Fictitious Foodways An examination of the way that foodways in contemporary science fiction film reflect food security discourses in the media.

Abstract

This research project looks at the way that instances of foodways in science fiction reflect the current discourses that surround food security. This work first develops an understanding of the discourses that surrounds food security, by examining academic literature and then by analysing current event magazines. Nine contemporary science fiction films were chosen for study and a content analysis was then undertaken to develop a data set of all the instances of foodways within them to see where food security discourses might be reflected. With results of the study, conclusions could be drawn about the way that the key rhetoric of food security is reflected in the films. Using the framework of food security ‘dimensions’, links are made between the media’s discourses of framing, productionism and a commitment to entrenched ideology, with the way that foodways have been used in the film. While in the areas of food security that are concerned with structural issues, the discourses echoes that of the media; when it comes to the aspects that involve communities and individual a radical departure is made. This makes comment on both the nature of science fiction to offer societal critique, and of the reality of the way that food insecurity manifests for the majority of people.