At the Comicon, I found that when I say the words “I run a genre entertainment site geared toward women,” people in the comics industry are immediately on the defensive, visibly tensing up as if they expect me to berate them about a cover or a statuette or some other issue, when all I want to do is set up an interview. Once I’ve assured them that I’m not part of the manufactured outrage on the internet, they relax considerably and I usually get the interview, but it’s discouraging that the perception often comes down to this equation:
chick + comics = raging female
I don’t have that problem with other industries represented at the Comicon. The reception from toy companies, fantasy artists, book publishers, authors and movie studios has all been very positive, and in numerous cases, they already knew about Pink Raygun before I approached them. The comics industry seems to be the least aware, and the most apprehensive about talking to us, and that applies equally to the men and the women in that industry.
So, why the apprehension, tense jaws and panic stricken eyes? No doubt due to the rage that runs rampant on the internet. The thing is, those tense jaws and panic stricken eyes don’t make me feel empowered. It doesn’t make me believe that some goal has been achieved.
It just makes me work harder to reassure them that I’m not interested in manufacturing rage to increase hits to my own website. It makes me work harder to get the message across that there are women who read comics without getting into a tizzy. It also makes me work harder to gain trust – trust that I won’t ask leading questions, that I won’t set traps and that I won’t misrepresent what was said.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
In this piece I described an experience I had, postulated as to why it happened that way and how it effects me. I haven’t told anyone to shut up, stop whining, stop blogging, stop being angry. If that had been my point, I would have come out and said so. Bluntly.
There isn’t one single type of fangirl, unfortunately, the Mother Jones article implies that there is. You’re entitled to your opinion just as I’m entitled to mine. You don’t have to agree with me. No one does.
This site is geared toward fangirls, but that doesn’t mean that myself or any Raygun writer is going to pander to a demographic and say only what the blogoshpere wants to hear. Not at the expense of integrity and our honest – and just as valid as yours – opinions. You’re going to encounter a variety of opinions here. Some of them are going to seriously piss you off.
So, it isn’t false advertising. It’s a different fangirl viewpoint – one that appears not to fit in with your personal fangirl profile.
And that’s OK. You’re free to have your own viewpoint. I’m free to have mine.
Vail -
Don’t confuse commenters with content writers. And don’t confuse an individual’s opinion for the opinion of everyone involved with Pink Raygun.
You accuse us of having a false face. May I direct you to Lisa’s very first post about what Pink Raygun is and is intended to be? The link will open up in a new window.
Why The World Needs Pink Raygun.
Back?
Pink Raygun was never meant to be anything more or less than what it is. It’s not an activist site. It’s not a site where one gender is disparaged at the expense of the other (edited to add: not to say that feminist sites automatically disparage by their very nature). We conduct interviews at all levels of genre entertainment, with a special focus on speaking with the women. We spoke with Monica Staggs about being a stuntwoman in a stuntman’s world. We’ve done interviews with women who work behind the scenes at Weta Workshops in New Zealand. We interviewed both Tahmoh Penikett and Nikki Clyne from Battlestar Galactica, and while Lisa indulged in a little fangirl drooling over “shirtless Helo,” the questions posed Ms. Clyne were focused on her craft and what it’s like playing a woman on a science fiction TV show.
We’ve got lots more interviews with women in genre in the transcription and scheduling phases as we speak. The list of those we’re attempting/planning to contact growing longer by the week, as we continually ask the women we interview who their inspirations are.
We’re only just now passing our six-month mark of being in existence. Already, we’re on one movie studio’s and one television network’s press junket, and we’re starting to get set invitations to genre shows. We’ve just hit our fifty-thousandth unique visitor, and we have about 14,000 regular, repeat visitors. The more we grow, the more the companies we look to interface with take us seriously, and the more access we get the more chance we have to ask those questions that a site like Aint It Cool News (to give just one example) might not.
At Comicon, Lisa and I attended a panel on movies and internet “superstars.” There wasn’t a single female face on the stage, and there were very few in the audience. Pink Raygun exists to help begin balancing that gender inequity, just a bit.
John Dallaire
pinkraygun.com
“Bingo!! Yes it’s OK for YOU to tell us what to do and how to do it, but how DARE us challenge the status quo.”
Firstly, don’t judge this site and the people who write for on me. I don’t work eher. I’m just another reader with an opinion.
Secondly, has anything I said stopped the status quo from being challenged by you? Why must someone’s call for rational and calm persuasive debate be equated with “shutting people up”?
You keep on with “oh, we tired all those other things you said, they didn’t work, so now we rage.” But what has that gotten you? Was it any more effecvtive than the other things you claim you tired? Alpha-Girl’s experience would seem to suggest that the current stratagy isn’t working wither. The fact you have so many people against you, seems to suggest that the tactic is a failure. Yet, rather then look to something new, you keep crying about the “bad PR” you cause is getting as a result of the tactics you’ve chosen to use.
You made a really great point about the distribution side of the comic direct marketplace. Why aren’t you working towards addressing that? There an issue that doesn’t devide by gender. It doesn’t call into question the personalities of those who don’t agree with your viewpoint. It is something that would affect ANYONE who wanted to “make the comics,” regardless of things like gender or race. It’s a challenge and goal that could be used to unite people, not set them at each others throats.
I, personally, am astonished why you fight so hard to preserve a tactic that has so obviously failed and is, by some accounts, doing way more harm than good, not only to the cause and those who engage in the tactic, but even those who are innocent in its use.
Is it any real wonder why these issues never seem to get addressed? Is it any wonder you never get any satisfaction, no matter how much you “rage against the machine?”
You said I shouldn’t tell you how to fight your fight. Well, on some level you are correct. I shouldn’t, because you should see all the things that I and others have been stating and adjusting your tactics to something that will work. I’ve offered up ideas (even though you claim most have been tried, I know I’ve not seen many attempts of them used). I’ve tried to explain why the raging isn’t working and the harm it is causing for everyone. But nowhere do I say for you to stop the fight. Nowhere to I say you should all just “shut the hell up.” If that’s all you’ve seen in my words, well, maybe I’m partly to blame for not making my thoughts clear. But then, you also are to blame for doing the very thing you complain is done to you: Not listening to what someone is saying and seeing only what you want to see. Funny how it always seems to work out that way, doesn’t it?
‘The wheels on the bus go round and round….’