The film opens with a quote: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” by Ariel Durant. The tone for apocalypse is set, and the film does indeed feel very much like the prelude to disaster – something the end drives home in an unexpected turn. However, there is something more significant going on in the film, which seems strangely familiar. A mighty civilization fears destruction by an unknown and uncontrollable plague, causing it to conquer neighboring people to sacrifice them to appease the gods. If they resist, they must be forced and if they kill in self-defence, here is no limit to vengeance – noy even the death of one’s own people.

Has Mel Gibson suddenly turned a critical eye toward US culture and society, the war against terror and the fear of outside enemies?

In many ways, the film’s focus lies elsewhere and succeeds elsewhere. We follow a small tribe of Mayans who are suddenly invaded by others from a strange city of stone. This first contact between these two cultures and their differences works well, the strangeness of the Mayan kingdom is emphasized as we see it through the eyes of the newcomers. The cruelty and incomprehensibility of their actions is well staged, the use of slow-motion renders the mask-wearing priests utterly alien.

However, the problem of the film is its deep fascination with the apocalyptic mood and atmosphere created in the city of stone. Decadent people line the streets, human sacrifices are received with cries of jubiliation. It is the decline of this kingdom and the consequences which is the drive of the film. The escape of Jaguar Paw and his subsequent chase only shows the madness and irrationality of the Mayans, but none of the characters are ever developed to the point where their actions take on any deeper meaning. We cannot relate to their actions, just as we cannot relate to the characters themselves.

Jaguar Paw is obviously the protagonist, and the hero in the sense that he attempts to save his pregnant wife and child, and we understand his desperation to return and help them. But he never becomes more than a cliché – a stereotype. Certainly he never becomes a rebel or revolutionary, never becomes a symbol of resistance against injustice. In the end, there is no civilization critique, only apocalyptic dread.

The ending, when the Spanish arrive, is unexpected as it has no direct relation to the plot as such, only to the quote at the begining. We now understand that the civilisation to be destroyed is the Mayan one (which we knew already), not just the homely and pleasant village we saw at the beginning.

However, there is a peculiar double-bind where the interesting reversal of revealing the Spanish as invaders, aggressors and imperialists through the eyes of the Mayans (which is never followed-through, even), ends up suggesting that it really didn’t matter that the Spanish invaded the Americas – they were doomed anyway.

The film lives as a spectacle, is a spectacle in that it is the visual style which is the most impressive and the most significant about the film. It is also its emphasis on spectacle which robs the film of any oppositional intent or effect. Apocalypto is a conservative – and conservationist – film which safely relegates history to the past, and empties it of meaning by turning it into a spectacle.

As can be imagined, afrofuturism is an attempt to articulate a certain blackness within a space – fantastic literature – which has long been seen as colonized exclusively by white people. As Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid) sees it, afrofuturism is a way of “living through the past as a kind of reflection site for future permutations in african identity–in the present” (Miller, “living through the past…”). In other words, past, present and future are understood as ways of understanding each other and the point for the afrofuturists is that black have been excluded from discussions of the future, developing technology and what Anna Everett refers to as the digital public sphere (Everett, 2002). Finding a cultural space which is oriented toward the future is thus the primary motivation for afrofuturism, and one good example of this is Sun Ra’s film Space is the Place (1974).

When released on DVD in 2003, the tagline describes it as “the 1974 science fiction blaxploitation free jazz epic”. Clearly, we are in hybrid country again, this time blending across media between film and music. Similar to Ziggy Stardust, the character of Sun Ra is obviously a construct but a construct which unlike Bowie’s does not change. Sun Ra has always been Sun Ra as an artist and is not adopting a particular identity for the film. Rather, Sun Ra has been the pseudonym of Herman Poole Blount (Szwed, 1997: 4) since 1961 when he relocated to New York (Szwed, 1997: 183), but even prior to that he had begun using Sonny Blount as a stagename (25), clearly unhappy with his given name and the identity which followed.

The image of Sun Ra, first used only on stage but later as part of his persona, was one that invoked ancient Egypt, just as his name Ra is the name of the Egyptian sun god, so his name is actually Sun Sun. He and his musicians wore costumes on stage, all inspired by Egyptian mythology and this mythology is also heavily present in the film. Briefly, the film’s plot is straightforward even if much of it seems at first incoherent. Sun Ra has found a planet suitable for the black race, travelling in his spaceship fuelled by music. Returning to Earth, he once more battles his old nemesis the Overseer for the fate Earth and the black people. Their battle is represented by Ra and the Overseer drawing Tarot-like cards each of which represents a challenge which Ra must overcome; these challenges are always in the form of whether or not he can persuade the black community to believe in the possibility of altering their destiny. At times he succeeds, and at other times the Overseer foils him. In the end, Ra is persuaded that Earth is doomed and decides to leave with the blacks that believe in him, including a number of people where he only brings their “black parts”, leaving the rest/white parts behind. Having left Earth it explodes, presumably because of Sun Ra.

That the film is fuelled by a racial discourse is obvious, what is more interesting is to examine how this discourse works. It is the status of the black people and the black community which is my primary interest here, as it is clearly also Ra’s. His view of blacks and their place in society is made quite clear when he first arrives back at Earth and meets a group of young blacks. Appearing out of nowhere, Ra explains his presence and answers the question whether he is for real or not in this way:

I’m not real, I’m just like you. You don’t exist in this society. If you did you your people wouldn’t be seeking equal rights. You’re not real, if you were you’d have some status among the nations of the world. So we are both myths. I do not come to you as a reality, I come to you as the myth because that is what black people are: myths. I came from a dream that the black man dreamed long ago. I’m actually a presence sent to you by your ancestors. I’m going to be here until I pick out some of you to take back with me.

Back means going back to the other planet Ra has found, where the black people can live free and be real. While not every black person is going to be chosen, those that are do not have much choice of whether they want to come or not. As Ra puts it, if they refuse “then I’m going to have to do you like they did you in Africa, chain you up and take you with me”. Obviously there is an element of force here, but it is also clear that Ra feels that he is doing the best he can for the black people; he is their saviour and this exodus must happen.

A similar spirituality is found throughout the film in the way blacks are portrayed, particularly in connection with music. Ra tells us that music is all part of another tomorrow, another language and that it holds a certain kind of naturalness as well as a certain kind of blackness. Myth, nature, blackness and music are seen to be extensions of each other and were once connected, but has been lost presumably due to white society.

Sun Ra has created a complete mythology as a form of opposition to what he perceives to be white man’s oppressive society which excludes blacks, thus making them unreal. Part of this mythology is to create a sense of past for black people and to provide a sense of direction for the future. I see it as no coincide that Egyptian mythology is part of Sun Ra, as it was one of the first civilizations, it was black and African it and was destroyed/absorbed by the Roman Empire which was obviously white, and so gives historical connotations of ancient greatness destroyed by whites.

However, Ra’s private mythology extends far beyond simple appropriation of Egyptian mythology; it is a complex network of jazz music, Egyptian mythology, B-movie science fiction, blaxploitation movies, and peculiar views of the nature and origins of music. Quite unique, we can see how this bricolage style is a mix of black influences as well as white, particularly those that are disdained by the dominant culture, providing a rather elaborate strategy for resistance. His mythology presents a way for the black community to understand themselves both as original beings who were the first to inhabit Earth, while at the same time being alien to this place, not being real or part of society. As I see it, this view is quite parallel – and most likely influenced – to the concept of double-consciousness as developed by W.E.B. Du Bois in his essay “The Strivings of Black People” (1897).

Rather than being a discussion of the troubles of the black people, Ra attempts in the film to provide a narrative account of how this paradox – native and alien at the same time – can be reconciled or at least understood. Ra’s mythology becomes a narrative meant to provide a specific and liberating subject position for the black community; a way for them to understand their place in society. Thus, it must necessarily be a resistant narrative, but it draws on several well-known narratives already embedded in society. Examples of this are the two characters Jimmy Fey and the Overseer.

The Overseer is a strange character whom we never learn much about, he was the reason Sun Ra left Earth in 1943 when he still called himself Sonny Ray, and he is Ra’s opponent in the strange game of the black people’s fate. Represented less flattering, the Overseer is always seen in a white suit with sunglasses, hat and a silver-topped cane, thus drawing on the stereotype of the black pimp, a rather negative one for black people. In combination with his name, it becomes quite clear that he is an agent of the white people. Not only does he attempt to hide his blackness by his all-white outfit (even shoes and socks), but his name invokes the time of slavery when overseers were those who punished black slaves and helped the plantation owners.

In a more figurative sense, that is precisely what the Overseer does now, helping agents of white society keeping black people oppressed. The game he sets up with Ra is just an extension of this, and this is further showcased by his helper Jimmy Fey who works as in the music industry and helps the Overseer against Ra. Although we learn little of Fey, he often acts as a go-between for the Overseer but is always subordinate and is often put down.

What is most interesting about Fey is that in the end, when Ra is leaving Earth bringing only some with him, Fey asks to come with Ra and Ra accepts but will only bring Fey’s “black parts” leaving the rest of Fey behind, acting as a white. As Ra leaves, the Overseer has not only lost the game but also his function as overseer. The now-white Fey (although still black by colour) treats the Overseer as if he is black and thus below his dignity. This reversal shows how the Overseer was always just a servant of white, dominant society and did not really hold any authority.

The few whites that are in the film are negatively portrayed; we see two agents following the Overseer to a brothel to have fun with some girls. They are first humiliated, having slurred one of the black girls at the brothel, but then proceed to beat the girls to punish them for the humiliation. Although they are first said to be working for NASA, they later try to stop Ra giving the impression that they are police officers or agents of some sort. It is unclear exactly what they are, but there is a degree of paranoia and suspicion towards all whites throughout the film.

White society is thus portrayed as inherently oppressive to black people, and the only way to leave white society behind, if black people are to be free. A poster of Malcom X in a scene where black kids are discussing Sun Ra and whether or not to join him seems to indicate a similar perspective of X’s radical views, except that Ra wishes to lead the black people to a better place. In the end, those he brings seem to be those who have the right spirit, even Fey’s black parts, so that being black is a matter of spirituality. Again we are close to the spirituality of Du Bois’ who also spoke of the “souls of black people”, but Ra’s mythology is different and it is constructed differently.

It is first of all far more abstract and based on a peculiar bricolage style which combines, as we have seen, many separate elements to create something unique. It is unclear exactly what black spirituality is to Ra and it does not seem to be of that much interest to Ra, he brings those who are deemed worthy, but the interesting thing is the way that he uses history as a repertoire to draw on by inserting the Egyptian style into his imagery and uses the concept to rationalize why blacks have been treated poorly on Earth. Even when Ra attempts to solve the racial problems, the white race destroys it, leaving Ra no other option but to leave Earth and destroy it.

The concert Ra puts on in the film is cast as what should bring some form of revelation about for the black community, to make them understand that they need to leave Earth, but even here the whites are vicious and racist. They kill a black kid who saves Ra from being shot, which is the final straw and what makes Ra leave. Again we see how a Christ imagery is inserted into the image of the saviour, as Ra resurrects the kid before transferring him to his spaceship. The whites have shown themselves to be unredeemable and so Ra can leave and kill them in good conscience.

The narrative imagery of the alien is what fuels the film and it is also an attempt to resolve the problem that Du Bois pointed to of the strange doubleness of Afro-American life

this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. (Du Bois, XX)

The story of the black people thus becomes the story of aliens on a wrong planet, moving to another planet is not just an inversion of the alien invasion story but also becomes an way of narrating how immense the differences between white and black people are in 20th century USA. It is interesting to note that Du Bois in fact himself also wrote a speculative piece of fiction which partakes in the same question of race. His piece, titled “The Comet” (1920), is about a disaster when a comet almost hits New York and destroys most of it. The protagonist Jim Davis saves a white woman, Julia, from the wreckage, but the way they talk and think about each other is quite telling:

They stared a moment in silence. She had not noticed before that he was a Negro. He had not thought of her as white. She was a woman of perhaps twenty-five – rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from hers, so infinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought. (Du Bois, 2000: 9)

Julia’s assertion that he certainly is human seems hollow when we later hear this conversation:

“Yes,” she said slowly, “and how foolish our human distinctions seem – now,” looking down to the great dead city stretched below, swimming in unlightened shadows.
“Yes – I was not – human, yesterday,” he said.
She looked at him. “And your people were not my people,” she said; “but today -“(Du Bois, 2000: 14-15)

Clearly some of the same strategy is used here, by casting black Jim Davis as non-human for whites, but Du Bois speculative thrust is used differently. In his story, Julia is reunited with her beloved Fred who immediately suspects the worst of Jim, but Julia assures him that Jim is a good and proper man. This does not appease the white crowd, however, who is about to lynch him as Julia and Fred leave, but Du Bois’s story ends with hope and the erasure of racial boundaries as Julia runs back to Jim and throws herself into his arms.

Ra’s narrative is different, it is separatist and while he and Du Bois share the image of black as alien and non-human, Ra does not share Du Bois’ optimism. His narrative creates a black community which is spiritual, musical and original within their own myth, but they cannot stay on Earth, which has deserved to be destroyed. Space is the Place thus refuses to accept that any kind of resistant narrative may forge a space for the black community within white society and instead, space, the black and endless void as Ra calls it, is the only place this community can properly exist. This exodus is not cast negatively, however, but rather seen as a transition to a far better place on the unnamed planet, with its lush forests, reminiscent of African rainforests. Leaving Earth behind is not just necessary but a positive thing, a liberating move. As in the case of Ziggy Stardust, we see how the sf narrative becomes a way to express the difference the subjects feel.

It is not the story as such, however, which is of interest here, but more the use of the Ziggy Stardust character and how it mixed with Bowie’s star persona, as well as the major theme of the album, which is one of transformation and transgression. There are two main threads here, regarding the narrativization of identity: Bowie’s relation to Ziggy and the Bowie/Ziggy construct’s relation to ‘his’ fans.

The use of quotations marks around ‘his’ is no accident; the most clearly transgressive move with the Ziggy character is the fact that s/he is presented as androgynous and gender specification is unclear, possibly even transsexual. While Bowie is obviously male, in the context of the album and the shows performed, he takes on aspects of Ziggy. It is this ambiguous relation to both gender and the character of Ziggy Stardust which turned out to be so ingenious.

Through the image of the alien, Bowie creates an identity where there are few pre-defined rules and manages to place the Ziggy icon both inside and outside cultural discourse. The alien – as a cultural sign – is of course a stranger, something beyond the normal and precisely what plays the Other to a culture’s Same. The typical status of the alien is thus marginal, even as it helps us construct our own sense of self. The strategy which Bowie used, however, was to construct the Ziggy identity as an opposition to ‘parent culture’ – in this case quite literally – so that the teenagers would come to identify with Ziggy simply on the basis of ‘his’ opposition to dominant culture.

The heavy use of make-up, the androgynous appearance and way of dressing, the sexual overtones as well as the inherently exotic look of Bowie himself (due to a childhood eye-injury), all came together to generate a star persona incomprehensible by standard definitions of behaviour, and quite deliberately so. In the songs, Ziggy is represented as a benign creature who not only prevents the Earth’s destruction, but also provides release and escape for the ‘kids’. In the song ‘Starman’ one kid experiences hearing Ziggy on the radio “I leaned back on my radio / Some cat was layin’ down some rock’n’roll ‘lotta soul, he said / Then the loud sound did seem to fade / Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase / That weren’t no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive”. Here we see how Ziggy is slowly taking over the air waves with ‘his’ hazy cosmic jive, and later we hear that “He’d like to come and meet us / But he thinks he’d blow our minds / There’s a starman waiting in the sky / He’s told us not to blow it / Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile”.

Apparently, Ziggy has a desire to come to Earth but fears whether or not people could in fact understand his alien being, which is made quite explicit in the next song “Lady Stardust”:

People stared at the makeup on his face
Laughed at his long black hair, his animal grace
The boy in the bright blue jeans
Jumped up on the stage
And lady stardust sang his songs
Of darkness and disgrace

The gender-bending lyrics here give us an indication of why Ziggy would blow people’s mind, something which was obviously occurring in parallel with Bowie at the same time. In “Starman” the kids are fully aware that this is not something parents are going to approve of: “If we can sparkle he may land tonight / Don’t tell your poppa or he’ll get us locked up in fright”. It does, however, seem slightly unclear exactly what Ziggy’s message is, other than gender-confusing and a desire to change things through rock’n’roll. Becoming a rock star is obviously Ziggy’s main motivation.

In an ironic interplay of the multiple meanings of the word ‘star’ as both a cultural star – a celebrity – and as the home of extra-terrestrials, Bowie creates a double-bind which positions the alien as something enticing and desirable, not something to be feared by the kids or teenagers but instead something to strive towards – to become a star oneself, to become an exotic and exciting Other. The subject position of the alien is suddenly no longer purely negatively envisioned, but instead holds a certain romantic notion. The alien has become re-signified, detourned, as a strategy of resistance to the norms of society, while at the same time being romanticized for the kids.

This romantic connotation can also be heard in the music. Music is difficult to deal with as music in cultural analytic terms since no critical vocabulary has been established for it, but we can note the basics here without extending into musical theory or practice. The music is a hybrid mix of styles, blending folk rock with flourishing stringworks, pipe sections, acoustic guitars, piano parts and hard rock guitar riffs inspired by bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Bowie’s voice often approaches falsetto, though not exclusively. For lack of a better word, much of the music has a certain theatricality to it, blended with very to-the-point riffs.

Borrowing elements from progressive rock, there is a degree of ephemeral sound added to some of the songs as ambient moods coming from seemingly nowhere. This lends the album a degree of otherworldliness, providing another layer for the music which is clearly best viewed as a bricolage style. Combined with Bowie’s almost feminine acoustic guitar and fey voice, Mick Ronson’s heavy guitar stand not only in stark contrast but puts into play the very same play between masculine and feminine which the Ziggy character also employs. The trademark riffs on ‘Moonage Daydream’ and ‘Ziggy Stardust’ pretty much defined not only the glam rock movement, but also took what was often considered the more masculine forms of rock (sometimes referred to as cock rock), and inserted into a far more ambiguous relation.

The music on the album thus stands parallel to the visual style of primarily Ziggy but of all the members of the band, referred to as The Spiders From Mars thus emphasising the otherworldly elements of this act’s construction. By being aliens and Martians, a discourse was created which made the gender-confusing more acceptable in one way – as the gesture removed Ziggy and the Spiders from typical conventions by casting them as outsiders – but also confronted the parent generation head on by stating that their kids were aliens to them.

In this way, Ziggy saves the Earth for ‘he’ points to a path for the kids to follow, and while Ziggy himself dies in the end, his music will live on. This is where the story of Ziggy employs a well-known narrative; that of the Messiah coming to rescue humanity and must do so through his own death and sacrifice. Referred to explicitly as a “leper messiah” in the song “Ziggy Stardust” it becomes evident that here Bowie draws on the well-established narrative of Christ and his sacrifice, in the way that Hebdige refers to as transmitting some of the preferred meanings of dominant culture. (Hebdige, 1988: 86). Yet Ziggy is a leper messiah in two ways. The first is for the parent generation where their ideology – the narrative of Christ – is suddenly detourned to instead create a strategy for resistance by casting a rock’n’roll star as a new Messiah and thus saving the kids from the same fate as their parents.

The second way, is how Ziggy’s story shows that there is also a darker side to being a rock star; it is in itself a form of alienation. In the song “Star” we hear “I could make a transformation as a rock & roll star / So inviting – so enticing to play the part”, seemingly fully realizing that being a rock star is simply an act, a construction in other words. Much of the Ziggy album thus partakes in the an Andy Warholesque conception of fame as every person’s right. Fame becomes conceived as liberating, just as the alien identity does. As Suzanne Rintoul points out, Ziggy Stardust was constructed through the album to already be a rock superstar. Not only is Ziggy an alien, ‘he’ is also famous world wide and the songs relate how the fictional fans react to him (Rintoul, 2004: 2).

This ingenious move was, I will argue, the very reason why the album and Bowie became such an influence and so popular. It was not the simple move of simply pretending to be famous and so – in a hyperreal move – actually becoming so, but rather the way in which the story of Ziggy was constructed. Ziggy becomes a story which the fans can easily make their own and through this narrative construct their own sense of self, by partaking in the (virtual) community which the album creates, thus making it factual and real.

The album invites participation from the fans, evident in lines such as “If we can sparkle he may land tonight” which shows how the fans must actively do something for Ziggy to appear. In other words, Ziggy is made by the fans and is therefore a part of their life and their community. He is what they make of him, for it is only through them that he really exists as a rock star.
By casting the alien Ziggy as a romantic outsider, Bowie shapes a story, a form of narrative which the kids can step freely into and make their own. In many ways the Ziggy character is the same kind of empty signifier which sf employs constantly; since Ziggy has no distinct motivation it becomes possible for kids to use Ziggy as a kind of blank narrative that they can model to their own identity. Ziggy’s character simply forges a space for kids to fill. Put slightly differently, Ziggy is a literalization of the kids’ sense of alienation. He is alien because that is how they feel – as different, Other, to their parents which seems to be a constant for teenagers. By making the alien exciting and exotic rather than dangerous, Bowie/Ziggy romanticises being an outsider and casts it as a desirable position.

All forms of transgression becomes permissible within the ‘Ziggy paradigm’ since normal conventions do not apply to outsiders. Ziggy narrates difference and narrates a different identity. However, it is also clear that with the popularity gained by Ziggy a kind of counter-reaction was bound to happen, and what was originally marginal became mainstream. Although a specific break-point is difficult to specify, it is evident that at some point Ziggy’s difference was recuperated into being Same once again. Confining Ziggy to clubs and concert halls becomes a way of limiting and setting up borders around the phenomenon and so recuperates the strategy into dominant culture once more. The Ziggy shows, as they became ever more popular became greater and greater spectacles and thus became trivialized in Hebdige’s terms (Hebdige, 1988: 97). Bowie had perhaps shown foresight in narrating the fall of Ziggy within the terms of the album and chose to end the shows at the height of its popularity.

It is still quite evident, however, that the album and the character of Ziggy became a narrative strategy for resistance, employing the device of the alien to strengthen the concept of the outsider. This identification with Bowie as some form of alien is something which has been part and parcel of his career, even before the release of Ziggy Stardust. His first hit “Space Oddity” was re-released in a new version in 1969 to coincide with the Apollo moon landing, and was even featured on BBC’s coverage of this event. Bowie’s appearance in Nicholas Roeg’s film The Man Who Fell to Earth has many parallels to Ziggy Stardust but without the rock star aspect. Similar scenarios have been adopted by Bowie later, such as on his 1995 album Outside with the song “Hello Spaceboy” and 1997’s Earthling album which can be understood as aliens watching the strange life of earthlings.

Bowie’s star identity is thus closely connected to the image of the alien, and has provided him with an almost unlimited permission to constantly change and transform his star persona, since he is already viewed as being outside the mainstream of music culture, while in many ways being firmly lodged within it. This fact is perhaps the final evidence of how much we view other people’s identity in narrative terms and how specific narratives guide our understanding of them.