Dieselpunk + Steampunk Culture
PUNK 101: Steampunk, Dieselpunk and a Three Year Old Genius!
PUNK 101: Steampunk, Dieselpunk and a Three Year Old Genius!
“A guy walks up to me and asks ‘What’s Punk?’. So I kick over a garbage can and say ‘That’s Punk!’ So he kicks over a garbage can and says ‘That’s Punk?’, and I say ‘No that’s trendy!”
- Billie Joe Armstrong
Now that’s Steampunk!
On Sunday, my youngest daughter, ‘Yemi, who is three years old, was watching an episode of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. with me and whenever Lord Bowler – one of the main characters on the show, played by the late Julius Carry (“Sho’ ‘Nuff, of The Last Dragon fame) – would do something exciting, she would shout: “Now that’s Steampunk right there!”
Curious, I asked her “What’s Steampunk, baby?”
She waited until Lord Bowler punched a guy and then she pointed at the screen and said “That!”
I put The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. on pause and then showed her the fight scene between Count Dooku and Yoda from Star Wars, Episode II. I asked her was it Steampunk and she said “No; Steampunk people don’t look like that.”
Even more curious, I showed her a scene from the Sherlock Holmes movie (the one starring Robert Downey, Jr., not Basil Rathbone – which I actually like the most) and said “This isn’t Steampunk, is it?”
‘Yemi stared at me in disbelief, placed her tiny fists on her hips and said “Now Daddy, you know that’s Steampunk”
Somehow, she gets it. Through listening to my conversations with my wife and students about Steampunk and through observing me as I research hundreds of photographs and newspaper clippings in doing research for my novel, Moses: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman, she has internalized the aesthetics of Steampunk and has come up with actions that – to her, at least – are representative of the genre.
I have thus decided to formalize her study of Steampunk, Steamfunk and all the other “offspring” of that rather fertile mother / father – Cyberpunk. I now share with you her syllabus.
TO READ THIS ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY, PLEASE VISIT: http://chroniclesofharriet.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/punk-101-steamp...
Tags: atompunk, dieselpunk, steamfunk, steampunk
Views: 136
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Larry on -
Very interesting article. You're daughter is a very smart little girl. "From the mouth of babes..." Interesting how your post ties in as well as differs with a few of my posts to my blog. I wrote an article on Blade Runner and not long ago about Cyberpunk, Steampunk and Dieselpunk.
I really enjoy your blog. I think it's one of the best Steampunk blogs out there.
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Permalink Reply by Balogun Ojetade on -
Thanks, Larry!
I just read your blog; excellent work and the images are great!
Larry said:Very interesting article. You're daughter is a very smart little girl. "From the mouth of babes..." Interesting how your post ties in as well as differs with a few of my posts to my blog. I wrote an article on Blade Runner and not long ago about Cyberpunk, Steampunk and Dieselpunk.
I really enjoy your blog. I think it's one of the best Steampunk blogs out there.
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Permalink Reply by Cap'n Tony on -
Great blog entry! Good overview of the various "punk" genres.
And hats off to your daughter. As mentioned in a thread I started on this site, my own 3-yr-old keeps wanting to see Jimmy Stewart's The Spirit of Saint Louis again after we caught it on AMC the other night. Thanks to Tivo and DVDs he seems to expect everything on demand, so it's hard to explain that "it's not on now". I have a feeling that'll be a running thing with this new generation. ;-)
Also, I loved Brisco...another "too good for TV" one-season wonder.
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Permalink Reply by Tome Wilson on -
I disagree with some of the definitions and examples.
For instance:
• "Last Exile" is listed as steampunk, but its look is heavily influenced by the post-Victorian wartime era, more akin to Dieselpunk.
• The Dieselpunk timeline ends with WWII; not necessarily VJ Day, but shortly afterwards. Bringing Korea into the mix is stretching it a bit too far, even by the most inclusive timelines.
• "The Book of Eli" is Dieselpunk? How?
• The definition of "Atompunk" looks to be blended with Dieselpunk for some reason. For example, "It is an Atomic Age civilization, where perhaps the Great Depression never occurred, the Nazi’s continued to exist after World War II ended, or World War II remained a prolonged cold war." Also, the examples presented, speculative fiction hallmarks "The Man in the High Castle" and "Fatherland" are prototypical dieselpunk stories. Also, how is Batman (1988) and "Night of the Living Dead" attached to the Atomic Age? I can't see Batman at all, but I could see it if they were atomic zombies, but the source of the zombie plague was never really revealed (although there was some speculation about a meteor in the original, harkening back to Lovecraft's "Color Out of Space")
• Spacepunk (?) Is this different from the already established genres of: Space Opera, Science Fiction, or Raygun Gothic?
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Permalink Reply by Balogun Ojetade on
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Spacepunk is no different from Raygun Gothic. It is just a term that I prefer in educating my daughter and my students. I see Space Opera as being based more in future settings, whereas Spacepunk is retrofuturism. Science Fiction, of course, is the Super-Genre under which most of these sub-genres fall.
I see "The Book of Eli as Dieselpunk based on its feel and the technology. I do not feel Dieselpunk is limited to any timeline at all. I was simply naming the times in which I "feel" the Dieselpunk mood, so I think Post-Apocalyptic Dieselpunk is acceptable. I am a new student of the genre, however, thus I am more than willing to learn from those more educated than I and to make the necessary changes to my definitions and examples.
I thank you for your time, Mr. Wilson, and I look forward to learning more from you and other knowledgeable Dieselpunks on this magnificent site!
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Permalink Reply by Balogun Ojetade on
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Thank you, so much, for your comment, Cap'n Tony!
Children never cease to amaze me! I am confident that they will carry the Punk movement forward in ways we never even imagined.
Cap'n Tony said:Great blog entry! Good overview of the various "punk" genres.
And hats off to your daughter. As mentioned in a thread I started on this site, my own 3-yr-old keeps wanting to see Jimmy Stewart's The Spirit of Saint Louis again after we caught it on AMC the other night. Thanks to Tivo and DVDs he seems to expect everything on demand, so it's hard to explain that "it's not on now". I have a feeling that'll be a running thing with this new generation. ;-)
Also, I loved Brisco...another "too good for TV" one-season wonder.
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Permalink Reply by Jonny B. Goode on -
You forgot Nerfpunk. ;)
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Permalink Reply by Balogun Ojetade on
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Man...how could I forget that! :D
Jonny B. Goode said:You forgot Nerfpunk. ;)
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Permalink Reply by Komissar Hass on -
nice story! but lots of disputable ideas.
"Blade Runner and The Matrix are quintessential examples of Cyberpunk." - very debatable. BR has the style, Matrix has some hacking, but...
"Teslapunk" - part of Steampunk to me.
"Atompunk" - we had a nice discussion somewhere around here. Romero and War of the Worlds astonish me as examples. btw, Post-apocalyptic Atompunk seems much more viable than PA Dieselpunk.
'Clockpunk" - again, part of Steampunk. same goes to Steamgoth, Gaslight etc.
that's how I see it, comrades.
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© 2013 Created by Tome Wilson.
