Believe it or not, there’s been a lot of buzz about BB-8’s gender recently. And that raises a question: Why does it matter?
Continue reading “Droids, gender, and BB-8: Why does it matter?”
Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Believe it or not, there’s been a lot of buzz about BB-8’s gender recently. And that raises a question: Why does it matter?
Continue reading “Droids, gender, and BB-8: Why does it matter?”
Another recap from the Tosche Station folks in Atlanta: Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, Michael Stackpole, Kevin J. Anderson and Doctor Carol White discuss Masculinity in Star Wars.
Her Universe hosted its second annual panel at Comic-Con last Thursday, with Ashley Eckstein moderating a panel entitled “What Women Want in their Female Sci-Fi Heroes.” The six announced panelists were Dave Filoni of The Clone Wars, Betsy Mitchell (Editor in Chief of Del Rey), Gail Simone (comics writer, including Birds of Prey, Secret Six, and the upcoming Batgirl), Chris Sanagustin (Senior VP Development & Current Programming for Universal Cable Productions), Bryan Q. Miller (Exec. Story Editor for Smallville, comic writer Batgirl), and Melinda Hsu Taylor (writer/producer- Lost & Medium and Supervising Producer on Touch) . They were joined by unannounced panelist Alison Scagliotti (Claudia on Warehouse 13).
Eckstein started the panel by giving each panelist a question regarding developing female roles in their particular media, especially with the female audience in mind. Watch portions of the panel:
In the Q&A, Simone, Filoni, and Scagliotti fielded most of the questions, with Filoni and Simone clarifying how their approaches to writing female characters were similar. Even though the panel went over time, the audience remained and the panelists stayed on stage to answer questions about incorporating female biology into developing and portraying female characters, the differences in creating female villains from male villains, predicting the future of the importance (or nonimportance) of being critical of gender for characters (and for creators), and finally ended with a young fan thanking the panelists for making it cool to be a young female fan.
Watch out for the teenagers… The New York Times says:
Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of “The X Files.” On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the Lone Gunman. Well… maybe a little. As long as you bathe, boys. Daily.
Sadly, the figures for adult women are not quite as good. At least, when only looking at computer science programs, which seems a bit narrow-minded. I for one have a ‘web job,’ went into school knowing what I wanted and my degree is in fine art. There are a lot of ways to come at technology: Do you really think all those girls making icons and blogging and podcasting are going to go major in computer science? If they want to continue their hobbies professionally they’ll go for something a lot more specialized.
Half the men in the UK would swap sex for a 50-inch plasma TV, compared to only a third of women. So, ladies, the obvious question: What would you swap half a year of sex for?
Cath Elliott has a rebuttal to the UK report that focuses on ‘boy’ play.
Superheroes with special powers aren’t the sole preserve of boys and men, and they haven’t been since Batman first came face to face with Catwoman. It might be an idea if the denizens of the DCSF got themselves up to speed with popular culture before pronouncing on children’s fantasy play, if only to save our daughters from being excluded from all the fun when the nursery teachers ring the bell for “Spiderman time”.
An infuriating look at gender segregation at the Discovery Channel Store. Because nothing says science like sewing machines and jewelry and fairy dust! (via)