UK Female Sci-Fi Viewers Now Outnumber Males

mosel-saar-ruwer writes "The UK Telegraph is reporting that, due to the popularity of Buffy, Lara Croft, and Xena, female sci-fi viewers now outnumber males, at 51%-49%. From the article: 'People have an impression of sci-fi fans being small men who sit in the dark watching Star Trek but it's not like that now ... There has been an increase in positive female role models, whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts.'"

Comments

Short Skirts

[Valcoramizer]

...And they mention Xena?

Re:Short Skirts

[moonbender]

Star Trek isn't just TOS, and neither Xena nor Buffy are sci-fi. That is all.

Re:Short Skirts

[donscarletti]

I don't get that star trek short skirt stereotype. Granted, I've only really watched TNG and not that much of it either, but I was under the impression that Dr Crusher wears a lab coat over trousers and Counselor Troi wears the ugliest frilly lycra jumpsuit I have ever encountered. I also sure as hell wouldn't want to picture Captain/Admiral Janeway or that even older Admiral I can't remember the name of in tiny miniskirts.

But as far as I can tell, women seem to like miniskirts at least as much as I do. Especially those tiny denim ones that have been popular for the last two years and I used to love until I saw my sister in one. Think about the popularity of Alley McBeal with female audiences even when the popularity of miniskirts was at an all time low. It seems to be the consensus of most women I know that they would wear miniskirts regularly if they could know that they were safe from their bodies being criticized by other women. Of cause men know not to tease, since if he were to encourage an overweight woman to not wear miniskirts all her friends might be lead by peer pressure and of cause he has to think about the welfare of guys who have a thing for fat chicks.

However, there is one thing to consider about short skirts. In all societies that men and women both did/do wear skirts, including the Greeks up until a century ago, the ancient Egyptians and the Roman empire, it is/was always the women who wear the long garments and the men who wear the very, very short ones. This is of cause because of practicality since it was expected that a man be active in his day and a woman (at least a wealthy women) should be largely sedentary. Thus, it is obvious in todays times of neo-feminism where women neither aspire to masculinity (faded cargo pants with curry stains) nor conform to the oppressive mold of ancient times that a women wears something that is notably feminine in form but with a four millennium documented track record of practicality.

Re:Short Skirts

[sp0rk173]

Wow. Nonsensical diatribe.

They were talking about the original star trek.

Re:Short Skirts

[serutan]

The whole article is utter drivel, written by someone who not only views Xena and Buffy as science fiction, but apparently hasn't noticed how Xena and Lara Croft dress.

Side note: Nichelle Nichols was thinking about quitting Star Trek TOS because of conflicts with the studio, but Martin Luther King encouraged her to stay with the show because her role as an officer on a spaceship was setting a good example for young black Americans. Somehow I doubt that he would have felt so strongly if she had been playing a vampire slayer.

Re:Short Skirts

[Bush Pig]

Why are any of those (extremely crappy, in my view) shows mentioned in the same sentence as Science Fiction. Oh, sure, they're fictional, but I don't see any fucking science.

I can't be bothered with them, despite the cute chicks. (Disclaimer: I'm not a chick.)

First to defend Gene Roddenberry

[Valacosa]

"...all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

Star Trek would have been much more progressive if Roddenberry wasn't teathered by NBC.

Xena & skirts

[toetagger1]

"...in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

And I'm sure Xena is the best example to illustrate how this has changed! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining!

Ahh..

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Thats a good way to widen your audience -- Just misclassify things as SciFi.

Laura Croft is no more SciFi than Indiana Jones -- Its adventure.
Buffy/Xena is Mytho. No Science involved at all, just adjusted beliefs leading to an alternate reality.

Re:Ahh..

[fireboy1919]

Firefly is only barely science fiction

Yeah...and the pope's only barely Catholic. Microsoft's only a little power hungry.

They've got a consistent mechanism powering the ships (spinning matter/energy converter things). They've got a complete future history that includes the mixing of all peoples (so that everyone now speaks the two widest used languages- Chinese and English), colonization of another galaxy, and a civil war. Then they deal with the results of this - including the law of supply and demand, and variations in society.

Heck, they even went so far as to explain (**MINOR SPOILER WARNING***) which part of the brain the people who experimented with River used to do it, and why.

If this isn't Sci-Fi, then what is? You don't have to explain things using the particle-of-the-week (like Star Trek: TNG) just for it to be Sci-Fi.

In all seriousness, I think you've hit upon the root of the problem. Its sort of hard to classify Sci-Fi because it means different things to different people.

I would personally consider Firefly/Serenity to be pure, uncut, and mainstream Sci-Fi. I'd go so far as to say that you could use it as an paragon example when someone asks "What is Sci-Fi?"

But I guess that's just me.

Re:Ahh..

[QuantumG]

FireFly is more Sci-Fi than StarTrek as Joss Whedon decided he didn't need to throw out Einstein (there's no faster than light travel) and he didn't need to speculate about aliens (as if it is possible to ever realistically present alien life).

So when you see Captain Kirk go down to random-planet-X-that-always-looks-like-a-californi a-backlot think about how far we've progressed in Sci-Fi by taking the fantasy out of the show, not putting more in.

Re:Ahh..

[aussie_a]

think about how far we've progressed in Sci-Fi by taking the fantasy out of the show, not putting more in.

That's definitely arguable. The amount of space humanity lives in is questionable (and not dealt with in any of the episodes or extra material AFAIK). If humanity does live in one star system, then you're correct. Einstein wasn't thrown out. But a ridiculous amount of habitable planets are located in this star system, so many so that it's nearly (if not completely) impossible to actually occur.

Or if more then one star system is inhabited (to make the amount of inhabitable planets per star system a bit more realistic), then there is obviously FTL, as not too much time occurs between episodes.

So while Firefly did possibly do away with FTL, they replaced it with an ill-defined universe instead. I'd hardly call that an improvement over FTL.

Re:Ahh..

[fireboy1919]

decided he didn't need to throw out Einstein

This is not a good comparison. Star Trek has an explaination for most of their phenomena in a way that fits in with current theory, and this is no exception. Its just that they'd never try to explain modern space-time theory in a 1-hour long episode that also has to have a plot.

But why don't we do it here? Warp drives are called that because they warp space by changing the mass of the ship. Generally speaking, the idea is that the distance between two points in space decreases as mass increases.

Its something like this:
1) Ship gets really massive - extending a gravity field (which we can do because in the Star Trek future we can use gravitons the way we use protons today) in the direction of travel, thus bending space there. Spatial locations get closer together
2) Ship moves
3) Ship gets less massive - removing the field. Spatial locations get further apart.

The result is faster than light travel (i.e. you get to a new spot faster than light does), but your velocity never actually exceeds light speed. The only time they ever actually did faster than light travel was that funky thing that Kirk did to go back in time, but I believe they came up with a reason for it. I believe they were fitting it into the theory based upon the fact that it resulted in time travel.

What's the point of this? Don't mess with the Trek. Star Trek has so many hardcore Sci-Fi fans that somebody has come up with a way to fit it into our current knowledge of the universe without calling it magic.

Except

[Trogre]

that Star Trek is actual science fiction.

The others aren't.

Re:Except

[fyngyrz]

A subtitle, score or a voice-over are not in-scene effects; these exist outside of the movie's reality or frame of reference. Between the drama and you, rather than in the drama. Usually. Though I remember laughing my head off at the contemporary "we will rock you" tune done by the cast in some recent (but quite forgettable, obviously) dead-knights-page-fakes-self-as-knight-and-wins-la dy movie.

A sound effect, in sharp contrast, is designed to enhance the reality of the visual by direct association with the scene at hand. As such, we expect to hear a gunshot when a gun is "fired." We do not expect to hear a model-T horn at that juncture, nor should we expect silence. If there is air. We're supposed to be observing... if we can hear voices, we should hear gunshots. The position of the observer is as the "invisible dude(tte.)"

Similarly, when a spaceship passes in vacuum, we do not (well, we should not) expect to hear a "whoosh", and that, my friend, is one of the things that would make it science fiction... that is, if the events and visuals and sounds corresponded to the reasonable. That is the beauty of the technical side of science fiction — in really good SF, you don't have to suspend your critical faculties. Instead, you are encouraged to engage them. Read some James P. Hogan (try "The Two Faces of Tomorrow"), there's a fellow who can so slickly paint you into an imaginary scene that you won't even know what hit you and soon, you're with the story in a world you only wish existed, a feeling made all the more poignant by the fact that you can't find any reason why such a world would not exist.

As a side note, this problem isn't limited to SF. I can't count the number of times I've heard the "tires squealing on pavement" sound when a car spins out on gravel or dirt. Those wacky TV folks. :-)

For a concrete example of how space walks and space ships can be filmed, let me call your attention to 2001's space station / clipper docking scene and the HAL locks Dave out of the Jupiter vessel scene. The only time you hear sound effects in space is when the POV is inside a spacesuit, a space station, etc — in other words, where there is air which can be reasonably expected to bring such an effect to you. I'm not quite sure, but I think Alien stuck to the reasonable in this area too; I don't remember any such effects for the exterior views of the Nostromo... anyone? Alien also dumped the whole warp drive thing in favor of cold sleep, something we know can work. It managed to get a few socio-temporal displacement issues too, though I think the time spans may have been a bit too short.

I remember discussions late into the night at Milford between various combinations of Asimov, Clarke, Del Rey, Ellison, Kidd, Blish, Knight, Pohl and Merril where the entire focus of the discussion was how to hew closer to the line of science in such a way as to make the characters a lot more notable than the technology. Those were heady days. :-)

I'm not saying Trek and Star Wars and the like aren't fun for all of the strict classing into Fantasy they duly receive as a result of the distinct disregard for science; I enjoyed them both (in fact, I dragged my father in front of the tube to see Star Trek, which he knew nothing of, and as a direct result the public got the first 13 or so Star Trek novelizations.) I'm just saying that great SF won't rely on the ridiculous; the world is already sublime, and a great SF film (or book) can use that instead.

That's not Sci-Fi

[evilviper]

Since when does Buffy, Lara Croft, or Xena count as Sci-Fi? It's "FIction" of course, but I don't see any SCIence in any of them.

Trek women

[Wumpus]

"whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

Or were starship captains for a full 7 season run. At least give them points for trying, OK?

ahem

[xpatiate]

speaking as a female sci-fi fan, I feel the need to point out that women can be aliens *and* wear short skirts *and* be positive role models, all at the same time.

Linking the increase in women viewers to shows being more 'character-led' might seem like a stereotypical generalisation but it rings true for me. The sci-fi I've always been most into is the kind that uses speculative, imaginary environments to explore big ideas and hopefully arrive at some interesting truths about human personalities... rather than the car-chases-in-outer-space kind.

Freedom

[Doc Ruby]

Uhura: black, female before a 1964 audience... a receptionist, sure, but never got anyone coffee.

I'm not surprised

[Dark Paladin]

The last (and so far, first time) I went to Comic-Con was this summer of 2005, and I was surprised by how many women were there. And not just the classical "geek girl" (bad haircut, bad acne, overweight, etc, etc, etc), but how many smart, excited, interesting, and - to display an unfortunate level of sexism perhaps - cute geek girls there were running booths, going to events, buying things, and the like. There were whole sections that seemed to be made just for women. Not in a "ooo - pink!" kind of way or trashy romance, but stories that appeal to more than guys looking for giant breasts, but stories about relationships, or the infamous yaoi booths.

But girl geekhood is not just regulated to "romance". One lady I went with drooled with me over the Terminator 2 arm replica, and this was a woman that most slashdotters would not pick out as the "geek" of a group of similiar attractive women.

Personally, I think it's a great thing. Not just because it increases the chances of future geeks to breed and multiply, but it gives an extra dimension to geek hood. Sure, Star Trek was good, but once the sexes became more equal and women could wear more than short skirts, it got better. I've never liked my heroines with just big giggly breasts and chain mail bikinis. With more geek girls, we still have the stereotypes, but I've been seeing deeper and more interesting stories in my geek world. I wonder how well "Serenity" and "Buffy" would have been if Mr. Whedon hadn't tapped into both the male and female side of geekhood. It's been easier to show my wife good geek stuff (like "Battlestar Gallactica") as it looks to include the sexes instead of pretend one doesn't exist.

So, welcome to our new female geek overlords! While I love my wife dearly, I do wish you ladies had been in greater numbers a decade ago - but at least now I have hope for my two boys, and most importantly, my lovely little geek daughter - because now she can play in my world too.

Re:Show women some respect

[wombert]

Personally, I think you should get a sense of humor before you get any mod points.

Depends on the classification

[fm6]

Buffy and Xena do borrow from mythology, but neither is true to established mythology. Most of the monsters on Buffy were invented for the show, and Xena considers mythological characters (and also historical characters, such as Julius Caesar) to be outlines they can impose their own stories on, without being at all faithful to the originals. (Note that Xena is on a first-name basis with both Julius Caesar and Helen of Troy. Helen was probably not a real person, but the Siege of Troy did happen — at least a thousand years before Caesar was born.) Both Buffy and Xena are more fantasy than mythology.

Lara Croft and Indiana Jones also rate as fantasy, since their backstories have only token connections to the real world.

Now, here's the thing: most people don't distinguish between fantasy and science fiction. It may be obvious to you and me that, say, Buffy and Star Trek are different genres. That's because we see vampires as purely imaginary, and interstellar travel as something that could happen someday. But to most people, one is not "more real" than the other, either because they're very credulous about vampires, or they're very skeptical about starships.

The problem here is that most people who read or watch (or even write) fantasy and SF just don't give a shit about what's scientifically possible and what's not. They just want to escape from reality for a while. Vampires and spaceships, magic and time travel — it's all the same to them. And to someone like that, any precise definition of what's SF and what's not is boring, dweebish nitpicking.

Re:i need clarification

[toetagger1]

Well, if they outnumber men, then its in numbers. If they outweigh men, then its in weight. Easy? I thought so!

Not just strength of character, sadly.

[vain gloria]

Wow, who would have thought having strong women roles would make women more interested in those shows?

I think it's something of a sad commentary on us all that the strength of character displayed by all three female role models cited in the article has to be matched by a physical strength for them to be recognised as such.

Tangentially related to your main point, I'm absolutely convinced that there was a male extra in the background of several scenes in the first series of ST:TNG who wore one of those minidress-style uniforms. Can anyone confirm this for me?

Re:I'm an overweight man

[Fordiman]

Doesn't this article just basically say that the same percentage of women as men watch Sci-Fi (IE: there are, generallly, 51% women and 49% men in the world, thus a 51/49 split between male / female fans is pretty normal), or, moreover, that it's become genderistically mainstream (no longer strictly a male demographic)

Re:yet some networks want the stereotypes to stay

[Tim Browse]

That's probably true. A similar thing happens with movie studios - when the studio head changes, the new head looks very unfavourably on projects that were green-lit by their predecessor. It seems to have nothing to do with the quality of the project, merely that they're showing that they're in charge now. At some studios where the studio head has been changed frequently, this has been a real pain for the people working there - it makes it very hard to plan ahead, and also your career can be curtailed by showing any enthusiasm for a project that the 'other guy' approved of.

It's a source of constant surprise to me that the heads of large businesses act so much like children a lot of the time. (I know, I should have got used to it by now.)