Women in Sci-fi: A Dismal Look Back and a Hopeful Gaze Forward

Women in Sci-fi: A Dismal Look Back and a Hopeful Gaze Forward

By Avery Hendrick

In 2015, The Force Awakens brought a resurgence of Star Wars fame and celebrities into pop culture. The recently Disney-ified brand was determined to step back into the market of sci-fi films, where it had been absent for ten years since the release of Revenge of the Sith, and to do so by making a statement: Star Wars was now for girls.

While the previous films had always featured female side characters, Rey was the first female lead in the cinematic universe.

However, while the third wave of films featured more female characters, as was seen in Rogue One and the additions of Rose and Admiral Holdo in The Last Jedi, it by no means meant that a female director or screenwriter would be added to the team. As it is, there are currently eleven live-action Star Wars films that have featured seven different directors, all of whom are male. Moreover, outside of the short-term addition of Leigh Brackett on The Empire Strikes Back before her death, there has never been a female screenwriter on any Star Wars movie.

Star Wars is not an anomaly. These abysmal statistics for female creators’ inclusion are seen across the board in the film industry and especially within science fiction, a genre known for its heavy gatekeeping both in the literary and motion picture scene. Science fiction is notoriously difficult to break into both as a creator and viewer, as the genre is marked by traditional classic stories that die-hard fans are hesitant to break away from. These fans often operate on the idea that if you are not an ultra-fan who writes about male protagonists too, then you shouldn’t be allowed to view science fiction. Unfortunately, these rules often apply exclusively to women trying to write, direct, and absorb the genre.

There have, however, been exceptions to the rules. Star Trek, for example, has always stood in contrast from Star Wars on the basis of diversity. Even though the two main characters of the original series were both white men, Star Trek has always included a diverse supporting cast, a rarity in the 1960s. Off-screen, D. C. Fontana worked as a writer and story editor throughout the duration of the original series and continued to edit and produce on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. In recent years, Kirsten Beyer has worked as a staff writer and novelist on Discovery while Hanelle Culpepper directed three episodes, including the series premiere, of Picard.

The Wachowski sisters have also made history in the science fiction genre and Hollywood as a whole as the directors and writers of the ultra-successful Matrix series and have a fourth Matrix film slated to hit theaters this December. The sisters are the first major Hollywood directors to come out as transgender and have stated that the original Matrix film stands as an allegorical representation of the personal and social struggles faced by members of the trans community (BBC). 

Even so, it is clear that women directors and writers in the science fiction genre have been overshadowed in the past, but it is the duty of modern audiences to support and notice where progress is being made.

The superhero genre, a subset of science fiction, has shown a step in the right direction, especially within the ever-growing universe of Marvel movies. In 2017, DC’s Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, kicked off a wave of female-directed movies in the superhero genre. It was soon followed by co-director Anna Boden’s Captain Marvel and Birds of Prey, directed by Cathy Yan. Over the past year, Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984, and The Eternals have all featured female directors, including Academy Award-winning Chloé Zhao. Both DC and Marvel also have films with female directors currently in development, a step which signals a major shift in the demographic for directors within the superhero genre and, potentially, even within science fiction as a whole. However, these movies are primarily focused on female characters, a note that suggests that while male directors are allowed to write about both men and women, female directors are pigeonholed into writing and directing exclusively female-focused films.

The indie movie scene presents another front of rising female directors within all genres, science fiction included. 2018’s High Life, directed by Claire Denis and starring Robert Pattinson, and 2015’s Advantageous, directed by Jennifer Phang, both had success in the film festival scene, debuting at Toronto International Film Festival and Sundance respectively. Female-lead horror films The Other Lamb and Saint Maud, directed by Malgorzata Szumowska and Rose Glass, have also reached wide audiences and gained positive critical reviews after independent production. Horror may not fall completely under the scope of science fiction, but it’s a genre that often intersects with sci-fi at a crossroads that has led to many cinematic successes. 

While it’s currently difficult to get a good look at the future of movies, the indie film circuit has shown larger strides of progress than the major studios. In a report done by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, it was revealed that women comprised 38% of directors in independent films in 2019-2020, a historic high. As audiences have begun to reenter theaters over the past few months after more than a year of closures and delays, science fiction has welcomed more than a few new names. A wave of female directors and writers is on the rise, especially in science fiction, and it’s time they receive the spotlight.

Works Cited

BBC. (2020, August 7). The Matrix is a ‘trans metaphor’, Lilly Wachowski says. BBC News.Retrieved November 14, 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-53692435.