The emerging face of geek fandom is female

By Vaneta Rogers

updated 10:36 a.m. ET Sept. 2, 2009

There was a time when the term “geek” was applied exclusively to men. That time has passed.

One look around last month’s massive Comic-Con International: San Diego made it clear: the fangirls have invaded.

“Every year, there’s an even larger, incredibly noticeable legion of female fans, and not just girls into the ‘Twilight’ stuff, but girls wearing comic books stuff, wearing a lot of manga stuff, wearing anime stuff,” said Jeff Katz, the former Fox movie executive who recently started the comics/film production house, American Original. “Women are clearly part of the genre audience. Anyone who’s been doing their homework in Hollywood in the last five years has certainly been aware of this.”

According to statistics from last year’s Comic-Con, about 40 percent of the people attending the show are women, something that didn’t escape the recent attention of Jeff Smith, publisher of the popular “Bone” comic book series.

“There’s women! I don’t mean to sound lecherous. I’m just really pleased!” Smith said with a laugh. “It really was just us guys for a long time.”

While any kind of growth in the industry would seem like good news, it hasn’t come without its share of backlash. Blogs since this year’s convention have taken male/female sides on everything from the potential sexism of the convention’s “booth babes” to complaints about the influx of female “Twilight” fans.

But if there’s one thing most fans and creators can agree upon, it’s that more women are around, and they appear to be staying.

In the first of a series looking at the effect of the “Fangirl Invasion”, Newsarama looks as the causes and asks: Why the change? And why now?

Why now?
Katz, who has written superhero comics and produced films like the recent “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” said he believes it comes down to society being more accepting of fan culture and genre characters in general. As the culture at large is exposed to fandom, it becomes more acceptable to be part of it.

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“You have a generation of girls who have grown up with this stuff and view it as a natural part of culture,” he said. “You’ve had three ‘Spider-Man’ movies and ‘X-Men’ movies since they’ve been growing up. You’ve had ‘Harry Potter’ books and movies. And this generation has gotten it in a more concentrated level than I had as a kid. I might have had a ‘Superman’ movie every few years. But it was still a bit of a learning process.”

Although Katz thinks comics publishers still haven’t figured out how to tap into the potential of this female audience, Hollywood has started to catch on — with Katz naming “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon as someone who greatly influenced the change.

“He’s one of the leading forces behind the growth,” Katz said, pointing toward the large number of enthusiastic female fans the creator’s projects have attracted. “I think his impact’s actually been underrated.”

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Whedon himself told Newsarama he thinks the recent surge in female fans has come about mainly because it took Hollywood this long to figure out that comics and genre movies appeal to a wider audience than just geeky men.

“I think a lot more people are more comfortable with being fans of this genre because the studios and the networks have become more comfortable with them,” he said.

“After ‘Lost’ and ‘Heroes,’ they get it, ‘Oh, this is a formula for money! We love money!’” Whedon said. “So people who would never have watched what used to pass for science fiction — which was all, ‘turn on the purple lights and let’s look like crap and be sort of marginalized’ — people who would never watch that stuff even if it was good, and don’t love B-movies the way I do, can now find themselves into genre.”

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