In my time at b.org, I've come to be much more accepting of fannish behavior in myself and others. I have my limits - mostly financial - but apparently they're much further out than they used to be. I recently realized how much I've changed since I discovered Firefly.

I'm in the 3rd year of a 4-year course at my church. This course emphasizes group discussion and our discussions can become quite involved and eclectic. I started talking about how I think that sci-fi and fantasy have, for many, taken the place of myth and religion - not that they're strictly analogous, but that they can fill a void. I used examples from LotR and Stargate. With the buildup to the BDM, they all know about my passion for all things Firefly. What was interesting to me was how uninterested the class members seemed to be in this analysis, how they kind of looked at me funny for being interested in these things to this level, and how embarrassing the whole situation was. I have been pondering whether they lack understanding or acceptance or I lack my mind. I suppose that there might be other, somewhat less extreme possibilities as well.

libkitty, you might want to go into exploring how many SF and fantasy books and films are exploring religious questions that mainstream films/TV (particularly) are unwilling/too nervous to tackle.

My feminist lit class in college was strictly SF/Fantasy written by women, and it was interesting to study books like Frankenstein and stories like "Shambleau" in feminist terms and how they contrasted with similar books/stories written by men in the mainstream literary circles of their times.

The minister as the church where I teach relationship classes organized a viewing of the Matrix. She rented a huge tv and borrowed my dvd. There were actually two different groups. They were so into the discussion we had to kick them out after 5 hours!

There is SO much of a connection between scifi/fantasy and spirituality libkitty. It boggles me that your group was boggled.

Kathy makes a good suggestion. Specific themes might get the ball rolling.

That would be interesting Kathy. I think Stargate brings up the most religious questions for me. Their insistence that the goa'uld are not gods has always made me wonder just how we define a god and if and how that definition changes as we do. I'm glad I have friends, here and on b.org, to discuss this type of thing with. I may be a weenie, but I don't think I'll try it again in my class. To be fair, I think that the folks in the class would have looked at me funny no matter what kind of tv or movies I was talking about, so their problem probably wasn't just with sci-fi and fantasy, but with serious aspects of non-live entertainment.

The minister as the church where I teach relationship classes organized a viewing of the Matrix. She rented a huge tv and borrowed my dvd. There were actually two different groups. They were so into the discussion we had to kick them out after 5 hours!

I love my church, but I'm more than a little bit jealous right now.

their problem probably wasn't just with sci-fi and fantasy, but with serious aspects of non-live entertainment

Does this sound familiar!! In my mom's eyes, anything that's not West Wing isn't serious, and L&O (which she adores) is just interesting drama with very little added value. I tried to get her to watch "The Body" when it was on TV once while I was at her house, and she just wasn't interested. She loves good dramatic films, but gets hung up on the "it's not reality-based" when it comes to SF/Fantasy. She did enjoy LotR, but didn't see any deeper meaning to it. She rolls her eyes when my godfather and I get into discussing Tolkein (he's a real JRRT geek--has first editions and everything).

gets hung up on the "it's not reality-based" when it comes to SF/Fantasy

I have a friend like that. I will go off on metaphor in SF/Fantasy and exploration of humanity in non-human terms, but she says she just doesn't see it.

I have a friend like that. I will go off on metaphor in SF/Fant

Does she see the cold war politics in the Klingon/Federation dichotomy of ST:TOS? As a kid, all that fancy metaphorical stuff went right over my head, but even I caught this one....

ChiKat!! I must call you soon! It looks like I'll definitely be moving out of Oak Park by the end of March, and we must get together at least once before then.

Does she see the cold war politics in the Klingon/Federation dichotomy of ST:TOS?

She's never seen ST:TOS. She finally saw Star Wars for the very first time over the summer.