“Avengers” Articles Anger Geek Gals
Sunday, May 6th, 2012 at 3:32 pm Category: Big Shiny Girlcast, Comics, Commentary, Marvel, Movies, Nerds, News, The AvengersRecently, Moviefone posted an article called “One Girl’s Guide to ‘The Avengers,’: What You Need to Know if You Know Nothing,” and geek girls everywhere picked up their torches and pitchforks and vilified the author.
The article takes the perspective that a gal has no interest in seeing a superhero movie unless her boyfriend persuades her to go. And, to help with understanding the various characters in the film, she offers “cocktail introductions” to help the poor ignorant gals who know nothing about comics. (I’m being sarcastic).
The article didn’t offend me, but by the time it came across my radar, the editor had already updated it with a note indicating it was satirical. And I can kind of see how it was meant to be so. Even if it were serious, I still doubt it would have offended me. Everyone knows that women can like comic books, and female fandom is far larger now than it was in the days when I attended my first Dragon*con. So why get so riled up about it?
I think, in general, geek fandom has mostly ignored females. Marketing is usually directed at males, focusing on scantily-clad, big-busted women. There are a lot more action figures than, say, Barbie dolls based on comic book movies. (And yes, I know girls play with action figures, too, and boys play with dolls. I’m just providing a possible marketing perspective).
And I know I’ve often had a lot more difficulties finding the female characters in a film than the male characters. A lot of times this is because the manufacturers think fewer girls will buy the toys and therefore create less. I never did own an April O’Neil action figure. She was nowhere to be found, so I had to use cardboard and markers and created my figure when my brother and I played TMNT. It was kind of sad, looking back. But I think things are slowly changing. I was in Toys R Us just yesterday and saw a Queen Amidala figure. So either things are improving or that was just because The Phantom Menace came out in 1999. Not sure which.
So, the article hit a sore spot with fans. And I’m sure there’s a different reason for everyone who responded as to why it got them so riled up. But it did open up some dialogue, and that’s usually never a bad thing.
Now, Film School Rejects has posted what appears to be a response to the Moviefone piece, and this takes the female ignorance of superheroes to a whole new level. Written by a guy pretending to be a gal, it’s obviously meant to be humorous. Again, people were offended, but I read some of the descriptions out loud and thought they were hilarious. And there may be people out there, male or female, who are completely out of touch with the superhero world. It’s scary to think that, but it can happen. But even I, who rarely reads a comic book, am fairly familiar with the Marvel world. And even DC.
So let’s be clear on one thing: women can like geeky things. We all know this. Why, we have the Big Shiny Girlcast podcast that is made up entirely of the women of Big Shiny Robot! We may not all like the same geeky things (I’m less into comics and video games and way more into Star Wars and books and TV shows), but it’s not a man’s world anymore at the conventions. We are there, beating you at Dragon*con Star Wars trivia. Twice. (Not that I’m boasting or anything). We are making dresses that look like the TARDIS or R2-D2. We are carrying cleverly painted Nerf weapons and wearing peace-bound swords and we are awesome because of it.
And no article on the internet, whether sincere or tongue-in-cheek, is ever going to change that.
Responses to ““Avengers” Articles Anger Geek Gals”
My girlfriend not only didn’t care, but fell asleep ten minutes into Avengers. The girl before that fell asleep in the theater during Captain America, and the girl before that fell asleep to everything except Mean Girls and the Devil Wears Prada. Maybe I just don’t know how to pick ‘em.
Avenger assembled! Life-size Iron Man statue covered in 1,000 soda can tabs at Bradwalkerart.com.
Giant Captain America statue covered in 800,000 fuse beads at Bradwalkerart.com.
She fell asleep in Avengers, really? My roommate’s gf HATED Cap and thought Avengers was an amazing movie … And this from an insane Twihard.
My girlfriend is also a big Twilight fan.
My wife likes Twilight, but she also likes a fair amount of geeky stuff. She geeks out over a lot of things. She loved Cap, she loved Thor, she loved Iron Man, she loved X-men, spiderman, LOTR, etc, etc. And she’s not incredibly geeky. She just fits into that nice niche of “not a geek from birth but can enjoy geeky things when they’re made for wide audiences.”
It’s funny, though– the first thing she asked me about Avengers was “How much does ______ have his shirt off?” Methinks there’s a marketing ploy right there.
Almost all my girlfriends have been nerds to some extent or another, and I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a comic book movie and had one say they were bored. My current girlfriend actively LOVED Avengers.
…Come to think of it, I’m a pretty lucky dude.
I read the article, I thought it was kind of funny, but offensive? Really?
Let’s face it, the “geek-girl” demographic has grown substantially, and continues to do so, but there are still a TON of ladies out there who aren’t well versed in these topics and just don’t care to be – and that’s okay. Does everyone really need to get all bent out of shape because this author addressed the latter (whether tongue in cheek or not)? I don’t think so.
Not to mention the article is titled “ONE GIRL’S Guide to ‘The Avengers’…” not “EVERY GIRL’S Guide…” and the author addresses the fact that this is directed to those ladies who AREN’T into all this geek stuff.
I don’t know, to me it seems some out there got too offended about nothing. But, this is coming from a man.
We love geek girls (women), we’d love to have more interaction with them. We have a contributor on our site who is female doing action figure and cosplay reviews.
I am in total agreement that women action figures are underrepresented in toy lines. When I was a kid, I had to have a Princess Leia in the Falcon or something was missing. She was part of the team. Leia was no damsel in distress, she could blast a stormtrooper off the coffee table with the best of them!
My wife in general has no real love of geekdom, but she does like good storytelling. When I talked up the Walking Dead t.v. show she had mild interest, then she sat down and watched it; after that she finished her work up early to be ready to watch the show. I am a lucky guy.