I’m not saying that these shows/movies are all bad or that the women characters are bad. But are they only cute women to get more men to go see them? If that is the case it’s still the exploitation and not the elevation of women that is happening. Battlestar Galactica was the worse offender of this, the producers replaced all the male characters with women and made the Cylons amazingly hot women as well. What!!!???

The best female action hero IMO is Ripley in the Aliens movies. There was a tough woman that kicked but and wasn’t used as a sex object.

Is there any evidence that more women will watch a show like Battlestar Galactica if there are more women hero in it? Or is it only a marketing ploy to gain more male viewers?

Women DO enjoy science fiction of ALL types, and saying that science fiction must be soaped-up or dumbed-down for women to enjoy it is the epitomy of sexism – and exactly what Ms. Hammer & crew were doing to the Sci-Fi Channel.

Examples:
Painkiller Jane. A woman valued for her lack of emotion & the ability to tolerate pain and who was sent out to attack people because they were different from the average human. Sci-Fi thought this was such an excellent series that they bought 22 episodes right off the bat. Viewers ran screaming.

Dresden Files. Connie Murphy – strong female lead with a challenging, dangerous job which she’s great at, has a child and friends, and who is tough yet not a _itch. An acutal well-rounded female character that is easy to like AND respect. The show had ratings comparable with Battlestar Galactica with female viewers having a slight majority over males. Not renewed, despite the increased female viewership, because Sci-Fi said it didn’t ‘expand their audience’ the way they wanted.

We can only hope that new president Mr. Howe will take a different track and realize that quality entertainment is what is needed and what both men AND women enjoy – whether it has spaceships or wizards.

Oh, and women should really speak out more and set the record straight on this perception of Ms. Hammer being the ’saviour’ of the Sci-Fe Channel!

My reason for this assumption is that I’m not patting Hammer and the Sci Fi gang on the back and saying, “Good job!” I’m calling them out on how their marketing strategy is alienating viewers, including women such as myself who enjoy science fiction.

Who wrote this article above? Lisa Fary. Hmm… Are you even in touch with what’s going on, or do you even watch the channel? Or did you just copy/paste some press blurb about Bonnie Hammer, because that is about as blatantly false as you could get up there.

Bonnie Hammer is the one that put ECW fake pro wrestling onto the Sci Fi channel! Where girls are depicted getting beat in the face. With baseball bats, by men. Bonnie Hammer is the one responsible for airing Wrestling, on the channel named for Sci Fi! In whichWomen are portrayed as sluts, and strippers, even one of the premiere episodes of the Wrestling show on Sci Fi channel was entitled STRIP TEASE. Another one was a table of silicone breasted women setting up a strip poker table in the middle of a wrestling ring.

Bonnie Hammer has cut and killed just about every quality science fiction program on that channel. Painkiller Jane, female lead…KILLED! The program is gone. Farscape, which had a strong female audience, and characters…Cancelled.

Stargate SG-1, which portrayed not a man, but a WOMAN, as the smartest and most intelligent and respected member on the entire show, killed under the tenure of Bonnie Hammer. Stargate SG-1 always strived to portray women strongly. Go note that it’s “DOCTOR Fraiser” not “nurse fraiser”. Stargate put women in positions of command. The commander of the entire Atlantis mission, in stargate atlantis is a woman! The character of Samantha Carter is portrayed with Respect. Also in position of Command now. Teyla, a woman, shown as a strong warrior! Yet Stargate does it in such a way that all of these people are never portrayed as a _____ (like in some other shows, it begins with b). And Stargate demonstrates that a woman can be BOTH strong, AND likeable, and be portrayed with honor.

Bonnie Hammer and Mark Stern cancelled it.

Stargate is NOT EVEN OWNED by the Sci Fi channel. Despite Sci fi channel trying to take credit for everything they get their fingers on, and putting that “Sci Fi original production” junk on it. Stargate is owned by MGM. And it has been the producers and writing team at Stargate that has championed the roles of women in science fiction. Sci Fi does not write, film, shoot, script, cast, hire the actors for any of it. Bonnie Hammer did NONE of that, though she likes to take credit for things. Or by omission, when some reporter from a newspaper sees “Sci Fi Original production” and believes that, and thinks oh, sci fi created stargate (or some other show here), not knowing that they did not create any of it, Stargate was on SHOWTIME for half a decade before it came and saved the Sci Fi channel from the cablers. And the reporter who is uninformed will think she or sci fi does it, interview Bonnie Hammer about it and she will fawn over the credit and simply let them go on with the false impression. Bonnie Hammer, at the helm of both USA and Sci Fi, and Mark Stern. These 2 people, and probably 1 or 2 more of their cronies, have been a veritable wrecking crew for science fiction, and for women.

Bonnie Hammer is the one that likewise pulled wrestling onto the USA channel, and so much of it, that no more would fit into USA’s programming schedule, that she started inserting more male dominated wrestling onto the sci fi channel.

Farscape was another brilliant show, loved by women, and had strong and interesting female characters in it. CUT by Mark Stern & Bonnie Hammer.

And instead, Mark Stern, with Bonnie Hammer’s ok stamp, has gone out, and populated the sci fi channel instead, with a veritable conveyor belt of low-quality, cheesy, b-movies, such as FrankenFish, a wooly mammoth that is also an alien that sucks your blood, corny cheap-home-computer-animated-Animal-attacks movies, then there are the snake movies, BOA, BOA versus PYTHON, ANACONDA, Cobra, Cobra versus Komodo, then the fish movies, SnakeHead Terror, FrankenFish, Hammerhead Shark Frenzy, Jaws (yes, she aired Jaws, didn’t you know, the shark in the 1970’s Jaws was from outer space?), PumpkinHead, Man-Thing, ManSquito….

Many of these, are so bad, that they are probably the impetus of a lot of the ridicule, sneers, and scoffs at all of you, thinking oh, jeez, you’re a sci fi fan?? pfffft. *rolls eyes* … because these movies are the impression, that millions upon millions of people in an entire nation, continent, and across the world have got now, due to Bonnie Hammer, and Mark Stern, of the sci fi channel.

It’s due to them airing so much, of that godawful garbage, that probably a lot of people out there in the world may think down upon you, for being a “sci fi” fan. Because that’s what is broadcast on there. And that is now the mental image of what “sci fi” is, to millions of people, who flip through and land on the channel that is the namesake of the genre.

Sci fi used to be cool, at the time of THE MATRIX. JURASSIC PARK. etc. Now, due to Bonnie Hammer and Mark Stern, the whole genre of sci fi is the laughing stock of the internet, and television.

Bonnie Hammer has turned the network into a mockery, and ruined just about every show that WAS enjoyed by women. And to add vinegar to the gash, she is the one that put horrible pro wrestling on there! 86% male demographic. Stargate for example, about 50-50. Stargate cancelled! ECW Wrestling RENEWED! And wrestling has been going on & on with 2 goons bickering being the entire show, for 28+ years! (Just not on a scifi channel! But nevertheless give it a rest. Two and a half times as old already than longest running sci fi show. And wrestling ratings on Sci fi are HORRIBLE. The Nielsen’s for wrestling on sci fi are a flop. 1.1, 1.0, 1.6, 1.2’s) So who on earth wrote that article above, that person seems like they did not even know what is going on in the broadcast television industry. Bonnie Hammer has now even been transferred AWAY from meddling in the sci fi channel, NBC pushed her back toward USA channel (NBC operates Bravo, USA, Sci fi, et al). Go check the “Letters to the editor” on sci fi channel…you will see innumerable complaints about this person, from both females and males.

There have even been petitions launched about Bonnie Hammer, to get her and her cohort Mark Stern off of there because they are ruining the entire genre.

Go view this:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?eulogy&1

You will see so many disappointed comments on there, and a huge number of females as you will see by the names:

Wendy Rosenblum: “This [sci fi] channel is a major disappointment, and I rarely watch it.”

Loraine B.: “Wrestling is not scifi. bring back the vintage SciFi.”

Valerie Mathis: “I miss the real Sci fi channel; what we have now is a sad joke played on us, the viewers!”

Ramona Jackson: “I am notifying Direct TV of my desire to drop the SciFi channel from my subscription. I do not wish to pay for something I no longer watch nor enjoy”

Linda Spooner: “…how can trippingtherift even get on the air? How can you allow that” [Note: TrippingTheRift is a show put on under the watch of Bonnie Hammer & Mark Stern, that shows animated depictions of women getting manhandled and nearly raped in it. This is shown in some places at 4pm just when (your) kids might come home from school.]

Debra Steinman: “Your programming [on Sci fi chanel] has gone down hill…worthy of the PLAYBOYCHANNEL but nothing else! And YOU’VE stopped listening to the fans”

Joanne Murphy: “I hardly watch this [Sci Fi] channel any more. iam sincerely disappointed with your offerings.”

Cheryl Rowland: “My sons are very disappointed”

Akis Katsimenis: “Bonnie Hammer must go NOW!!!”

Christine Ciraolo: “fire her! bring back scifi.”

Joan Kearney: “I see more sci fi on Fox! Changes need to be made.”

Rhonda Keller: “We want Sci fi back, like SG1, not some of the lame things on now!!!”

Julie Hunkar: “Except for Farscape reruns, and Stargate, we don’t watch the Scifi channel anymore! the Horror channel as I like to call it.”

Holly Hine: “…I’M DROPPING THE CHANNEL”

Michele Y Hosack: “I almost never watch this [Sci fi] channel anymore. … the programming and marketing have become so poor that it has driven people away…”

Melda A. Tripp: “Science Fiction is not…”Field of Dreams” [Sci Fi aired that] nor Cape Fear! [horror movie with robert de niro]…You all definitly have a problem. it is called lackof good judgement. Please listen to the fans. We are bright,educated, and intelligent! Please treat us this way!”

Betty Phipps: “It would be nice to have a channel that lived up to its name.”

Kelly Hora: “the current management is destroying the sci fi channel”

Dorothy Crater: “Sci Fi channel used to be more focused-I love Lexx and really was saddened to hear it had gone off the air. Where have all the classical sci fi fantasy gone?”

Robbie Cohen: “As a person who owns a film production business in Australia, I am appalled at the way some of these executives blatantly ignore and disregard the community..”

Roberta a Krencik: “I want my old sci fi channel back”

Lorrie Calvin: “Sci fi means science ficition, not horror shows!”

Kimberly Graesser: “Since the cancellation of Farscape, I have no need to watch the Sci Fi channel, due to the poor programming. I will also be boycotting the sponsors until some change is made.”

Irene Senkoff: “How can the president of the Sci-Fi Channel [Bonnie Hammer] be so bloody dense. The things she is putting on that station make me physically ill. Do NOT allow her to continue as president of a channel with such promise. She is giving science fiction a bad name.”

Ok? Now whoever plopped that blurb up top about Bonnie Hammer, is not in touch with the entire viewing audience. More like a Fary tale. Because Bonnie Hammer, along with cohort Mark Stern, have single handedly been ruining the genre of sci fi, especially for women.

Bonnie Hammer has done for sci fi and women, what Michael Jackson’s nose has done for rhinoplasty.

Made it into a horrible abomination and sickening laughing stock of the entire planet.

Oooooh what a mock! But alas, a bit true.

Do you think the competition is just more fierce these days? I mean, lots of network channels have got sci-fi/fantasy down (Lost, Pushing Daises, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Bionic Woman, Heroes, Chuck, etc) so people don’t have to turn to the Sci-Fi Channel to get their dose of sci-fi.

I only watch two things on the Sci-Fi Channel myself, Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica.

I read on a comment thread somewhere that the Sci Fi Channel is to sci fi what MTV is to music.