In the broad spectrum of popular culture, one can be a fan of just about anything: comic books, television shows, fantasy novels, movie franchises, musical artists, and so on. Because fans are fluid and ever-changing defining them poses a challenge. As a result, too few scholars have yet to focus on the impact of gender in media consumption, leading to a limited portrait of what male and female fans look for.

In Fan Girls and the Media: Creating Characters, Consuming Culture, there is an assembled a collection of essays that demonstrate the gendered aspect of fandom and explore the ways different forms of media challenge stereotypical ideals of how culture is consumed. Contributors examine a wide range of fan issues—from gendered stereotypes in the Star Trek and Twilight franchises to gender roles in Tyler Perry films and The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Other essays look at the female comedy fan community, the appeal of avenging-woman characters written by men, and the use of social media by women in the video-game culture.

Praise for Fan Girls and the Media

“The essays Trier-Bieniek has collected examine a wide range of popular culture and media topics. . . .Some of the chapters—e.g., ‘Members of the Tribe,’‘Cultural Production and Digital Resilience,’‘Writing Her Story,’ and ‘The New Housewife’—explore gender, race, and class in contemporary popular culture, adding to scholarship that often implicitly foregrounds whiteness. Though the feminist literature includes work on many of the pop culture phenomena discussed here—Real Housewives, Buffy, Star Trek, Orange Is the New Black—this collection will be useful to those new to feminist media studies.” CHOICE