Fanboys vs. Fangirls

I'm kind of into gender studies. In case that needed to be said. I'm a XCORE cultural and social feminist, (I espouse the belief that on a political and legal level men and women are equal in this country. There is no more institutionalized sexism, which is cool and all, except for that there are still sexists. Cultural feminism focuses on changing attitudes through cultural shifts to remove sexism.) But one of the big things to look at when it comes to gender studies is the difference between men and women, Mars and Venus and all of that.

While I was trying to write a coherent review of Thor that didn't just go: "And then we saw Chris Hemsworth's abs and it was glorious!" I started thinking about the difference between fangirls, and fanboys.

To the uninitiated, a "fanboy" or "fangirl" is an excessive fan of genre material, usually sci fi or fantasy. Usually, fanboys and fangirls are not exclusive to one franchise, but obsess about many different series. The Stars, Wars and Trek, tend to be exempted, since they're both so extensive, one can be a Star fanboy or girl, because there is so much information to take it.

But there are huge differences between fanboys and fangirls.

Fanboys tend to get obsessive about the minutiae of things. They're details guys. You know, they're the ones who noticed Greedo shooting first, and have written pages and pages and pages about Hayden Christiansen being edited into the end of Return of The Jedi. These are the guys who own The Animatrix on DVD, who tried to piece together every piece of the Lost puzzle. They go to conventions and post on Whedonesque. They collect things.

Fangirls obsess about the big picture stuff. They want to know plot details and are concerned with...you know what, forget it.

OK, here's the deal with fangirls, they want to know who ends up with who. They form "Teams," which are highly cultish groups of fangirls who support one outcome or the other. The most famous of these obviously come from Twilight, and the Team Edward and Team Jacob. But it's not the only one. I know as Lost was wrapping up, several fangirls started splitting into teams, and the same as Harry Potter approached it's finale. (For the record, here are my teams, Jacob, Sawyer/Juliet and Ron/Hermione Harry/Ginny I was also however briefly Neville/Luna.) Fangirls also bring this into things that are non genre, I know that Team Brooke and Team Peyton was a thing for One Tree Hill for a while, and I continually declare myself in the Nerena camp for Gossip Girl (So blonde, so dumb, so perfect!) But for the most part we stick with the genre. We're the girls who couldn't believe that Rachel was going to marry Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, and were even more shocked when she died. (WHO WILL BRUCE MAKE OUT WITH NOW?) We have tee shirts and chat rooms and everything else.

Also, we really like seeing guys with their shirts off. I'm pretty sure fanboys also enjoy genre boobs, so that's something we have in common. That being said, I know girls who are more fanboy, and boys who are fangirl. I like to think that I'm somewhere in between, but I definitely lean more towards fangirl.

Finally!

At last, people are being rational...

A vatican paper has come out after seeing a screening of Angels and Demons (which thanks to Dan Brown's ridiculous blustering has been given controversial status) deemed the film, "inaccurate but harmless."

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! That's what I've been saying about Brown's work since I was fifteen. And if a fifteen year old can pick up on that, why the hell has it taken The Vatican almost ten years to come around to it?

Brown's books are interesting engaging thrillers. Their formulaic and a little bit stupid, like Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys, but for adults. There's something rewarding about reading a Brown book because you feel really smart when you figured out the ending ten pages before the protagonist. Granted, when I read The DaVinci Code, the first Brown book I picked up, I didn't do this, but all of the ones I've read since, I've done OK on. You get to throw the book down into the sand (the beach is where Brown's books should be read) and say "Haha! I am not a Harvard Professor of Symbology (or whatever) but I figured out that the priest was the bad guy before you Robert Langdon! I am smart, and perceptive, where as you are a fool!"

I have to tell you, my crisis of faith a few years ago, had nothing to do with Dan Brown. In fact the whole Dan Brown, the Church is evil stuff just made me cling harder to being Catholic because I wanted to defend my beliefs. Anyway, I'm just happy that finally we're seeing some sense out of the Vatican when it comes to commenting on these things. And I get to do the "I told you so" dance.