"Even if I got rid of all my problems, I'd just go out and get new ones..."

Triple breasted whore of Eroticon 6
4:01 p.m. on 2004-04-09

Lying in bed last night, I found myself listening to a repeat of a Radio 4 comedy show. It was your basic clip show, with various characters in humorous, often surreal situations, poking fun at certain aspects of life.

One recurring theme appeared to be that of science fiction, and specifically, science fiction fans.

Which got me pondering on a favourite soap box of mine.

What is it that makes science fiction fans such an easy, and apparently justified, target for mockery?

You won't find a show making Benny Hill type gags about women, kitchen ovens, and breasts anymore. No sitcom would dare to have a character like "Are You Being Served"'s Mister Humphries (thank god). And the BBC will never repeat the highly influential Spike Milligan show 'Q' because of various scenes in which Spike blacks up. Don't make fun of people because of their sex, race, or religion. But their choice of TV show? Why, that's cannon fodder.

But why science fiction fans? I suppose the answer lies in the traditional image of a 'geek' - either a spotty four-eyed kid with few friends and barely scraping past puberty, or your middle=aged, pot-bellied, pony tailed single as epitomized by The Simpsons' "Comic Book Guy." The idea that groups of these loners will band together and discuss Star Trek as though it were real, debate the merits of old Star Wars versus New Star Wars with as much fervor as a Protestant and a Catholic discuss, well, anything. That they go home and sit around in ill-fitting costumes, making in-jokes that no one but themselves understands, and waste away their lives living vicariously through a piece of fiction whilst real life collects dust, as though they've filed it away with all those odd socks you can't bear to throw out incase the other one turns up eventually.

Of course, most science fiction fans bear no resemblance to this stereotype, just as you'll be hard pushed to find a gay man who bears even a slight resemblance to Mr. Humphries.

I'll stand up and admit it right now: "My name's Laura, and I'm a geek." Yup, I own the Babylon 5 box set, I drool over the boys from Lord of the Rings, and *gasp* I've even been to a couple of Star Trek conventions.

So which category of the above to I fit in? Spotty adolescent or Comic Book Guy?

Neither, of course. I'm 22, a woman, a Durham graduate with grand ideas of traveling and a hot little tush. Wearing a Star Trek uniform is not my idea of a good time and no, I can't name all 100-plus episodes of Farscape, and I think Star Wars sucks.

And I'm not the only 'freak' out there. At the second con I attended, I was joined by my best friend - same age, same hot ass, both of us poured into tight little dresses and only too eager to shake our stuff on the dance floor. Our companions turned out to include Alex, a lovely, multi-pierced gay guy who ran a shop in Affleck�s Palace and drooled over Garrett Wang, two VERY hot, skinny dancers, obviously a couple, who entertained Louise and I with a good view of their asses, and a bank manager who in his spare time likes to wear a little Star Trek dress, fish nets, and stilettos.

The geeks will inherit the earth. And they really will. Take a look around. Stephen Hawking? Geek. Was invited to cameo in Star Trek: The Next Generation and asked for the (apparently very rare) honor of being helped into Picard's chair. Peter Jackson? Geek. Made low budget horror movies as an aspiring director and now battles with Harry Knowles (internet guru) for the ownership of various Star Wars collectibles. Ask the right questions and you'll quickly find a whole host of famous, highly influential people with a secret geek inside them. Where do you think the scientists come from? Where do you think they find their ideas? Why was Neil Armstrong up on the moon in the first place?

Of course, admitting to the truth wouldn't be good comedy. "There's a little bit of geek in everyone" won't ever make a list of one-liners and will never be the basis for a lazy bit of Saturday peak time TV humor.

Actually, science fiction and fantasy are a huge multi-million dollar industry. How many other genres can claim to have their own international TV channel? Sure, documentaries are big, but there's no "Medical Drama Channel" or "Crime Channel". You won't find a single magazine devoted to just this strand of entertainment, whereas in your average WHSmiths you'll easily find four or five science fiction magazines. And what other genre can boast its own lucrative chain of outlet stores? Forbidden Planet is expanding on a daily basis, opening new stores and enlarging others, and providing a (costly) mail order service to those few without the internet.

And for all you people who would shun the notion of being a science fiction fan? As though I�d accused of being a leper, or Tory. Truth is, most people list at least one 'geeky' movie in their top five. The title of 'summer blockbuster' belongs to such fodder as The Matrix, Armageddon, X Men... and when Channel Four starts budget scraping and produces yet another meaningless chart of 'top one hundred movie trilogies that everyone has in their DVD collection but have only watched once,' you can guarantee that Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, the Terminator, they'll all be near the top. And books aren't immune from the influence of the geek either. 1984, War of the Worlds, Hitchhiker�s Guide to the Galaxy (recently voted as one of Britain's top ten books) and yes, the overly hyped Lord of the Rings. What's one of the biggest selling books of all time? Harry Potter. Fantasy. Who has a book in the bestseller list eleven months out of every twelve? Terry Pratchett. Fantasy.

Take a quick look round your book shelves. See anything interesting? A battered copy of the Hobbit, perhaps, or an Ian M Banks book you picked up in the airport and never got round to reading?

So why does comedy continue to fly in face of the obvious and continue to mock science fiction fans? Why can't we shake this old stereotype?

Maybe it's because of the fervor of fans. Take the recent cancellation of Angel. This abrupt announcement from the WB caused the internet to go into uproar. Within days fans had raised enough money to hire several billboards, a couple of trucks, several full page magazine ads in Variety, and a special range of chocolate bars whose wrappers were emblazoned with the words: "Several (million) viewers are ready to follow Angel to another network." If the WB decides to drop the axe on ER, I don't imagine the response will be more than a few disappointed "ohs" and, more than likely, a number of "well it's sucked ever since Clooney left."

So maybe it's the fervor. An ER fan doesn't buy the books, the soundtrack, the DVD box set won't sell as well as a Xena collection.

But let's move away from television for a second and look at something else. At football. Here it seems, all the same rules apply. Fervor, check. Complete involvement whilst attention is being occupied? Check. Merchandise? Check. Multi million dollar, international industry? Very much check.

The double standards are clear. A season ticket holder, having paid several hundred pounds for the privilege, will spend three or four hours most weekends sat, often in the cold and wet (this being Britain) to watch their team play, and yet even by those not immersed in the game, this is simply thought of as being a loyal fan. A person goes home on a Wednesday night to slob out in front of 45 minutes of Enterprise, and this is considered sad and pathetic. Stigmatized.

(actually, anyone who watches Enterprise will be stigmatized, even by other Star Trek fans. It sucks. Sorry. Its just, it does. It's shite.)

A Manchester United fan goes out and spends forty quid on an official shirt, which he promptly wears as much as is humanly possible before the strip changes. Perfectly acceptable. A geek pins a small Star Trek pin to their rucksack, and they're instantly labeled.

You can buy football themed curtains, wallpaper, action figures, footballs, clothes, videos, CDs, computer games, there are internet forums and sites galore.

So where are the comedy sketches poking fun at them?

I know that, in the grand scheme of the world, the occasional mocking of a science fiction fan scores pretty low on the no-tolerance rating. I know that it can never be considered as sacred and politically correct a matter as sexuality or religion. I know that my greatest attack against the clich�d comedy geek sketch is just that - it's clich�d, old, lazy writing targeting the obvious. Nevertheless, isn't there something just a little wrong about a society in which one section can poke fun at another without recrimination, and without looking for the hypocrite in themselves?

For all you comedy writers out there who are even now picking up your pen to write yet another tired 'polystyrene rocks and Dr Spock' gag... be warned.

For does the Bible not say, "The geeks shall inherit the earth" ?

Listening to: Belle and Sebastian, �Me and the Major�

Quote: �Badda-bing, badda-mroaw!� PS: Checked my stats today and found that someone had located my page through a google search for Tom McRae. THAT is officially the coolest referrer ever.

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