Is sci fi and fantasy less accepted in the American South?

[CaptJohnSheridan]

Do you think geek stuff is less accepted in the American South? Do the religious people think epic fantasy with magic and wizards is a tool of the devil? How about the more mainstream Republicans and rednecks do they think sci fi and fantasy is only for liberals? What would they think of a TV show featuring a badass military leader with a badass military spaceship?

 

[FalloutJack]

I think you should also be including Utah in that, even though it's not technically The South.

 

[Saelune]

A lot of things are less accepted in the American South.

 

[Zontar]

Given what I've seen regarding fans of Star Trek, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings as specific examples, I'd say no, or at least it doesn't seem that way from my perspective of an outsider looking in.

I mean hell, both the current and former industrial and cultural heart of the anime community in the English speaking world are and where in Texas respectively. While it's debatable if Texas is its own thing or truly Southern, I think people need to look beyond dated stereotypes when thinking about these questions.

 

[Fox12]

Have most of you ever been to the American South? I promise you, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Anime, and Harry Potter are just as popular here as everywhere else. Yes, even among the rednecks. Lord of the Rings even gets bonus points from the Bible Belt for being "religious." The thing is, most people don't let religion affect what they read or watch. They just use it to make themselves feel better about themselves.

At most you'll have that one family that refuses to celebrate Halloween, but the rest of us make fun of them for being ignorant.

 

[Saelune]

Given what I've seen regarding fans of Star Trek, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings as specific examples, I'd say no, or at least it doesn't seem that way from my perspective of an outsider looking in.

I mean hell, both the current and former industrial and cultural heart of the anime community in the English speaking world are and where in Texas respectively. While it's debatable if Texas is its own thing or truly Southern, I think people need to look beyond dated stereotypes when thinking about these questions.

Texas has a few big cities such as Dallas and San Antonio that are less "Southern" than the rest of the state, but Texas is otherwise quite Southern, though less bumpkin than say, Alabama.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

There are holdouts and a larger proportion of old religious people moreso than most areas to whom the Satanic Panic never ended, but outside of that demographic, you'll find it's still fairly accepted.

Just keep it away from the old farts and you'll be fine.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

Have most of you ever been to the American South? I promise you, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Anime, and Harry Potter are just as popular here as everywhere else. Yes, even among the rednecks. Lord of the Rings even gets bonus points from the Bible Belt for being "religious." The thing is, most people don't let religion affect what they read or watch. They just use it to make themselves feel better about themselves.

At most you'll have that one family that refuses to celebrate Halloween, but the rest of us make fun of them for being ignorant.

Alleghany Mountains native.

I've found the rednecks aren't into it, but most of them have that ONE movie they really liked, even the most redneckest of the rednecky.

 

[Fox12]

Have most of you ever been to the American South? I promise you, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Anime, and Harry Potter are just as popular here as everywhere else. Yes, even among the rednecks. Lord of the Rings even gets bonus points from the Bible Belt for being "religious." The thing is, most people don't let religion affect what they read or watch. They just use it to make themselves feel better about themselves.

At most you'll have that one family that refuses to celebrate Halloween, but the rest of us make fun of them for being ignorant.

Alleghany Mountains native.

I've found the rednecks aren't into it, but most of them have that ONE movie they really liked, even the most redneckest of the rednecky.

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. My best friend had family down that way. The rural areas can be less open to those kinds of things, and the elderly in general don't like it, but once you get to the suburbs people are pretty normal. The cities can be very liberal in my experience. In any case, the number of people who dismiss fiction on religious grounds tends to be quite small, and those people are generally seen as overly judge mental. I've never wanted for people to talk about fantasy with.

The redneck crowd really loves Marvel and Starwars in my experience, though.

 

[PapaGreg096]

Seeing how the creator of Enders Game lives in the south no its not less accepted in the American South

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Gene Roddenberry was born in El Paso. Considering Both NASA Houston and NASA Cape Canaveral are both in the south, I think Science fiction and Fantasy both are pretty strong here. There is also a large tech community in Texas due to having a silicone valley here. Texas A&M has a large Science Fiction library, and UT Austin has the Texas Spacecraft Laboratory. There are quite a few large Larp groups in Texas as well as science fiction book clubs. I know in Austin there are always sci fi writing contests going on, I actually entered one there once (didn't win). In my theater class, we actually learned to do stage makeup from one of the artists that creates Star Trek aliens.
There are also a good number of fantasy and sci fi conventions in Texas:
https://www.upcomingcons.com/cons/state/texas

 

[Fox12]

Gene Roddenberry was born in El Paso. Considering Both NASA Houston and NASA Cape Canaveral are both in the south, I think Science fiction and Fantasy both are pretty strong here. There is also a large tech community in Texas due to having a silicone valley here. Texas A&M has a large Science Fiction library, and UT Austin has the Texas Spacecraft Laboratory. There are quite a few large Larp groups in Texas as well as science fiction book clubs. I know in Austin there are always sci fi writing contests going on, I actually entered one there once (didn't win). In my theater class, we actually learned to do stage makeup from one of the artists that creates Star Trek aliens.

I saw an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson, where he said that the Republicans are way more supportive of science and NASA. I found that pretty surprising. A lot of people don't fit into stereotypes.

 

[happyninja42]

Well seeing as I live in the American South (Alabama), and have all my life, and we have plenty of nerdy things, and nobody tries to shun us or drive us out of our homes, I'm going to say it's not that big a deal here. Remember one of the bigger nerd conventions is annually held in the south, a lot of nerdy tv shows are filmed in Georgia (Walking Dead being one of them), etc etc, I'd say it's not as bad as you think.

Though I guess that depends on what you picture the South as actually being. If you are picturing nothing but trailer parks and cousin fuckers then you have a lot to actually learn about the South.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, some odd generalisations about the south going on there, I think.

Now, if we were to have an actual study about how popular things are in different states of the US, and whether certain sci-fi and fantasy are more popular in certain states that others, there might be something to speak about.

(Also, as nobody has mentioned her yet, Charlaine Harris)

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Gene Roddenberry was born in El Paso. Considering Both NASA Houston and NASA Cape Canaveral are both in the south, I think Science fiction and Fantasy both are pretty strong here. There is also a large tech community in Texas due to having a silicone valley here. Texas A&M has a large Science Fiction library, and UT Austin has the Texas Spacecraft Laboratory. There are quite a few large Larp groups in Texas as well as science fiction book clubs. I know in Austin there are always sci fi writing contests going on, I actually entered one there once (didn't win). In my theater class, we actually learned to do stage makeup from one of the artists that creates Star Trek aliens.

I saw an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson, where he said that the Republicans are way more supportive of science and NASA. I found that pretty surprising. A lot of people don't fit into stereotypes.

I guess the anti-GMO and similar types outweigh YECs and the like? As for NASA specifically, several of their facilities are in the South (JSC, Kennedy, Marshall, Goddard). 3 of the remaining are in California, so that doesn't leave much for Yankee land.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Not even sure this a question you can really answer definitively, but I'd lean towards no. I lived the first 20 years of my life in Mississippi and I can't say I ever got the impression that I was less socially accepted for having "geeky" or "nerdy" interests.

Good entertainment is good entertainment. Not a political issue (or a religious one to the majority).

 

[Myria]

I think you should also be including Utah in that, even though it's not technically The South.

Salt Lake Comic Con [http://saltlakecomiccon.com/] starts next week and is a huge, huge deal around here. There are also an ungodly -- no pun intended -- number of Magic and DnD shops around here, a fact I'm sadly reminded of weekly as I haul my nephews to/from one or another of them. There's also a surprising number or VR gaming shops popping up around Salt Lake, I've noticed lately. God only knows how well they'll do, but for now they're like weeds.

If any thing, Sci-Fi and Fantasy are more popular here in Utah than they were in much of New England, where I lived previously. I can't really speak about the American South, I haven't lived there, but the idea that Utah, being a region where much of the population is highly religious (and it is), is somehow backwards culturally or technologically is, to someone who lives here and is not in any way religious, laughably absurd.

 

[FalloutJack]

I think you should also be including Utah in that, even though it's not technically The South.

Salt Lake Comic Con [http://saltlakecomiccon.com/] starts next week and is a huge, huge deal around here. There are also an ungodly -- no pun intended -- number of Magic and DnD shops around here, a fact I'm sadly reminded of weekly as I haul my nephews to/from one or another of them. There's also a surprising number or VR gaming shops popping up around Salt Lake, I've noticed lately. God only knows how well they'll do, but for now they're like weeds.

If any thing, Sci-Fi and Fantasy are more popular here in Utah than they were in much of New England, where I lived previously. I can't really speak about the American South, I haven't lived there, but the idea that Utah, being a region where much of the population is highly religious (and it is), is somehow backwards culturally or technologically is, to someone who lives here and is not in any way religious, laughably absurd.

Which is fine, since what I was asking was to add Utah to the question, since it seemed fair to ask. Thank you for your enlightening post.

 

[Saltyk]

I live in the Atlanta area. We have Anime Weekend Atlanta, Dragoncon, and Momocon every year. I'd say that Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and anime are all accepted here.

 

[Souplex]

Gene Roddenberry was born in El Paso. Considering Both NASA Houston and NASA Cape Canaveral are both in the south, I think Science fiction and Fantasy both are pretty strong here. There is also a large tech community in Texas due to having a silicone valley here. Texas A&M has a large Science Fiction library, and UT Austin has the Texas Spacecraft Laboratory. There are quite a few large Larp groups in Texas as well as science fiction book clubs. I know in Austin there are always sci fi writing contests going on, I actually entered one there once (didn't win). In my theater class, we actually learned to do stage makeup from one of the artists that creates Star Trek aliens.

I saw an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson, where he said that the Republicans are way more supportive of science and NASA. I found that pretty surprising. A lot of people don't fit into stereotypes.

I guess the anti-GMO and similar types outweigh YECs and the like? As for NASA specifically, several of their facilities are in the South (JSC, Kennedy, Marshall, Goddard). 3 of the remaining are in California, so that doesn't leave much for Yankee land.

I'm pretty sure the decision on where to place those facilities was originally based on things like land availability and the fact that you want to do rocket launches closer to the equator.