the author to explain to a lay reader what ‘steampunk’ actually is, but I think very few people can do that these days; the well has mostly been poisoned by the folks who think gluing gears to a top hat and strapping on a corset “makes them steampunk”, whatever that means. It’s become a subculture of all style and no substance. (I think CPJ’s comment above explained the sentiment better than I could.)
WHY is everyone acting so highbrow about a subject that is purely Fantasy after all, and should be FUN for everyone including Newcomers!
If this movie can help push passed the aesthetic notion that goggles and a top hat make you a steampunk dude and a corset and gear earrings make you a steampunk chick, (or whatever tranny mix you might have going), then huzzah. I highly doubt that though. It seems like most of the steampunk elements that get thrown around anymore are there for the sake of being steampunk. That’s how I view this movie. That’s how I feel about some of the books I’ve read with steampunk settings lately too. Like you could remove the steampunk stuff and still have the same story.
Steampunk is sooooo over.
CPJ – Your clarification about the two different communities was really helpful; you’re right, the second one is more of what was being discussed at NYCC.
jknevitt – You’re right, a definition/clarification would probably have been helpful. I assumed that because Tor.com had just had Steampunk Week, there was enough context to jump into the discussion, much the way the panelists jumped into it.
Petar – This has nothing to do with my age.
What I’m surprised didn’t come through more is that I was reporting the discussion at this panel. Everything that I related came from a panelist’s mouth. The question about The Three Musketeers came from an attendee in the audience, and never did any of the panelists demean that person and say “Oh, but this isn’t steampunk! How dare you sully our conversation with such an uninformed question!” The question was answered with the same respect with which it was asked.
It’s the internet. We’re all opinionated bastards.
“Everything that I related came from a panelist’s mouth.”
– if that’s the case then you need to use quotations marks, or give a sourced paraphrase, because statements like this:
“One of the most incredible aspects of steampunk is that it’s advanced into the public sphere in only three or four years”
and this gem:
“And of course, we can’t forget that The Three Musketeers originally came from Alexandre Dumas, who was actually alive during the period that steampunk depicts.”
– sound like they are author’s opinion. And I have to say, they sound ill-informed. Still, AsheSaoirse comment above mine is also very valid, and should be the prism through which all this discourse is seen!
Fair point, Petar. I ended up covering this panel last-minute, so I didn’t have a tape recorder on hand and didn’t trust myself to try and quote everything; I didn’t want to misrepresent anyone. I assumed that because the context was that this was an NYCC panel, it would be understood that all the points were paraphrased.
Next time I’ll make that clearer.
Well, I understood you loud and clear, Natalie. And good post, by the way. You (by way of the panel) brought up some really interesting points.
Also, just finally chirping in. I also understood the article to be a summary of the panel.
I think you (unfortunately) ended up standing in front of a barrage of cankanterous fans. It was a good article, well written. I wouldn’t let the quibbling back and forth of people upset you (and I hope I didn’t contribute to any upset in any way).
I think I might write a short article on what the heck steampunk is, what it isn’t, and why I think it’s become rampantly popular. Maybe I’ll see if the tor.com people will want it once it’s done.
Thanks,
Chris
Thanks, guys–and I totally should’ve been clearer about the fact that I was relating the panel’s conversation. I’m a bit rusty on geek reporting, but looking forward to working out those kinks as I write more for Tor.com!
Let’s not get hoity-toity about how steampunk is sooo old when there is actual data that proves Natalie is correct. Look at the google trend: in 2007, people began to identify steampunk, and in 2008/9 the news started to pick up on it.
I personally remember when I thought, “finally! I will have a word to describe what previously on my Christmas list was written as ‘things you would find in an 1800’s world traveller’s study’!”
And then it got all creepy with, as Chris points out, the same old tedious gender politics; and additionally, replacing of the idea that you were someone who might actually fix an airship with the idea that you were someone who looked pretty and used goggles to decorate your hat. Feh I say!
It’s my firm belief that goggles do not go with a top hat. Just like no one looks good in black lipstick unless they’re a monster or undead.
I would remind everyone that the movie in question (Three Musketeers) is just a movie, and I do not see it going any farther than direct-to-video. Nor for that matter do I have any interest whatever in seeing it.
To me, it’s apparent attempt to cash in on the inherent ‘coolness’ of Steampunk is just that…an attempt to cash in. Remember that these folks are trying to make a buck here, and the more people they can rope in, the better for them.
And unfortunately, if it is successful, they will probably expand the franchise and make more of these horrors…..to me, the Three Musketeers of the 70’s (?) were THE classic examples of the Historical Fiction genre.
To me the offered film is NOT Steampunk. To paraphrase what others have said, gluing gears onto a film does not make it Steampunk.
I see any arguments as to the provenance of Steampunk to be interesting speculation, but still speculation. Since elements of it were around LONG before the word was coined, we’re getting into the realm of the tail wagging the dog. Naming something almost ALWAYS comes after the formation of the thing…with few exceptions, like ‘quiz’.
The same could be said of Dieselpunk. The elements of that have been around forever (Maltese Falcon, anyone?), and in a way may ‘still’ have living adherents to the life and lifestyle….I grew up surrounded by men in fedoras, women wearing hats, trench coats and Art Deco styling. Indeed, I myself lived for a while entirely in 30’s and 40’s clothing in my late twenties during the 1970’s, as the clothing was cheap (a Borsalino for $20? Amazing!), and vintage had it’s own sense of self…not to mention the quality of the clothing was high. And incidentally, I found enough to fit me, being 6’4″ tall. Victorians were for the overwhelming part SMALL people.
The difference I see in Steampunk ‘culture’ is the near-total re-creations of said culture by it’s present and future members, as the sheer distance in time to it’s purported ‘being’ goes far beyond any living human. Remember that no-one alive knew the Victorian Age as a day-to-day thing.
The Victorian Age is gone, dead, and shall not be reborn. Many enjoy living in the better aspects of the Period, and I see many of these persons gradually enfolding Steampunks in their bosoms….however, that is for further speculation.
I apologize if this seemed to wander a bit.