Fantasy Girls: Gender in the New Universe of Science Fiction and Fantasy Television

By Elyce Rae Helford

Book Overview

Fantasy Girls seeks to explore as well as challenge the power and the promises of this recent media phenomenon. Such TV programming offers the exciting opportunity to rethink established gender norms, but how far is it really pushing the limits of the status quo? Amidst the exuberant optimism of fanzines and doting fan websites, the contributors to this volume endeavor to provide us with a much needed critical analysis of this contemporary trend. These essays explore the contradictions and limitations inherent in the genre, forcing readers to take a fresh and critical look through a variety of lenses including girl power, postfeminism, cyborg feminism, disability politics, queer studies, and much more. Programs covered are Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Disney's Cinderella, Lois and Clark, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Star Trek: Voyager, The X-Files, Third Rock from the Sun, and Xena: Warrior Princess.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0847698351
• ISBN13: 9780847698356
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

love this book

I bought this for research on a paper I was writing and ended up using this as the main point of reference. I focused on the Xena piece and loved it, but the others are good, too.

a seemingly sexist title for a thought provoking book

Focusing on female characters in sci-fi, fantastic, fantasy TV series, FANTASY GIRLS is a collection of essays writen by scholars who are also fans and take pop culture as seriously as it should be. The works presented here are very diverse and deal with global themes from the shows considered. However, for the average reader, ie, someone not academicly working on media/TV/cinema/women studies or sociology, the very precise and scholarly nature of the contributions might make it less enticing. This is not a mainstream book about TV series with fun anecdotes and pictures (just a disclaimer). Contributions include an overview of sex in star trek deep space 9, an amazing piece (Sculy hits the glass ceilling) analysing gender relations in X-Files, and other clever articles on Sabrina the teenage witch, the lesbian (to be discussed) relationship between Xena and Gabrielle in Xena Warrior Princess... The gender approach is smart and does provide exciting insights. As a french student studying in an american college I found this reading inspiring and fresh since french "élite" professors tends to consider pop culture, particularly TV as uninteresting (it is slowly changing for the best). I find it a very useful reference and a good tool, providing many leads for papers, thesis ... as well as thorrow bibliographies and webographies.