Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- I Introduction: Science Fiction Double Feature
- 1 From “Multiverse” to “Abramsverse”: Blade Runner, Star Trek, Multiplicity, and the Authorizing of Cult//SF Worlds
- 2 The Coy Cult Text: The Man Who Wasn't There as Noir SF
- 3 “It's Alive!”: The Splattering of SF Films
- 4 Sean Connery Reconfigured: From Bond to Cult Science Fiction Figure
- 5 The Cult Film as Affective Technology: Anime and Oshii Mamoru's Innocence
- 6 Whedon, Browncoats, and the Big Damn Narrative: The Unified Meta-myth of Firefly and Serenity
- 7 Iron Sky's War Bonds: Cult Sf Cinema and Crowdsourcing
- 8 Transnational Interactions: District 9, or Apaches in Johannesburg
- 9 A Donut for Tom Paris: Identity and Belonging at European SF/Fantasy Conventions
- 10 Robot Monster and the “Watchable … Terrible” Cult/SF Film
- 11 Science Fiction and the Cult of Ed Wood: Glen or Glenda?, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 from Outer Space
- 12 Visual Pleasure, the Cult, and Paracinema
- 13 “Lack of Respect, Wrong Attitude, Failure to Obey Authority”: Dark Star, a Boy and His Dog, and New Wave Cult SF
- 14 Capitalism, Camp, and Cult SF: Space Truckers as Satire
- 15 Bubba Ho-tep and the Seriously Silly Cult Film
- A Select Cult/SF Bibliography
- A Select Cult SF Filmography
- Index
11 - Science Fiction and the Cult of Ed Wood: Glen or Glenda?, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 from Outer Space
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- I Introduction: Science Fiction Double Feature
- 1 From “Multiverse” to “Abramsverse”: Blade Runner, Star Trek, Multiplicity, and the Authorizing of Cult//SF Worlds
- 2 The Coy Cult Text: The Man Who Wasn't There as Noir SF
- 3 “It's Alive!”: The Splattering of SF Films
- 4 Sean Connery Reconfigured: From Bond to Cult Science Fiction Figure
- 5 The Cult Film as Affective Technology: Anime and Oshii Mamoru's Innocence
- 6 Whedon, Browncoats, and the Big Damn Narrative: The Unified Meta-myth of Firefly and Serenity
- 7 Iron Sky's War Bonds: Cult Sf Cinema and Crowdsourcing
- 8 Transnational Interactions: District 9, or Apaches in Johannesburg
- 9 A Donut for Tom Paris: Identity and Belonging at European SF/Fantasy Conventions
- 10 Robot Monster and the “Watchable … Terrible” Cult/SF Film
- 11 Science Fiction and the Cult of Ed Wood: Glen or Glenda?, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 from Outer Space
- 12 Visual Pleasure, the Cult, and Paracinema
- 13 “Lack of Respect, Wrong Attitude, Failure to Obey Authority”: Dark Star, a Boy and His Dog, and New Wave Cult SF
- 14 Capitalism, Camp, and Cult SF: Space Truckers as Satire
- 15 Bubba Ho-tep and the Seriously Silly Cult Film
- A Select Cult/SF Bibliography
- A Select Cult SF Filmography
- Index
Summary
One is always considered mad when one perfects something that others cannot grasp.
—Dr. Vornoff, Bride of the MonsterAs a body of work, the films of Edward D. Wood, Jr., virtually defy classification. Wood's career output included exploitation films, short subjects, industrial films, commercials, pornography, and unproduced screenplays, as well as various forays into sf. Yet even at an individual level, several of Wood's best–known films elude our grasp in terms of genre: Bride of the Monster (aka, Bride of the Atom, 1955) freely traverses the borders between sf and horror; and recent criticism has noted the avant–garde qualities evident in Wood's sf opus Plan 9 from Outer Space (1956, released 1959), as well as the exploitation film Glen or Glenda? (1953). As this volume's topic suggests, such blurring of borders is central to sf and “cult” films alike, resulting in the frequent overlapping of the two categories, as Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bride of the Monster well illustrate. While known primarily for their cult status, these films abound in sf iconography and thematics—with their flying saucers and intergalactic intelligences, mad scientists and mutant creatures, and ruminations on the use of advanced technology. Even Glen or Glenda?, while not quite sf, features a subplot devoted to the then–revolutionary medical procedures involved in sex–change operations, combined with the psychological aspects of its characters’ transgendered experiences.
In addition to blurring generic boundaries, as Ernest Mathijs and Xavier Mendik point out, cult films often challenge the distinctions between innovation and “badness,” between high and low culture, between acceptable and forbidden subject matter (2–3). As a result, our experience of the cult is frequently marked by confusion: a confusion not only of categories, but also of response (De Seife 2). Are we to be repelled by these films, elated by them, or both? In Wood's case, are we to regard him as a misunderstood auteur (even, perhaps, an accidental artist of the avant–garde), or do we merely dismiss him as one of the “worst” directors of all time?
The “badness” attributed to Wood's films may be seen as a hallmark of cult cinema, yet their almost gleeful silliness stands in marked contrast to Wood's apparently serious aims.
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- Information
- Science Fiction Double FeatureThe Science Fiction Film as Cult Text, pp. 172 - 189Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2015