Enjoyment Rationalized
“I tend to gravitate toward a genre of popular culture I’ve come to think of as emotional speculative fiction. It’s a close cousin of science fiction: The central narrative bears a plausible relation to our lived reality, but everything is heightened, for better or worse. In science fiction, our experiences are filtered through the fantastical — an alien virus arrives from outer space and decimates a marginalized population, perhaps, or there’s a power-hungry dictator hellbent on world domination in a universe far, far away. Emotional speculative fiction takes place closer to home but is no less fantastical,” says a woman trying to justify her appreciation of “Gilmore Girls.”