Continental Shelf

A month from today, we will be celebrating Ada Lovelace Day, and as promised I am now starting a series of posts to discuss the perception (and my reality) of women in science and technology. These posts will run every Tuesday until March 24, so if you dislike the topic, skip this blog on Tuesdays for the next four weeks.

Here is my plan for the overview:

• Part 1 (today): Hollywoodian portrayals
• Part 2 (March 3): My techie friends
• Part 3 (March 10): Boyz in our ‘hood
• Part 4 (March 17): What’s so great about it?
• Part 5 (March 24): Ada Lovelace Day — some role models

Hollywoodian portrayals

In general, Hollywood is woefully lagging in its portrayal of women. Yes, more and more the movie-makers will make the effort to include a prominent female character, but primarily as a love interest, mother figure, or deadly peril. Where the mindset shows most clearly is in the absence of women not only as protagonists outside the realm of romance and nurturing, but their absence as background characters. And of course women are particularly neglected in the portrayal of science and technology.

Now part of the issue is that Hollywood in general treats science and technology as pure magic. It’s pretty clear that for about 95% of movie and television writers, directors and producers, light bulbs and toasters are as magically activated as Excalibur and the Goose That Lay Golden Eggs.

Nevertheless, we haven’t advanced that much since Rocketship X-M, where Dr. Lisa van Horn (Osa Massen) is on board reportedly because she is a brilliant scientist, but then has all her technical contributions ignored and is dragged around strictly as a damsel in peril and romantic interest for the all-important male characters. I think of this as the essence of Hollywood’s treatment of techie women (in the words of Mystery Science Theatre 3,000: “Excuse me, the chauvinist detector is going off.”)

As a dedicated nerd, I’m always amazed that Hollywood’s tolerance for strong female portrayals, particularly in tech fields, is actually lower than that of an average 18-year-old undersocialized basement-dwelling male nerd.*

I’m not kidding. Nerds in general have no problem with characters like Molly Millions, a.k.a Sally Shears, the cybernetically enhanced woman who dominates William Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic (dragging Johnny’s sorry ass throughout the story) and novels Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive. But what did Hollywood do with the character in the film version of Johnny Mnemonic? She is entirely replaced by a secondary, vulnerable, entirely forgettable female “romantic interest”, and Johnny’s character is boosted to be powerful and in control, something he was not in the short story.

Another example was the character of Mina Murray in the mediocre movie adaptation of the excellent steampunk graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, who went from dignified, self-controlled team leader (in the book) to second-string “slut vampire” supporting character in the movie. Good grief.

Let’s look at television: even a series like Eureka (and it amuses all my friends so much that I live in Eureka) tries hard to have primary techie female characters (Allison Blake, Zoe Carter) but ultimately fails. For one thing, all the female scientists have to be drop-dead gorgeous, while that’s clearly not a requirement for male characters. For another, a few female characters may appear on the center stage on occasion, but they are almost entirely absent among the background characters except when a mother, spouse or girlfriend is needed. It’s the “Ten men and a babe” syndrome.

In short, there is a serious lack of role models in common television and movie portrayals of women in science and technology. I would argue that the disparity between male and female characters in movie/TV science is greater than for movie cops, movie lawyers, etc.

Yes, there are more interesting female scientists and techies in film and television: Dana Scully in the X Files, at least in the early years of the show when the character was not so entrenched in the repetitive lines and was not a romantic interest; Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, though one could argue that was perhaps an extension of the nurturing persona; perhaps even Temperance Brennan (Bones) or Kathryn and Sarah in CSI. But all but Dr. Quinn are actually either strongly dependant on a male counterpart (Bones) or actually supporting characters to a male lead (X Files, CSI).

There’s a long, long way to go before we get a decent choice of role models on that front.

Links of interest:

• Women in science: the female scientist in fiction?
• It’s science, Jim, but not as we know it