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

by Elyce Rae Helford

Book Overview

A new collection on women in American television in the 90s uncovers a cultural obsession with tough yet sexy heroines in mythical pasts, the "girl power" present, and utopic futures. Xena, Buffy, Sabrina, and a host of other characters have become household words, as well as icons of pop culture 'feminism.' Their popularity makes for successful programming, however, how much does this trend truly represent a contemporary feminist breakthrough? And...

• 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.