I liked She-Hulk so much I even read her entire storyline with the Fantastic Four after Secret Wars. (Which included an interesting early commentary on papparazzi and publishing nudes of celebrity women which coincided with the very real harrassment of Lady Diana Spencer for those very reasons.)
When I was young nerd culture was pretty much permeated by these types of characters. We had She-Ra (He-Man's interdimensional cousin), Supergirl, Batgirl, Spidergirl and so forth. In the seventies and eighties if there was a super popular character you would soon get a female version of the same. Most of whom were very lame. Some of whom were cool. Depending on whether or not the writers managed to create good stories for said character.
Now, as you can tell I am super old, and when I encountered nerd culture it was very much male dominated. Female characters were often reduced to masturbation material or story elements for male heroism. Not always, but quite often. Even in the case of Roy Thomas' Red Sonja, who was portrayed almost as the Andrea Dworkin of barbaric comic books. Red Sonja established the meme of big breasted barbarian women in chain mail bikini, seen so often in fantasy illustrations.
This all changed in the nineties, for a lot of different reasons. People like me being one of them. I've introduced a ton of girls to nerdy things like role playing games, and I've welcomed girls into Nerdosity. You see, I am one of those people who get along with women more easily than men. I don't know why, it's just always been that way. Another reason is that a great deal of games and literature shifted towards more focus on interpersonal relations, storytelling and such and quite simply became more inclusive. Today I find it quite amusing when I tell people that when I was a teenage nerd and tried to get the hot chicks to roleplay with me their reactions were "What dragons and elves and shit? That stuff is for boys!"
For a variety of reasons I more or less fell out of Nerdosity just around the turn of the century, and I was a bit surprised to see the shifting of the clientelle whenever I frequented a comic book store. It used to be a dirty safe space for nerdy guys with few social skills and whose only sexual relations had been with a freeze frame of Denise Crosby baring her midriff and the aforementioned Red Sonja. Suddenly you had women walking around these places. Women who were not mothers. This evidently caused a lot of consternation in the kingdom of Nerdosity. You'd think no one would be averse to this, but evidently such is not the case. Male nerds felt threatened and invaded, and they were not happy when their favorite franchises shifted content to actually greet their new demographic.
I think it's safe to say that the kingdom of Nerdosity is in a state of civil war today. On the one hand you have the loyalist Broflakes, true to l'ancien regime and armed to the teeth. They are fighting a younger and more well organized army known as the Snowflakes, who fight for diversity and inclusion and a New Order of Nerdosity. Their battlefields are the hills, valleys and lowlands of Tumblr, Twitter and Reddit, and their weapons are trolling, pile ons, ridicule, sarcasm, doxing, and invasion of safe spaces.
Agewise I should belong with the Broflakes, in terms of values I have more in common with the Snowflakes, and I find the Broflakes to be a camp of sorry ignorant losers. However, I'm not fighting in this war, and when I look on the battles that are being waged my sole reaction is one of wanting to get the hell out of Dodge. For all their inclusive politics the Snowflakes are just as rash and insensitive as their enemies, and I just don't want to take part in their war.
Let's get back to the topic of gender swapping. There has been an increasing tendency towards not just making female counterparts to male heros, but of actual genderswapping. My first encounter with the ploy was in Camelot 3000 where Sir Tristan was reincarnated in a woman's body. Great stuff. (Today this portrayal can easily be read as slightly homophobic, but I think it would be best to give Mike Barr credit for even adressing issues such as gender, transgender, homosexuality and the treatment of women back in the eighties.)
Most famously the Ghostbusters were collectively genderswapped for the remake/reboot of the franchise. A move that caused perhaps the most fierce battle in the entire civil war between the Broflakes and Snowflakes (along with Gamergate). To the point where it turned me off seing the film entirely, because it had gone from being "this doesn't look good, but I'm curious" to "now I can't see this without considering everything for its politics". I'm not adverse to the idea. In fact, I didn't even give it a second thought until the battle had lasted for quite some time. My initial reactions were "how can female Ghostbusters be offensive to you?" I was baffled.
Yesterday we heard that the Doctor, from the eponymous Doctor Who, will be a woman in its latest incarnation. Now, I haven't cared for Doctor Who for many years. I don't like the new show at all, so I don't really have a reaction to that. But upon the announcement I quickly muted a whole bunch of words to avoid the ensuing wordquake on twitter. I am not opposed to the idea of a female Doctor. Sure it makes sense storywise, but still, my instinctive reaction was "oh, not again!"
To me it seems that Nerdosity has shrunk to the point where if you want to exist within its borders you MUST take a stance in this war. You are not allowed to enjoy fiction unless you consider its gender politics as either progressive or broflakey. Something I am not willing to do. Also, I see the contours of a Nerdosity where gender issues in entertainment are included not so much for trying to take part in some agenda or other, but as a marketing scheme. Doctor Who evidently has a large following in the Snowflake army, and this move has been anticipated for quite some time after they made the Doctor bisexual. Still, it has not failed to provoke a lot of Broflakes, who are now angrily mustering up their troops for another futile attempt at burning female fans of the show at the stake.
Now, despite my instinctive reaction my feeling on this subject is simple. This might not be as progressive as it's made up to be, and the writing is what makes a show great. More so than the apparent gender of the lead character. However, the fandom has largely greeted the announcement with ecstatic screams of joy (followed by pogroms against the Broflakes), and I wish them all the best. Enjoy your Doctor, regardless of gender. And if a different interpretation of a fictional character upsets you to the point that it does some Broflakes I can only encourage you to get a fucking life. It's a fictional character - you are not. If you don't like it, don't watch it. Don't be like Kathy Bates in Misery. It's not about you.
Also, both sides of the war: calm the fuck down. You're alienating people. If the cost of inclusion is alienation, you've failed. Try to listen to each other, try to understand each other's feelings, and try not to turn the things you both enjoy into battlegrounds. You might be depopulating Nerdosity in the long run, and while I think the Broflakes would enjoy that, that certainly isn't what the Snowflakes are trying to do.
I'm out.
