BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET. Is this science fiction racist?

In 1984, science fiction had not yet commonly assumed the ambition of educating viewers about morality and issues of equality. The Brother from Another Planet is, however, an intriguing exception. John Sayles directed a film that today remains virtually unknown—highly independent, without any chance of achieving even hipster cult status, yet sparking discussions within its niche circles. These discussions weren’t always positive, focusing on the aesthetics of science fiction, narrative quality, and so on, but also on something that can emerge anywhere and truly has no skin color—though some groups today would like it to—racism. Freedom and equality are beautiful values, but before someone falls for them uncritically, it’s worth considering whether a medium like cinema has been telling us something contrary to what we naively believe for decades. The ideas of freedom and equality are so unattainable that trusting they are otherwise makes them even more unreal. The Brother from Another Planet may appear almost prophetic today, showing how far we are from the ideal world.

If any viewer unfamiliar with this production expects a spectacle full of special effects, they will be sorely disappointed. With a budget of $300,000, such an approach wasn’t feasible. The money sufficed for some makeup on feet, a bit like hobbits’, a targeting device, a few blurry shots of Earth, some smoke, blinking lights, and not much else. It is certainly not a story akin to The Man Who Fell to Earth, but its general outline is interesting. A spaceship crashes on our planet, and its occupant looks like an ordinary Black man. He’s indistinguishable from other humans unless he shows his feet or gets injured, as his body regenerates much faster than Earthlings’ bodies. The alien also possesses a fascinating ability—through touch, he can empathically access the past. This enables him to learn about human life, and he becomes not so much surprised as horrified by it. Interestingly, however, he doesn’t lose hope that people can be better than they usually are. His time on Earth causes him many troubles, as earthly customs are complex and unfair—especially racial ones. The protagonist ultimately finds refuge in a so-called Black neighborhood, simply because he himself is Black.

Before that, however, he is welcomed into the “white world.” This reception is brutal, treating him literally like trash, a societal outcast, reflecting how African Americans have been treated in U.S. society. The filmmakers thus create a socially charged narrative, referencing slavery and portraying the white characters in the worst possible light. The “white” society is hermetic, racist, devoid of morality, and sometimes even intelligence. It suggests that white people should be the social outcasts, incapable of wielding any power on Earth. Why this isn’t the case is left unexplored by the director. He crafts a rather monolithic and generalized depiction of white people, whose evil is defined by their skin color, while the goodness of African Americans similarly stems from theirs. Even the aliens chasing the protagonist are white. This concept lacks nuance, which, in a way, reflects the roots of ongoing social unrest and the racial conflict still occurring in the U.S. In the 1980s, the situation was undoubtedly even more intense. The Brother from Another Planet serves as a metaphor for simplistic racial divide, which is too reductive for our Slavic perspective but perhaps sufficient for the American one. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to adopt such a simple definition of racism, which has no skin color but, in Sayles’ film, affects not Black people but whites—something equally reprehensible. I interpret this metaphorical naïveté as a flaw in the production, but there’s nothing to be done about it after so many years. One can, however, be aware that such an interpretation creates an unrealistic depiction of the malevolent phenomena that have plagued humanity for centuries—chauvinism, racism, and pathological nationalism.

What else could I say about The Brother from Another Planet? It is undoubtedly a film for connoisseurs of the genre. Joe Morton’s lead performance deserves praise—he’s probably best known not for this role but for Terminator 2: Judgment Day and a few other supporting roles. In other aspects such as editing, cinematography, and music, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about The Brother from Another Planet, but nothing especially bad either that would warrant ridicule or make it an example of cinematic mediocrity. I would recommend this title to SF enthusiasts who want to reflect on where the fight for equality and human rights leads us and how racism should not be defined.