I Embrace My Female Nerd (and So Can You)

There's something I want to go ahead and put out there: I am a nerd. Many of my female role models live in alternate universes, fight aliens in space, are spies or witches, and are, well, fictional. As this is my first official post as a contributor to Her Blueprint, I feel it is important to get that admission out of the way.

There's been a lot of social commentary written about calling oneself a nerd (or a geek) as nerd-culture has become increasingly popular with rise of Comic-Con International, shows like The Big Bang Theory and Game of Thrones, and Marvel Studio's super-secret plan for world domina... I mean, modestly successful franchises—it's become popular to be a nerd, and self-proclaimed "real nerds" don't like that people are jumping on their Battlestar Galactica or throwing on a Browncoat at this stage in the game.

Any discussion about who gets to call themselves a "real nerd" belongs on another blog (or better yet, on no blogs, as personally, I think it's a ridiculous conversation to have in the first place) — I bring it up as something of an introduction to myself (because I'll bring nerd things into a conversation whenever possible) and as a segue into the actual point of this post: the rising popularity of women in sci-fi.

It’s a broad topic, I know, as well-written female protagonists are hard to come by in any genre, and despite valiant attempts by comic book and fiction writers, female characters rarely translate into box-office dollars and second season pick-ups—until recently, that is. More and more, we're seeing films like Maleficent and Lucy, starring Angelina Jolie and Scarlet Johansson, respectively, put into production; both films are currently in the top 25 grossing films of 2014, with Jolie's Maleficent sitting in the #2 spot, with $747.6 million earned so far, 68% of which is from overseas markets.

Science fiction, and its sister genre fantasy, has always been the refuge of counter-culture; time travel, space exploration, dystopian futures wrought at the hands of despots and the revolutionaries that overthrow them—science fiction is where we look for change and hope. As the boom of nerd-culture sweeps Hollywood, the reach of the sci-fi genre is increasing as well. So far in 2014, seven of the top grossing films in South Africa are sci-fi, already tying 2013's numbers. In Argentina, eight of the top 20 grossing films are from the genre, up from six in 2013. Similar increases can be seen in Peru and Lebanon, with 11 and nine films so far in 2014, compared to nine and six in 2013, respectively.

And there's no lack of science fiction productions on the horizon, with films like The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, Cinderella, and Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron, all coming out in the next year. And each of these films features at least one lead female character.

In 2013, the top ten grossing films earned an average of 64% of their total revenues from overseas markets; as Hollywood's sci-fi moves toward more equal gender representation, that representation can be seen reaching into international markets as well.

The landscape of television is seeing similar movements, as was evident at this year's International Comic-Con in San Diego. From events with the casts of BBC's Orphan Black and HBO's Game of Thrones, and Entertainment Weekly's Women Who Kick Ass panel, women took the lead with more than ten panels solely dedicated to female representation across mediums. Women also ruled the convention floor with gender-bent cosplay and a nerd-themed fashion show.

Katey Sagal, Sarah Paulson, Tatiana Maslany, Nicole Beharie, Maisie Williams and Natalie Dormer speaking at the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Entertainment Weekly: Women Who Kick Ass", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

There was a time in my life when I wanted to work for the CIA—I wanted to be like Sydney Bristow, Jennifer Garner's character in Alias, traveling around the world in disguises, stealing computer chips and taking out the bad guys. That's a lie, actually, I still want to be like Sydney Bristow, despite every one of my fiercely liberal bones telling me otherwise. Young women—all women—need positive role models, and the amazing thing about the human imagination is that the person inspiring you doesn't need to be real. For better or worse, the reach of popular culture cannot be denied; it is imperative that we continue to move toward and support more female lead characters. And science fiction is a great place to start.

Doctor Who-a threat to the political and social order? [The Guardian]
Women Totally Dominated This Year's Comic-Con International [Nerdist.com]
Yearly Box Office [BoxOfficeMojo]

Work From the Inside

Women and work have been a center of discussion for decades. Recently Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Office at Facebook writes a book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead (2013) on this very subject. She is ranked as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the world. Recounting her previous experiences working in some of the world’s corporate powerhouses, including Google and the United States Department of the Treasury, in her book Sandberg encourages other women to seek paths to achieve their fullest potential in their workplace.

In forging our career path and making meaning of it, I can’t agree with Sheryl Sandberg more on how she describes the process as a jungle gym, not a ladder, which allows us for more creative, non-linear exploration of work.

I am lucky to have encountered many women who do just like that – striving for a higher level of achievement in work, and what’s more, a greater opportunity to express ourselves through artistic means. My last “Her Blog” series has highlighted the use of blogs and their influence on women in realm of art criticism, teaching, and museum directorship. I want to discover more stories on how women create opportunities for themselves, embrace uncertainty, and develop their own artistic career path.

Catherine Hannah, a comic artist living in Chicago, tells an incredible story of how she turns to making comics and the way it shapes her work.

Artistically inclined from a young age, the Michigan native says she always liked to draw and was greatly encouraged by her parents, teachers, and friends to continue pursue in the art. Cathy would make up little characters like "cool cat" and drew comic strips about her family's dogs.

As she got a little older she drew teenage soap operas influenced by Japanese manga artist Rumiko Takahashi and shojo comics (which geared toward young girls). In high school, she was already determined to be a comic artist even though she was not aware of the practicality of it. Making comics, as she puts it, was the only thing she did and enjoyed the challenge of getting better at.

Making comics also serves as an outlet for her emotions:

 “Making comics is my therapy. My work is all autobiographical so it is a huge relief to be able to express my emotions through storytelling. My graphic novel Winter Beard is all about me having a crush on my friend. I couldn't express those feelings to him directly because of various insecurities and hang-ups but when I make my comics I can be brutally honest with myself. The comics I have been making recently are very introspective and it is very helpful to be able to lay my emotions bare and see them exist outside myself on a page. Sometimes my memories seem unreal to me... 

“Moments that I can clearly remember seem so far away I wonder if they really happened. So when I draw that memory and tell that story it makes it more real to me and it’s easier to revisit painful experiences or makes joyful, happy times more permanent. When I draw comics I feel like I'm confiding in someone,” Cathy explains. 

Cathy’s comics intertwine intriguingly with her study in art history, past teaching experience and
gallery work.

“I think that the things that drew me to comics are the same things that drew me to art history. I'm such a sucker for a good story and art history is full of them...For my major we had to take fifteen credits in art history to graduate. I was drawn into how the composition would tell a story, how iconography and metaphor were used in art. I liked hearing stories about the artist's lives. I liked hearing the stories about powerful political families who patroned the arts. I'm all about context.”

While working as a tour guide in the historic Andrew Lowe House Museum (famous for his daughter-in-law Juliette Lowe founder of the Girl Scouts) in Savannah, Georgia, Cathy liked relating anecdotes about the family, like how they got this mirror or what they used this room for. “History, to me is just a lot of good, true stories!” At Glessner House and interned at the Roger Brown Study Collection after moving to Chicago, her passion in storytelling did not cease. “I focused mostly on decorative art, quilts in particular, because they are intimate objects of personal history full of stories.”

Comic making and storytelling go beyond just a therapeutic tool for Cathy. Cathy is now planning on completing a fourth issue of her current comic book series, Alas, which may debut this June at CAKE (Chicago Alternative Comics Expo). And she does not stop here. After CAKE, Cathy has a bigger plan for getting a self-publishing grant or through kickstarter to print a graphic novel version of Alas to press publishers for distributions.

On her future with comics, Cathy concludes, “I don't dream of getting movie deals or anything like that. I make comics because I have a story to tell.”

Working from the inside, Cathy makes comics capturing memories, and moments of life and imagination. As Sheryl Sandberg challenges us to reach our potentials through work, What would you if you weren't afraid?

To find out more about Cathy’s comic or buy it, visit www.sayrabbitrabbit.com.

A New Kind of Comic Book, a New Kind of Superhero

Image from Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis

The other day I took a friend's 14 year-old daughter, who I was looking after for the day, to a book shop. She was an exceptionally smart kid from DC, adopted from India at a young age. She was looking for origami paper for her newest obsession, while I was looking for new graphic novels. I managed to drag her over to the section and ask, "So, do you like comics?" She scoffed, rolled her eyes with an expression of theatrical disgust only a teenager can pull off. "No," she said.

"But they're great," I said, suddenly feeling the urgency of reeling her back in. "I don't mean, like, superhero stuff...have you seen this?" I reached for Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. "They made this one into a movie. It's about a girl about your age living in Iran during the Islamic Revolution." I flipped through the stark black and white illustrations, all lined up in their artfully codified panels. "The girl wants to be a punk rocker, but around that time, you could be thrown in prison for acting too Western--like buying a Michael Jackson album." She was intrigued, but not enough. She beelined it to the arts and crafts section. I had failed.

Comic books, or, their more mature, highfalutin label, "graphic novels," or, their more alt/indie title, "comix," seem to have become more rich; more emotionally complex and fascinating over the years, giving rise to a number of stories grounded in drama and gritty realism. Yet somehow, the world of Marvel and DC Comics still eclipses their very existence, with major blockbuster films reaffirming the notion that comic books are a medium for larger than life superheros and action sequences jammed with omonomopoeias. Still meant for teenaged boys who stay up late with a flashlight in bed to devour them at night, or slip them into their English lit books at school during study hall.

But a markedly different type of comic book began to surge in popularity as far back as 1991, with Art Spiegleman's Pulitzer Prize-winning book Maus, a gripping re-imagining of the Holocaust with Jews drawn as mice and Germans drawn as cats. And somewhere along the way, female-driven narratives began to open the genre up to an emotionally complex world that no words could describe.