From the Sunday Telegraph:
“Female science fiction fans now outnumber men for the first time.
The digital television channel Sci Fi UK has seen a 10 per cent rise in the number of female viewers over the past eight years and 1.4 million women now tune in – 51 per cent of the audience. The channel, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary, links the rise in “girl geeks” to the proliferation of heroines such as Buffy, Lara Croft and Xena.
“Adam Roberts, a science-fiction author and a professor in English at Royal Holloway, London University, said fantasy television programmes and films were becoming more character-led. “Programmes are moving away from the emphasis on machines and zombies in the 1960s,” he said. “More women are tuning in to see the relationships develop between wittily-written, complex central characters they can identify with. A film like The Matrix attracted female viewers partly because it was about complicated concepts of life and death. It also had Keanu Reeves running around in leather, which helped.”
There’s something wrong with machines and zombies?