In a message dated 2/16/01 6:17:14 AM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner@tesco.net writes:
<< Quite a few episodes featured male guests but no female ones. Prize winners here are Harvest of Kairos and Traitor, each having eight speaking male guest parts and no female ones at all. >>
Interesting research on B7's stats. I'd like one further refinement; a count of B7 episodes where a female character was the focal point of the plot.
I actually think the dearth of females on B7 overall comes from an earlier BBC production belief that Science Fiction shows are primarily of interest to young male viewers, and that the girls don't go for that sort of thing. So more male characters were present for the viewers to identify with. Nowadays, with the frantic pandering to the adolescent/teen-age male demographic, many producers can't put enough 'babes', butt-kicking or otherwise, in the forefront. This demographic has proven to have the least sales resistance, so advertisers are clamoring for more vehicles to hawk their products on directed toward this demographic. At least, that's what's going on in the US.
Leah
--- Bizarro7@aol.com wrote:
Nowadays,
with the frantic pandering to the adolescent/teen-age male demographic, many producers can't put enough 'babes', butt-kicking or otherwise, in the forefront. This demographic has proven to have the least sales resistance, so advertisers are clamoring for more vehicles to hawk their products on directed toward this demographic
I agree with you there, and I think there's something else going on too, namely that if they do put in women, they can turn to various focus groups, journalists, and other people likely to start complaining about sexism in the media, and say "See? We're providing positive female role models, so you can't say we're sexist." Leaving aside the question of whether or not a babe, butt-kicking or otherwise, is entirely a positive role-model...
Fiona (I *like* Buffy. I *like* Xena. It's just that I'd like to see a female, non-buff,non-gorgeous, normally attired nerd who isn't either a dork or a best friend. Just once in a while.)
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, [iso-8859-1] Fiona Moore wrote:
(I *like* Buffy. I *like* Xena. It's just that I'd like to see a female, non-buff,non-gorgeous, normally attired nerd who isn't either a dork or a best friend. Just once in a while.)
Scully?
Iain
----- Original Message ----- From: Iain Coleman ijc@bas.ac.uk
On Fri, 16 Feb 2001, [iso-8859-1] Fiona Moore wrote:
(I *like* Buffy. I *like* Xena. It's just that I'd like to see a female, non-buff,non-gorgeous, normally attired nerd who isn't either a dork or a best friend. Just once in a while.)
Scully?
Come on now-- you don't think Scully's gorgeous?!? Oh well, to each their own...
And given that Mulder is more the focus of the series than she is (I've heard rumours of recent changes in that regard, but don't tell me, cos I don't have Sky), I'd say she also pretty much counts as a best friend.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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On Sun, 18 Feb 2001, Fiona Moore wrote:
Come on now-- you don't think Scully's gorgeous?!? Oh well, to each their own...
Nope. Indeed, when I first saw 'X-files' I thought how great it was that an SF show had a female lead who was competent, intelligent and not especially sexy. Imagine my surprise when she started coming top of all those magazine polls...
Iain
At 03:39 PM 2/18/01 +0000, Iain Coleman wrote:
Nope. Indeed, when I first saw 'X-files' I thought how great it was that an SF show had a female lead who was competent, intelligent and not especially sexy. Imagine my surprise when she started coming top of all those magazine polls...
Another very good argument for my choice of Gillian Anderson to play Avon in The Pretend Movie (Ralph Fiennes has now been recast as Vila, although I have not yet doctored any images to that effect). -- For A Dread Time, Call Penny: http://members.tripod.com/~Penny_Dreadful/
From: Bizarro7@aol.com
Interesting research on B7's stats. I'd like one further refinement; a
count
of B7 episodes where a female character was the focal point of the plot.
I agree with the principle, but it might not be that easy in practice. Sometimes it's easy to say who the focal point of the plot is, more often it's rather vague. And different characters have different levels of attention directed at them. If we take 'The Way Back', for example, who is the focal point? Blake, obviously. But which non-regular could be considered a focal point? The spotlight falls on all of them to some degree. We might say with some confidence that Maja is in Tel Varon's shadow, but how does Ravella compare against Dal Richie? Or Alta Morag with Dr Havant?
If we start taking the portrayal of a particular female, with perceived positive or negative connotations (well-rounded character vs bimbo eye-candy, for example) then we are getting into even vaguer territory with too many subjective variables. How do you weight Pella, and on what criteria?
Neil
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