Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UK Female Sci-Fi Viewers Now Outnumber Males

Posted by Zonk on from the better-stories-longer-skirts dept.

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.'"

6 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. Short Skirts by Valcoramizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...And they mention Xena?

    --
    We raise our slide-rules high.
    1. Re:Short Skirts by moonbender · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  2. Ahh.. by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
    1. Re:Ahh.. by fireboy1919 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
  3. That's not Sci-Fi by evilviper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  4. ahem by xpatiate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    (music + neurology) * fiction = feedback