May the Fourth be with you. #BEMN

Ahhh, Sci-fi such an easy subject for me to write about. It's a genre that's alway caught my attention, my favourite cartoon when young was Ulysses 31, Star Wars was still a great set of films then, E.T. was my first film at the cinema, I was brought up in the 80's generation that spawned so many great films but growing up as a woman, there was something that made me more interested in the sci-fi genre. In it women could be strong, as a teenager in the 90's films and TV in general was quite crappy and mostly showed women as people to be rescued, dressed up funky and hoping to become fashion designers. 

In 1987 Star Trek:TNG aired it took longer to get to the UK but a small group of girls in my class became hooked, not just because it was unlike Neighbours/Home&Away/Blue Peter etc but because it had strong woman role models, that were treated as equals not just window dressing.

After that for me came The X Files, with the 2 most beautiful people on TV at the time, great stories and yet again another strong character in Scully.

Then of course the iconic Buffy The Vampire Slayer, a show with more kick ass females than ever in a show, she was aged close to me and her troubles with family and friendships were similar to any normal girl, aside from killing vampires part. Buffy however led me to my greatest sci-fi love Joss Whedon. 

I have loved everything he's ever produced/written Buffy, Angel, Dollshouse, Firefly, Toy Story(oh yes), Dr.Horribles Blog, The Avengers, Agents of Shield, Cabin in the Woods and many more. 

Oh I do go on, and why bother about my watching habits anyway, because what we watch, read and listen to becomes part of us and part of our society. Just the fact we have a whole day put aside to celebrate a 

sci-fi film proves that. 

More importantly to me now is my children are picking up on this influencing factor, probably more that I ever did as technology makes it so easy. I'll openly admit to steering them towards a love of sci-fi, with no gender bias, it asks the big questions while making you laugh at humanity. For me there is nothing better than seeing my little girl dress as Iron Man and little boy tell me he's playing as Black Widow today, because to me it shows they know they can be and do anything and nothing in the gorram 'Verse will stop them.