Welcome to our new blog! We are really excited about all the content we have planned for you all and the best part is that we want you to be a part of it. We invite all of our members to contribute something if they feel so inclined. Our eventual goal is have several of our own members as contributing writers discussing everything Steampunk! Over the next few weeks we'll be rolling our different segments of content and if you think you have something to add send us an email at sanvaonline@gmail.com with your proposal and we'll work with you to incorporate it into the publishing schedule.
This Thursday marks our first Steampunk Night at the Alamo Draft House and we definitely intend it to be the first of many. We will be enjoying the fun and incredibly imaginative Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which definitely possesses many of the factors of the Steampunk genre.
That got me wondering, what other movies may fall into the Steampunk genre? What are the factors that would classify a film or any other media as being Steampunk and not just science fiction or fantasy?
The answer to that question will actually vary depending on who you ask. Some may say that ideals and culture of Victorian England extremely influence Steampunk, creating the title/descriptor Neo-Victorian (which is where SANVA gets part of our name). However, Steampunk is not limited to a Neo-Victorian ideal. Reading blogs such as Beyond Victoriana or watching anime like The Last Airbender, we can see that Steampunk as a culture and an artistic movement is definitely transcending defined cultural boundaries. We see this in North American media especially in The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr where we do get a little weird west feel but have that blending of Steam powered technology and Old West culture. Another example of seeing the influence of Steampunk would be the Final Fantasy genre of console rpgs. More specifically Final Fantasy VI really stands out as having a heavy influence from Steampunk.
I think it is important that we identify that Steampunk as a culture and as an artistic expression are constantly evolving. More importantly, they are what you make them. Some of us really enjoy the visual feel of Steampunk whereas others feel tied more to the stories or other media about it. A growing population is really moving towards embracing everything in Steampunk culture as a way of life. At Aetherfest last May, many of the people I met really spoke about how Steampunk was more than dressing up, more than their Steam Personas, more than a story. It is a way of life, a way of taking all the great Ideologies of the Victorian era but with a greater understanding to avoid the mistakes of the past and move towards a more optimistic vision of the future.
So that brings us back to the question. How do we classify Steampunk media? Is it a hard science where if you have X, Y, and Z without Q then you have Steampunk? I’d like to think that at one point you could classify a movie, novel, comic book, or video game that way when the term was first coined in the 1980s. Now, I think that it is a bit more subjective. Sure there are common factors. I would go as far to say that they would things such as futuristic technology as those in the Victorian Era would have imagined it as powered by Steam engines, a common feel of culture and design of the time-period of Victorian England, and a sense of imagination and optimism.
Steampunk in all aspects (Art, Theme, and Culture) is still evolving. As a cultural movement, it has gradually been picking up steam, no pun intended. Over the past 20 years, it attracts more attention and starts to reach out and affect the mainstream, well Geek culture as a whole at least. While we may not really be the “Euro trash of Nerdom” as Tink says in The Guild, as we see with the character of Clara that we are starting to influence and attract attention from those who may not have known we exist. This means that we can still keep an open mind in regards to what is classified as Steampunk because as we create art and media you’ll see that imagination expand our universe beyond what we thought it could be.
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