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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.'"
"Star Trek would have been much more progressive if Roddenberry wasn't teathered by NBC."
Hehe. I have a book about the artwork done for the various Star Trek series. They designed a short skirt for some of the female staff in STNG. They even suggested that in the future, males could wear them too. There actually is a shot somewhere early in the series with a man wearing one of those skirts. They didn't dwell on it. From reading the book, I got the impression that being gay was something that would be around in the 24th century, but not something anybody particularly cared about. They wanted to indicate that it was there, but not have a big dazzling fireworks show about it. The book was vague enough about it, though, that I don't know that I quite interpreted that correctly. Still, it seems fitting.
"Derp de derp."
There is an awful song by Kate Bush (lyrics here) about socially challenged geeks spending late nights with their computers. Now, of course, everybody spends late nights with their computers, logged on to chat rooms and sending email.
Likewise, the socially challenged geeks used to be the only ones who watched scifi. And now everyone does.
What next...?
Prolog rules
Uh, Buffy isn't scifi. At best it's fantasy. Xena? Same thing, although I suppose you could call Xena something like "historical dramatic fiction", if you really want to stretch the definition. Lara Croft? Fantasy. See, the problem with too many writers, networks, producers, et al, is that they don't understand the if you want to call something scifi, it needs have some SCIENCE in it. Even 2001 went from scifi to fantasy about halfway through.
Sure, I'm being pedantic and purist. But it does keep Harlan Ellison from trying to kill me...
It was Judge Woodlock, in the US District Court for Massachusetts, with a gavel.
Roddenberry originally wanted half of the crew to be female, but NBC said he couldn't do that because it would make it look like "there's a lot of fooling around going on up there." They said he could do one-third women, which he justified by saying, "Well hell, one-third healthy, young women ought to be enough."
English is easier said than done.
We still have a long way to go to reach equality. I know some of you may disagree...but I've recently decided that a purely scientific measure of gender equality can be attained through clothing. Now if only some social scientist would work out the scale and do the research. Following is an example of what I mean.
What is your reaction to seeing a man in clothing traditionally reserved for women, such as a skirt? If it illicits no different a reaction, apart from sexual attraction, than seeing a woman in pants then that's when you'll know you have achieved true equality.
When women are viewed as having equal power with men, then women's clothing will carry the same status as men's clothing for any gender.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
Joss (IIRC, maybe it was Tim) said that one of the main reasons that Fox axed Firefly was that (and I paraphrase here) the women were "too strong" and the men were "too weak".
You would think Fox would appreciate that Firefly had one of the sexiest casts in any SciFi/Fantasy show-- the women were hot, and being strong made them even hotter. Kaylee, anyone? She's even cuter carrying around those tools. The men were hot (Even according to my feminist woman friends), and darnit, Mal and the Doc had a sensitive side, which made them even HOTTER. It was even (*gasp*) a couples show!
And gosh, and I even liked the plots and the story of the human diaspora.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
Xena?
Lara Croft?
Ok, I'll grant a weak maybe on Lara Croft, but the first two as role models, nope sorry. Plus, as many have pointed out, none of the three are really scifi!
How about these instead:
Samantha Carter
Aeryn Sun
(I will grant that Claudia Black did guest on Xena once, but her integral role in Farscape should far and away excuse that transgression)
What we really need are more good role models in every genre, not just scifi, but that will get me on an offtopic rant
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
There's no if. Firefly is set in a solar system which contains no less than 12 planets, each with no less than 2 moons, the gas giants with at least 10 moons. Few of these planets/moons were inhabitable when humans came to the system (perhaps just one) but they brought teraforming equipment with them which gives every planet/moon an atmosphere and gravity as near to Earth-that-was as possible. How'd they get there in the first place? With a multi-generation space ark. All consistent with the current laws of physics.. which the possible exception of artificial gravity, which is a necessary conceit to make a space drama recognisable. There's plenty of references in FireFly to an aversion to transhumanism, suggesting that Earth went through the Singularity and FireFly is the story of the survivors. Yeah, you heard me, survivors, the few people who managed to get away from the hell of utopia. You may think having a superintellegent mind controlling your destiny is fun, but I'll take the unknown of the frontier.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Xena is not female empowerment
Now this is female empowerment in Sci Fi:
"And just one more thing. On your way back, I'd like you to take the time to learn the Babylon 5 mantra: 'Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And, if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out! Babylon control out. Civilians." [Looks at ceiling.]
Xena isn't.
Disclaimer - I am male. I am judging by what my wife likes and what makes her frown in disgust and change the channel.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/