Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the story:


The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree Jr.

The story was adapted for television as part of the short-lived "Welcome to Paradox' TV series (S1E05 1998.)

This story is part of the group discussion of James Tiptree Jr.'s short story collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. (See the discussion hub topic for more info.)

★★★★★

Main protagonist 17 y.o. Philadelphia Burke is engaged to become a celebrity in a corporation-run future where no ads are allowed. Celebrities have a kind of semi-god status and are used for product placement. She has to remote control through satellite links the beautiful body of artificially grown but brainless Delphi. This way she learns to live the jet-set and falls in love with rich rebel Paul.

Review

I grew up with the cyberpunk movement and couldn't believe to have missed this early predecessor, incorporating most elements of the literary style: The question of personal identity interacting with virtual selfes, dystopian society governed by the economy of huge corporations. In retrospect, there are no tropes in it that you can't find elsewhere, but at the time of writing, it must have been revolutionary. It seems to have influenced John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider and in the following Gibson's, Sterling's or Rucker's works.

What makes it truly awesome is the contrast between ugly P. Burke and beautiful Delphi. The wikipedia article goes into details reviewing those characteristics and I found it to be a very good companion to this novella, similar to the elaborate thoughts at workingtropes. The carefully chosen male narrator speaking to the intended audience despectively as "zombies" contrasts those two females.

It is a milestone of the genre and I loved it from the first to the last word.

As a side-note it happens to have been published along the famous "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" short story by Ursula K. Le Guin

Meta: First published 1973 in New Dimensions 3. It won the 1974 Hugo award.

An examination of obsession with physical beauty and the relationship between commercial culture and celebrities, especially celebrities who are famous only for being famous. Corporation grows an ideal teenage girl in a clone vat, and then arranges for an ugly girl to act as a remote pilot, mostly for the sake of product endorsement (which is pretty much the only form of advertisement still allowed in this world.)

The girl is grateful to her benefactors, because in her old, ugly body she had no friends or prospects. She delights in the exciting new like she's been given, and her naïve enthusiasm makes her the perfect shill. Tragedy ensues when girl falls in love.

There aren't going to be any happy stories in this collection, are there?

****

I think the story's key moment is (view spoiler)[ when Paul brings the lovely Delphi the lab and encounters the ugly Burke. Paul swats at Burke. "Wouldn't you," the narrator asks, "if a gaunt she-Gollum flab-naked and spouting wires and blood payments you —" Inviting the reader to join the culture that only accepts beauty and rejects the ugly. (hide spoiler)]

Forget all that "inner beauty" the fairy tales spout.

Just finished this short story for the first time and DAMN this is a good story. This is what science fiction should be. Big ideas explored in weird and clever ways. Freaking awesome.