Why doesn't the scifi community worry about me?

Exactly. I'm all for female empowerment but if an average bimbo can't get into the shows I like, frankly...maybe it's for the better. It sounds so mean but I LIKE to be challenged and watch something that requires me to use a couple of brain cells. Nothing worse than when they dumb things down. Now if they could keep things exactly the way they are, and acknowledge us - the awesome minority - that'd be ideal.

 

^ That would be ideal. Meanwhile, it is our responsibility to teach other women to use their brains, not to stop using ours so we will fit in.

 

Perfectly put!

 

^Yes, and I echo Perfectly put!

 

^^^ Here here!

I cringe to think what crap they would come up with if they tried to appeal to women...

 

But I think with the movie “Avatar” appealing to so many people, it is evidence that “the average bimbo” does get Science fiction when she figures out that people have been lying to her all along and that it isn’t too hard for her brain. That gets back to my original point being that if you keep telling women that science fiction is for boys and that romance is for girls then your concept of a “majority” is skewed.

What we need to do is to get both men and women to take off their blinders. I just read a new article on “The Galaxy Express” by Heather Massey

http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/10/jackie-chan-and-science-fiction-romance.html

She is talking about readers that have blinders to certain genres of fiction. I thought the comment section was kind of interesting.

These people took their blinders off.

There is also a rather interesting article on "BitchMedia" that kind of addresses this problem.

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/pushb...-i-just-dont-like-that-many-female-characters

Brit

 

Just as a side note, but as much as Margaret Atwood is disliked amongst the scifi community because of her dismissive remarks about the genre, she has proven that writing a scifi novel (she may call it speculative fiction, but A Handmaid's Tale is just plain scifi at the end of the day) from a female perspective can be very successful - and not only in economical terms but also in terms of critical acclaim.

 

See I liked Avatar enough. I found it to be an entertaining piece. I didn't think it was enormously intellectually stimulating. But I didn't dislike the story. That said, if every scifi story was written on that level, in that style, with that much simplicity I wouldn't be a happy camper suffice to say. And don't get me wrong. I really did like Avatar for what it was. My favourite type of movies will always be the ones that make me think and/or use my brain at least a bit (examples: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Prestige, Memento, Equilibrium, The Fountain, Inception, The Seventh Seal, Usual Suspects, Cube, Butterfly Effect, Donnie Darko, Revolver, A Clockwork Orange, 1984 (though I enjoyed the book more), The Shawshank Redemption, 12 Monkeys, Mulholland Drive, Minority Report, Pi, A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream, Brazil, Blade Runner (though the book - Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick - is infinitely better), Road to Perdition etc etc you get the idea....).

I really did enjoy Avatar but I enjoyed it for the simplicity and I enjoyed the RealD effects (though I wish none of the other movies followed with that realD bull). I can't say any part of the plot in that movie was a challenge in any way though.

 

Oh, but think of the marketing oppertunities!

"Hi, I'm Kathryn Janeway, and as a single woman alone in the Delta Quadrant I need my hair looking it's finest..."

Also:

Janeway bun tighteners
Janeway's Nebula Coffee
Janeway Action Vest
Janeway i-Pad: With storage space for only one file so you need a whole stack of them to get anything done


They missed the boat.

 

Or . . . I dunno . . . Janeway UNIFORMS, maybe?

But as long as we're making comical suggestions:
A friend of mine used to say that she wanted to invent Underoos for grown up women. Seven of Nine and Agent Scully were at the top of the list. I agreed that having Seven of Nine underoos hidden beneath my suit would certainly give me an extra edge of confidence on down days.

 

They sure did

 

Janeway Underoos! I want Janeway Underoos!

And, come now, we must also have Voyager Feminine Protection. "Forget rock climbing and paragliding; with our Protection you can command a starship!"

On a serious note it's frustrating that the female fans are forgotten. Wasn't one of the intentions of TPTB to create a larger female Trek fanbase by casting a woman as captain? I was in my mid-20s when Voyager first aired and though I was already a Trek fan I was thrilled to see a female captain, as were friends of mine, both male and female. It was through watching Voyager reruns that I hooked my daughter on Trek, and she says it was the strong characters of Janeway and B'Elanna that first drew her interest. I should point out, though, that my daughter's too embarrassed to let even her close friends know she's a Trekkie, which I find very sad.

 

Ahh that's too bad. I always had tons of friends and was always outgoing/social but I never hid the fact that I'm a total trekkie. I think even if I didn't tell people directly, they figured it out the second they walked into my place (ST action figures, the box sets, the ST art etc etc ) There's really nothing to be ashamed of Sure, your friends may lovingly tease you and say you're a nerd but you gotta just take that as a compliment

 

Avatar's plot and characters were so basic that a five-year-old could easily grasp it.

 

So, doesn't matter. It still reached a lot of people and it will attract a lot of people to science fiction that wasn't attracted before. This is a good thing.

Personally I loved that the plot was simple, if it hadn't been then a lot of people would have been lost within the spectacle of the visuals. James Cameron was smart enough to realize he needed a simple plot.

I hope a lot of five year olds loved it and will start reading speculative fiction because of it.

Brit

 

My problem with "believing" this demographic report is because its not true in my world. Many of my female friends are scifi fans, and I really don't see why it matters that 9 men show up at a con for every one woman who does... But if it DOES matter, then I should point out that in the last 10 years I've flown across the continent "alone" to attend a Trek grandslam in Burbank, flew to Cleveland with 3 female friends to see "The Women of Star trek Voy" con, and laST YEAR drove to Jersey with 3 other female frIends to see another Trek con. At every venue, I saw MANY females, and could only wonder, as Brit asked, how many more there could be if scifi courted as as avidly as they appear to court the make demographic.

Are we suggesting that the average geico neanderthal male watching TV can appreciate Scifi but the average female="bimbo" cannot?

Nothing personal, people, but that's not just hitting below the belt, its simply wrong.

Asking for scifi to extend itself to a female audience doesn't mean we have to devolve the genre, it means we have to elevate it to attract a wider audience. Asking women to watch means many things, not the least is TPTB have to give us stories that doesn't just objectify the female form/character. A story that doesn't belittle her contribution or her power. It means giving consistent honor to both the male and female protagonists and not just pat the little woman on the head and sending her away for another cup of coffee. Scifi has a lot to answer for, over the years, and many women are afraid to get into it for the simple reason that it feels like a male only club, and women need only apply if they want to "serve".

Little do these nonfans know that there have been strong women scattered through out the genre... and that's the problem. They are scattered.

Look at the last 2 Star Trek series.

"Voyager" was ripe with strong women, and beautiful though they may have been, cat suited though they may have been, none of them were paraded through the series doing half nude vulcan acupressure massage like poor T'Pol's character was seen doing frequently in "Enterprise". None of Voyager's women were the screaming female that Hoshi seemed to become (I say this, despite the fact that in the first ep Hoshi was my fav character and T'Pol my least. That changed quickly as further eps ran.)

"BSG", reimagined, and "Firefly" are two scifi shows that should have been heavily advertised to the female audience, simply because both of them lacked the one thing that my female friends who are antiscif complain about. "The aliens". The people with the rubber heads and wayyyy too much makeup. That takes some nonscifi fans out of the moment, and who can blame them? How many times do you see someone looking like Quark, walk into your neighborhood bar?

I think, truth to tell, that Hollywood PTB are lazy. They would rather spit out "Weekend at Bernies II" than come up with an original idea. They would rather try to clone "Lost" than come up with an idea as daring as "Lost".

I suggest that they turn their focus groups to those of us who have left, and ask us what will bring us back to TV, rather than try to regurgitate the same show nine different ways. Law & Order:, L&O:SVU", "L&O: Criminal intent", L& O:London, CSI, CSI Miami, CSI:NY, NCIS, NCIS:LA.

 

NO. However, the Geico Caveman type assumes that he CAN understand scifi and that he will find it interesting. The average Bimbo type assumes the opposite - which then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Therefore, TPTB sell to Caveman and not Bimbo.

(I am aware this is a generalization. That's why I said "Geico Caveman type" and "Bimbo type" rather than just "men" and "women".)

PS: Got Geico Cavemen on the brain, J'Rulz? Me, too.

 

Clearly that's directed at me so I'll attempt to answer, despite your obvious cold attitude towards anything I say. No worries, it's coo! I obviously meant, it matters to the big wigs in the film industry. Me? I don't give a shit how many men vs women show up at a con. I attend them myself and that's all that matters to me as an individual. But you were wondering why they care so much about that majority and I simplified the long answer for you. They look at that data - data such as attendance at cons among other things - and they come to conclusions. Ineffective? Perhaps. Inconclusive? Probably. Incorrect portrayal of the actual facts? Most likely. But it is what it is.

So you have the choice. You can either continue to moan about it. Or you can take things into your own hands; continue to support the things you love, appreciate and actually get (because whether you like it or not, the average bimbo/caveman doesn't) and write to those who matter. Though honestly, most of the big wigs that do get that type of hatemail either don't read it (it often gets filtered by an assistant) or they laugh at it and send it to their trashcan/recycle bin. Again, sorry if my remarks offended you. I'm very blunt and I'm aware that can be annoying, but was what I said really that far from the truth? I'm just as annoyed as you are. We're on the same page. And this is a discussion board.

 

Yes, this is a discussion board, and I thought I was "discussing" a point brought up about the "audience for scifi."

As for "doing something" about my position, watching all 7 seasons first run, prosyletizing successfully to fellow scifi fans in the 90's, buying 2 seasons piecemeal on VHS and all 7 seasons on dvd, going to three cons, 1 of which was exclusively devoted to Voyager was my way of demonstrating that I do practice what I preach. But if the average goon in the corporate suite doesn't read the mail he's sent, then the only thing I haven't done isn't going to help anyway, according to your own experience.

As for directing my cold attitude towards you, I think I've been directing my cold attitude to the idiots who run the major tv studios, who have lost market share to first cable and then to the internet and who still haven't figured out how to bring in new audiences. They just fight amonst themselves over the ever dwindling old audiences and bemoan their place in the universe.

 

Then we're in agreement. I frankly just relayed the information to you - the stuff I knew from experience. But one of the many reasons why I chose to go back to school (and back to science) is because I was so fed up with that industry. The junior crews are fantastic and I have many friends there. The senior execs are pigs and frankly disgust me. As much as I hate the situation and as much I hate admitting this, the truth is that I've come to accept the reality of it because the situation seemed hopeless. I've actually never been in an environment that was so obviously sexist as much as the film industry is. i would've loved to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting room when they proposed a female Captain for Voyager - if only to see how Paramount was convinced of how that could benefit them. On the other hand, maybe that'd be a bad idea as I would no doubt lose my sh*t.