Reply to comment

Okay, so I couldn't even sit through the whole movie. You all know my deep dark secret that I am a big pansy. I cannot watch horror films. I'm that person who has to cover their eyes throughout the entire film. This is why I have to Mystery Science Theater movies; so that I can rationalize and not get scared throughout films.

When I was little, my two older brothers would use the film Alien (and others like it) to distinguish themselves from me. They were older, they were male, they could -handle- the science fiction horror films. "Oh my gosh, the movie was so cool! I mean, did you SEE how that alien totally ate that dude..."

Jurassic Park, Aliens, Species, and so forth; all of these films were used to terrify me. I don't get the appeal of seeing little aliens leap out of stomaches or dinosaurs gobble up people. 

I was thinking, before I chickened out and ran from the class, that it's interesting that I associate Science Fiction Movies with this horror aspect of it, or at least, action. Why does Science Fiction have to involve suspense, horror, or things blowing up? Films like E.T. aren't "science fiction" they're kids movies. Technolust wasn't a science film for me; I wasn't learning science, I wasn't thinking about the science of it when I was watching it. Why do most movies the emphasize science have to have these elements that make me want to just bury my head in the sand?

Even those that don't... let's take, oh, Star Trek. I don't watch Star Trek, which apparently makes me a horrible geek. But I associate it with the male members of my family. And our society, I would argue, associates it with the male geek, too. Why else would it be shown on Spike TV, the channel for men?

Perhaps the bigger question is then not why are science fiction films associated with 'male audiences' for me, but why women are the silent audience.

I had no reason to doubt that brains were suitable for a woman. And as I had my father's kind of mind -- which was also his mother's -- I learned that the mind is not sex-typed. -- Margaret Mead