Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head?
Octavia E. ButlerRead
Hollywood wants to go for the flash, because that's what a lot of them think science fiction is.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques Hollywood's superficial interpretation of science fiction, valuing spectacle over substance.
Octavia E. Butler points out that Hollywood often reduces the genre of science fiction to mere flashy visuals and entertainment, overlooking the deeper themes and complexities that can be explored within the genre. This superficial approach can dilute the profound ideas and societal critiques that true science fiction can offer, making it more about spectacle rather than meaningful storytelling.
Themes
HollywoodScience FictionSuperficialSubstanceStorytelling
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used during a panel discussion about the representation of science fiction in film.
More from Octavia E. Butler
All quotes βI don't write about good and evil with this enormous dichotomy. I write about people. I write about people doing the kinds of things that people do.
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My characters hope for better lives.
Octavia E. ButlerRead
I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten.
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When I was 7 and went to the zoo with my second-grade class, I saw chimpanzee eyes for the first time - the eyes of an unhappy animal, all alone, locked in a bare, concrete-floored, iron-barred cage in one of the nastier, old-fashioned zoos. I remember looking at the chimp, then looking away.
Octavia E. ButlerRead
The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that doesn't exist in real life. And two, it allows us to create human characters that we know better than we will ever know anyone in real life.
Octavia E. ButlerRead
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