Reveals the systematic marginalization of women within pop
culture fan communities
When
Ghostbusters returned to the screen in 2016, some male fans of the
original film boycotted the all-female adaptation of the cult classic, turning
to Twitter to express their disapproval and making it clear that they
considered the film's "real" fans to be white, straight men. While extreme, these
responses are far from unusual, with similar uproars around the female protagonists
of the new Star Wars films to
full-fledged geek culture wars and harassment campaigns, as exemplified by the
#GamerGate controversy that began in 2014.
Over the past decade, fan and geek culture has moved from
the margins to the mainstream as fans have become tastemakers and
promotional partners, with fan art transformed into official merchandise and
fan fiction launching new franchises. But this shift has left some people
behind. Suzanne Scott points to the ways in which the "men's rights" movement
and antifeminist pushback against "social justice warriors" connect to new
mainstream fandom, where female casting in geek-nostalgia reboots is vilified
and historically feminized forms of fan engagement--like cosplay and fan fiction--are
treated as less worthy than male-dominant expressions of fandom like
collection, possession, and cataloguing. While this gender bias harkens back to
the origins of fandom itself, Fake Geek Girls contends that the current
view of women in fandom as either inauthentic masqueraders or unwelcome
interlopers has been tacitly endorsed by Hollywood franchises and the viewer
demographics they selectively champion. It offers a view into the inner
workings of how digital fan culture converges with old media and its biases in
new and novel ways.