james_davis_nicoll | This is the photo the Guardian used to illustrate an article on how women are overlooked in SF

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4509744.html

This is the photo the Guardian used to illustrate an article on how women are overlooked in SF

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I suspect that it's more lazy editing - the writer wouldn't have chosen the photograph or, probably, the headline.

And there's a hint of a connection to the article's topic, since Walter mentions Mary Shelley, and this picture is taken from the recent theater production of Frankenstein.

And how many people think "this was written by a woman" when they see the play?

Intentional or not, it does fit the topic quite well.

Honestly? I would have thought a lot, but I could be wrong.

And in a way I do think that the picture illustrates the article's point. I'm trying to think of a sufficiently recognizable woman whose picture would be even tangentially related to the article's topic, and I'm drawing a blank.

And running a photo of two men sure helps solve that problem?

Given the topic, running a picture of an insufficiently recognizable woman would be more illustrative.

Hmmm....Whats-her-name....y'know, from those Alien movies....you know who I mean...gee, I guess she's not that well known after all....
;)

Yes, I think a picture of Sigourney Weaver wielding a flame-thrower would have had sufficient recognition.

You know there are people who try to claim she didn't write it? Because it's famous and women cannot have written famous books. Other people defend her authorship by claiming it's kind of a crap book and of course women can have written those.

TruFact: All 19th Century women's fiction was actually written by Branwell Brontë.

Heresy! All 19th Century women's fiction was written by Edward de Vere.

That was my first thought.

William Hyde

Oh, come now! Frankenstein was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley! He was under a bit of a cloud in the UK at the time for being an Atheist so he published it under her name!

Do you suppose that Gabriel Rossetti wrote Goblin Market or are women allowed to be poets?

I would like to admire the way the turning-page effect obscures Joanna Russ's last name in that image, for extra dramatic irony.

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viktor-haag.livejournal.com - 2013-08-09 15:23 (UTC) - Expand

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nelc.livejournal.com - 2013-08-09 22:54 (UTC) - Expand

Professor Jim Machor at Kansas State tried to teach us that when I was his student in the mid 1990s. In fact, he would pull crap like assigning the female students "women's books" for their final papers, and teaching books like The Lamplighter to surreptitiously prove that women all wrote junk that was popular but without merit.

I figured it wasn't an accident that Machor was "accidentally" spelled "Mac Hor" in our course listings the entire time I attended KSU.

That the guy's name was "Machor" was too perfect to begin with.

I could criticise it for being over clever, but yeah, I think most skiffy fans are aware that Mary Shelley invented the genre and would get the Frankenstein connection at some point while reading the article, even if they're not aware that media heart-throb Cummerbund was performing the role currently.

Some skiffy fans are aware that Brian Aldiss thinks that Mary Shelley invented the genre.

Sorry, I dropped my irony tags.

If they have a different idea, they're welcome to write their own book on the history of science fiction. :-)

Only, I wouldn't have realized the picture was from a Frankenstein production unless I devoted some time to puzzling it out.

Same.

Me three: I thought "some sort of post-apocalyptic scenario" at first look, because since when does Frankie Jr. have 1 giant scar randomly running slantways across his face like that? Did the good doctor have some sort of peculiar cavalry-saber related accident while putting him together? Don't know what's with the "bald" look, either...

Was that the production where Cummerbund and his costar switched roles on alternate nights?

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agent13.livejournal.com - 2013-08-09 03:41 (UTC) - Expand

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pauldormer.livejournal.com - 2013-08-09 10:14 (UTC) - Expand

It was a fairly prominent UK theatre production, and the Guardian is a UK-based newspaper, so I think it's not completely off-base for them to assume readers would get the reference.

(Also, the actual story has a caption for the image, which explains what it's from.)

I only knew it because I was aware that Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller were in Danny Boyle's FRANKENSTEIN play a couple seasons ago, in which they traded off roles as the Monster and Frankenstein.

So... yeah. I recognized it from CONTEXT, not from anything inherent.

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