J Gabriel Gates’ upcoming novel Blood Zero Sky has been picking up some steam since our review last month.  The book was recently featured in Shelf Awareness Pro’s “Author Buzz.”  Recently Gates took the time to sit down and answer a few questions for us..

Blind Scribblings and Incoherent Grunts:  What was your inspiration for Blood Zero Sky?

J. Gabriel Gates: Basically, I was seeing a lot of insidious things going on in the world and I wanted to express how I felt about them, and get other people thinking about them, too. In the U.S., we’ve seen a basic shift from a more or less democratic government toward blatant oligarchy, a fact that is proven by the massive and ever-increasing income gap.  Obviously, despite what the politicians say, the fact is that the government does not have the best interest of most people in mind. I think a lot of this has to do with the power of corporations.  As I point out in the book, the purpose of a corporation is to amass as much market share and as much capital as it possibly can—and that’s fine.  That’s what corporations should be doing; it’s their nature.  The problem is when we these corporations amass so much political power that they become kingmakers and policy makers for the state.  What we’re seeing now is the result of having the moral decisions of a nation made by entities and organizations whose only consideration is greed.  There is a fundamental conflict there, and we as a nation and a world need to get started on rectifying it.

BSIG: You first wrote Blood Zero Sky in 2005. How long did it take you to write?  Have you made any major changes in the story in the seven years that have passed?

JGG: It only took around six months to write the initial draft, but I did numerous revisions of it in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and a final revision late last year (2011) to prepare it for publication.  The main thrust of the story remained the same throughout all the drafts, but I spent most of the earlier drafts refining the plot and making sure that I was clearly expressing what I wanted to say philosophically.  The most recent draft was mostly a reflection of the changes that had happened in the world between the book’s first draft and the present. My intent was always to set the book in the near future, using technology that either already existed or was on the cusp of being feasible, so in the latest draft I had to modernize the technology a bit to keep pace with actual advances.  I also tweaked the story of how the Company’s consolidation came about to reflect the actual changes that have happened in our world lately that, in my view, have brought us much closer to the world depicted in the book.

BSIG: What was your writing process for this book?

JGG: Well, I wrote the first draft from beginning to end in about six months, then I revised it.  I was living in Hollywood at the time, and I had some connections in the film world who were interested in shopping around a screenplay version of the book, so I wrote a screenplay.  It got shopped around Hollywood.  One major Hollywood agent felt it was “too hyperbolic” (Ha!  I wonder what he’d think now?  Probably that it’s too close to the truth.)  There were other interested parties, but the writer’s guild strike hit at that time, and script sales ceased, so the opportunities fizzled.  But I got some good plot ideas from working on the screenplay, and used them to do a new revision of the book.  I got the manuscript into the hands of a major agent, then, who declared that “dystopian fiction wasn’t hot” at the moment, and passed.  So the manuscript sat on a shelf before my visionary friends at HCI Books came along and loved it.  I did one more revision, and well, the book’s destiny will be in the hands of readers from here on out.

BSIG: Where did your idea for the Protectorate come from?

JGG: The book depicts a new revolutionary war in America, so as I set about writing it I did some research about the original American Revolution. As much as the names of our founding fathers get bandied about constantly by supporters of this or that cause, (often by the far, far right!) the fact is that many of them were truly extraordinary people, warrior-farmer-philosophers who literally risked everything they had, including their lives, in a bid to form the most egalitarian, most free country that the world had ever seen.  It’s impossible not to read their words and learn their stories and not be filled with a yearning to see men like them running the country once more.  In the book, the Protectorate is a secret fourth branch of government created by George Washington to lie in wait and rise up in the event that America’s democracy was ever threatened.  It was my way of bottling the transcendent wisdom and strength of character of our nation’s founders and injecting it into our not-too-distant future.

BSIG: In Blood Zero Sky, May is a lesbian.  What lead you to that choice?

JGG:  Not too long before I started work on Blood Zero Sky, I read a wonderful book called Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. It tells the tale of a male-identified lesbian trying to live and make ends meet in the 1950s and 60s, amid all sorts of terrible discrimination.  The story and the character really affected me, and when I sat down to write Blood Zero Sky, I realized that the main character in my story would have to have that same extraordinary strength in the face of a world that was seemingly so full of promise, but also held so much potential for hatred and destruction. And so May Fields was born.

BSIG: What lead you to choose the corporation names that you selected?

JGG: Ha! The fear of a lawsuit!  Truthfully though, I wanted to use the names of real corporations to give the story a feeling of gravitas and an air of reality without demonizing any particular company, even one that might be considered an “evil corporation,” so I picked companies who most people tend to consider fairly benign: Nabisco and Briggs & Stratton.  My objective was to criticize the corporate system, not to bring attention to any corporation in particular.

BSIG: So many dystopias eliminate religion.  Why did you embrace it as a tool and element of the story?

JGG: Because I’m pissed off.  In addition to being fairly politically liberal, as your readers may have noticed, I am also a Christian of great faith.  I’m absolutely fed up with people wrapping their virulent hate speech and their unapologetic greed in the trappings of Christianity.  This I shall proclaim from the rooftops: judging others and being greedy are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ.  And using His name as an excuse for one’s selfish proclivities is worse than that.  For quite a while, it was hard for me to proudly tell others that I was of a Christian, because this beautifully, loving philosophy and way of life has been co-opted by far too many pretenders and fanatics to the point where, for many people, the name of God has become synonymous with hypocrisy.  This farce will not stand, and I intend to do my part to take the name of Christ back from those who use it falsely.

BSIG: Will you ever revisit the world created in the book?
JGG: It’s possible, but not likely.  At this point, I feel like I’ve said what I have to say about this world.  I do have another idea for a story that could take place about 20 years later or so, however, and it’s possible that I might decide to set it in the world of Blood Zero Sky.  We shall see…

Blood Zero Sky is out in October from HCI Books.

Upcoming Fall TV Schedule Part 1: Repeat Offenders

Grimm – August 13th

The first of the new TV season out of the gate and here comes a show, that within the first ten minutes has already seemingly evolved and grown up from last year. The cast seem more confident. We also get a huge burst of mythology, more than the previous 20 episodes. I know a lot of people became disenchanted with Grimm but I would absolutely urge anyone to give it another try as you will be rewarded. There are a lot of answers in the premiere but even more questions are thrown up.

This is crazy, and you gave up on me already, but I’m back so watch me again maybe?

Doctor Who – September ?

With no official air-date confirmed for either the UK or US (Should be September 1st) and a very long time away from our screens, for many this will be the most eagerly awaited return. There are only five episodes (six including the Christmas Special introducing the new companion Clara). We will see the last of the Ponds. And knowing Doctor Who, their departure will likely be dramatic and bring about a tear or two.

There’s a lot to look forward to before that happens, “Asylum Of The Daleks” looks to be a classic in the making. While with “Dinosaurs On A Spaceship”, the title tells you there’s fun to be had there. And there is the wild-west-set “A Town Called Mercy” guest-staring genre favourite Ben Browder, the next two episodes are something of a mystery. The finale will feature the return of the Weeping Angels in Manhattan.

This season we say goodbye to TV’s favorite ginger

Bones – September 17th

After last season, there was a lot of changes on Bones, finally getting Brennan and Booth together really seemed to make everything seem fresh again. The plots were better and they established a truly diabolical villain that the entire team of squints were unable to defeat. He will be back to plague them again this season.

We last saw Brennan on the run, with Booth left standing not knowing what was going on. While I’m sure that will be resolved fairly early on in the first few episodes, the impact of her decision will be far reaching in their relationship. Several episodes that were pushed back from last season are to be re-edited and included this time around. I hope they can match the quality of last year.

Fans enjoyed the season finale.

How I Met Your Mother – September 24th

This might be the last season, it’s all up in the air right now. Jason Segel’s film career has exploded and he seems to be in everything. Which is good because he is fantastic and fun actor, but the show cannot go without him. If he leaves, the show must end. There’s a lot of ground to cover though. We know now that Robin and Barney get married, and their engagement will occur in the latter half of season 8. But they have to get there first and it has to seem believable. Ted has to meet the ‘mother’ of this story, it certainly isn’t Victoria who he drove off into the sunset with in the season 7 finale. Ted will have second thoughts about that and turn the car around. Can the show really deliver on all of the flash-forwards and hints from over the years if the end is in sight? It’s important to remember, the story isn’t about Ted’s relationship with this mystery woman, it is all about how he met her.

…then I bumped into your mother in the waiting room and married her the next day. The end.

Person Of Interest – September 27th

This was my favourite new show last year by a mile. If for some reason you missed it, find it and watch it as soon as possible. Person Of Interest brings the highest calibre of action drama currently on television, each episode feels like a mini movie much like 24 used to. With last year ending on a massive cliffhanger, with Finch kidnapped and his mysterious machine seemingly communicating directly with Reese, and an excellent list of guest stars lined up, this new season should be as good, if not better than the first.

Is this a flash forward? How do they get to the island?

The Big Bang Theory – September 27th

The last season of TBBT was an important one. After a rocky fourth season, they finally found a way to include Bernadette and Amy fully into the show without it feeling awkward and forced. With Leonard and Penny rekindling their relationship, and Sheldon too making leaps forward with Amy (his holding her hand when Howard went into space was so sweet) it could prove to a deciding season to where it goes in the future. Suffice to say TBBT will be on for a few more years with its fantastic ratings and awards.

The final countdown

Dexter – September 30th

The first four seasons of Dexter were the absolute definition of must watch TV but the two seasons that followed just didn’t live up to what had gone before. Everything seemed sadly lacking. But the season six finale may have given the show a real boost, with Deb catching Dexter in the act. The recent trailers have shown a lot of what happens immediately afterwards, and the writers have a clear plan for the next two years (even if the network seem intent on forcing it to a ninth season) so we have to hope this new dynamic will breathe life back into Dexter.

Deb learns Dexter’s shocking secret, that he is a little metrosexual

Supernatural – October 3rd

This is it. Make or break time. I’ve written a lot about Supernatural in the past and it being a prime case of show being dragged out until there was nothing left, but I’m still watching the weekly exploits of the Winchester boys. I’ve seen some spoilers for this season, and while I’m happy about Mark Sheppard’s Crowley featuring heavily in the villain role. The rest of the arc plot seems somewhat lacklustre. I hope the new show-runner manages to inject some of the old fun and horror back into the show. If he can’t, it might be the last season.

The editor has never watched this show. Let’s just pretend I added a fitting and witty caption.

Community – October 19th

Dan Harmon might be gone but the old adage is in force here; the show must go on. Understandably a lot of fans are upset about his departure but it is worth remembering, he didn’t write every single episode and the show has a talented team of writers. All of the cast are returning and the show’s energy comes from them, we will see what changes, if any, come. It might be that the show is no different and we don’t miss Harmon at all. However, I suspect this won’t be the case, he fought hard for the show behind the scenes and it barely scraped through to this fourth season.

One big, happy family (now with 100% less Dan Harmon!)

Californication – January

We last left Hank Moody in a dangerous place, drugged by his psychotic ex and passing out to oblivion. I always look forward to this show, every time Hank starts to get things together something invariably comes along and destroys it. He’s usually the cause but not so much this time, still he was on probation and could end up in a lot of trouble depending on how everything turns out. There’s a lot of new characters coming this season and from all accounts it’s going to be another great year for a show that hasn’t had a dip in quality, ever, which is a rare thing.

Will the new season feature Hank Moody sleeping with Scully? That’s what we really want to know.

A breakdown of some of the new shows hitting our screens will be coming soon!

Last week in the midst of a nice lull, in an otherwise unpredictable day, the new coworker I was helping train turned to me and asked if I have a zombie survival/escape plan.  As a nerk (that’s geek and nerd all in one) this question is not completely weird to me.  As a victim’s advocate in a social work setting that often crosses over into mental health, however, this was completely out there.  After all, people who talk with great earnestness about such plans are sometimes considered to have gone over to the looney side of toons.  Why would my normal-seeming, mostly un-nerk-like coworker be asking me such a question?  That it might be a clever ploy to judge my sanity and stability did cross my mind, but I answered in the affirmative just the same–and asked why she wanted to know.  Turns out her boyfriend has one and she, by proxy, has one as well.  A fluke, right?  A few days later I asked my brother if he had a zombie plan.  My brother is something of a litmus test for me.  He’s into things just far enough to be culturally aware, but not so deeply into anything to be considered a fanboy, geek, or nerd.  He likes what he likes, follows what he follows, and doesn’t even have an internet connection in his house.  If he says “I have a zombie plan” then I can be pretty sure that zombies have gone fully mainstream.  Guess what?  He has a plan.  A damn good one, actually.

Did Shaun of the Dead help popularize zombie preparation?

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow nerks, our zombie survival/escape plans will no longer work.  There are too many noobs involved.  The undead have gone mainstream.

Okay, so maybe some of our plans will still work.  I’m pretty sure some of the folks I have seen on Doomsday Preppers will be just fine when the zombies come.  I also don’t discount my own plan that involves a hockey stick, numerous cans of hairspray, a lighter and a Cessna.  However what I loved about the idea of zombie plans was that they spoke to a particular part of the population.  It was unifying.  As someone who has never been able to do things quite as awesomely as the “cool kids” the idea that I rocked out with something that didn’t require me to be cool but still put me in good company was really heartening.  There were others like me who were just slightly fringey, but nothing extreme.  You’re not likely to see me on television with a bunker full of food and weaponry but at the same time my readiness is equally useful for natural disaster as it is for zombie invasion.  Not to mention it’s kind of fun which is a key component in why the idea of zombies and plans to escape them have become so common.  Once relegated to the realm of horror movie buffs and nerks like me zombies are a part of the mass entertainment machine.  I believe that it largely began with Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake of George A. Romero’s cult classic Dawn of the Dead.  I loved both films having seen the original when I was younger and the remake when it first came out.  Other people enjoyed Snyder’s version as well, which was somewhat surprising to me given that it’s  um, zombies and gore.  It ended up being one of the very few zombie films to make over $100 million internationally.  Shaun of the Dead soon followed with more Romero-style zombies (slower than Snyder’s speedy-creepy monsters) and lots of laughs.  I know that in my case that film made me more interested in the 2003 book Zombie Survival Guide and from there zombies have just been popping up all over the place.

Movies, television, comic books…zombies are everywhere and even in the non-fiction real-life world, too.  Remember the guy in Florida that attacked and chewed some other guy’s face off?  They reported that the guy was high on bath salts, but it was also touted as a zombie attack.  It also wasn’t the only “zombie” story to hit the news this year.  A woman in Texas is accused of killing and then eating the brains of her small child.  A man in Maryland is accused of killing and eating his roommate.  They’re calling him a zombie, too.  There is apparently even an Ace Hardware store in Nebraska with a “Zombie Preparedness Center” in store, though it is more about how to survive as a zombie than how to defeat them.  It really is all a little bit crazy, I guess, but maybe it’s as an article on Huffington Post suggests: we live in bleak times so we have gravitated towards images of struggle and doom.  If that is the case then having survival plans is really just a way of giving ourselves hope in uncertainty while being a little less serious than an actual doomsday plan.  Planning, tongue-in-cheek, for a zombie attack is more socially acceptable than moving to Montana and building a bunker capable of withstanding a nuclear end of days.  It’s like being part of a pop-culture joke.  It gives, perhaps, a sense of community and belonging.

Zombie Strippers was set in Nebraska. And we have a hardware store preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Coincidence? I think not.

Kind of like it did for me and my fellow nerks when I made my plan before it was vogue.  Huh.  Maybe there aren’t too many noobs involved after all.  Maybe my plan will still work when the dead decide to come running and/or shambling after me looking for my sweet, sweet brains.  After all, there will be a lot more of us with plans and just maybe that sense of community will allow us to team up and save civilization.  That’s kind of a nice thought.  I might even be willing to share some of my hairspray torches.

…but you’re all on your own for the Robopocalypse.  That plan is mine-all-mine.

Warner Brothers is at least considering Ben Affleck to direct their Justice League movie. Deadline is denying the story, but frankly they’re not as trustworthy as Variety. And while the internet has responded with some typical Affleck-backlash that the same guy who once starred in Gigli is going to direct such a key project. I’m here both to simultaneously defend this decision and offer up 6 more suggestions on directors.

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck as (George Reeves as) Superman

First off, I do believe the Variety story. Affleck doesn’t have the job currently, but they have sent him the script and they’re at least entertaining the notion of hiring him. It isn’t unusual for studios to ask a few people for their takes on a project before hiring someone and moving forward. Warner Brothers only has so many big directors they’ve been working with that they can go to. This is a studio that handed their Terminator franchise to McG and hasn’t had many successful blockbusters outside of Harry Potter in a long time. If you go down the list of directors they have deals with, Ben Affleck sounds much better than many of the alternatives.

And for all the hate, Affleck did a great job directing Gone Baby Gone and The Town. Rumors are that his Argo shoot are going well. Even if he has a few bad acting roles on his resume, lets not forget that he won an Oscar for co-writing Good Will Hunting.

It isn’t clear if he would act or not. In theory, he could take a Justice League hero of his choice and start with a stand-alone movie for that hero leading into his Justice League project. And while he has proven that he can direct himself reasonably well, I think that would be a mistake on a large ensemble film. Assuming he did act however, he is a better actor than he gets credit for. He delivered strong turns in The Town, Hollywoodland. Chasing Amy, Changing Lanes, The Sum of All Fears, School Ties, etc.

But here in alphabetical order, are six more realistic choices.

Brad Bird on the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol set

Brad Bird

He’s already directed a truly fantastic superhero film in The Incredibles and another geek-classic in Iron Giant. He made a name for himself with The Simpsons, but has demonstrated his range over the years. He proved he can transition from animation to live action with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which might be the best entry in the series. He has proven he can handle effects, action sequences and drama. In this list, I’ve tried to avoid any directors I know are under contract at another studio (such as Spielberg). As it turns out, Brad Bird is currently working with Warner Brothers to develop his next project. So they already have him in house.

Neill Blomkamp

Neill Blomkamp giving direction on District 9

Blomkamp has a strong effects background and has produced some great shorts. What should make Warner Brothers very happy is noting that he also knows how to produce effects on a budget. While James Cameron was spending $280 million making Avatar, Blomkamp was telling a fairly similar story with District 9 for $40 million. Peter Jackson thinks the world of him, and at one point he was going to direct Halo, except the studio wouldn’t give Microsoft the control they wanted. He is a very strong director from a technical prespective.

There might be some concerns that he has a short resume, or that he hasn’t worked with a large, ensemble cast. But he did work on Smallville, so he may have some familiarity with the source material.

Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle filming 127 Hours

This suggestion might come as a surprise to some. Boyle is best known for low-budget dramas such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours and Trainspotting. However, Boyle has worked in just about every genre imaginable and is consistently solid as a director. If you’re handing a key blockbuster project to someone, there is something to be said with picking a safe director rather than risking a massive flop.

Boyle doesn’t have one distinct visual style can likely merge and continue the work of any DC comic films that lead into Justice League. That doesn’t mean he is a weak visual director. The Beach and Sunshine are both great looking movies (even if the ending for Sunshine is a massive disappointment compared to the first two acts). And like Blomkamp, he is capable of producing a great looking movie on a budget. Boyle gets great performances from his actors and there is a reason he was trusted with directing the London Olympics opening ceremonies.

Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro making Hellboy

Guillermo del Toro was initially hand-picked by Peter Jackson to direct The Hobbit. He is a capable director with strong technical skills who makes great looking movies. Of all the directors on the list, he has perhaps the best creative vision. While Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy was hyper-realistic and The Avengers had a clean aesthetic that carried over from Jon Favreau’s work on Iron Man, I think Warner Brothers has an opportunity to differentiate Justice League; it could use a dash of the quixotic.

He is also known to love comic books and delivered two very good Hellboy movies. The problem with finding great directors for huge blockbusters is that their success now has them tied up with several projects. For whatever reason, he hasn’t really had the mammoth blockbuster success yet. Since The Hobbit fell through, and At The Mountains of Madness is now dead, del Toro’s talents are mostly free. Someone should grab him while they can. I suspect after Pacific Rim drops, he will become a more expensive and popular commodity in Hollywood.

George Miller

George Miller doing motion capture work

George Miller is such a great choice for a Justice League movie that Warner Brothers hired him to make one. Like Boyle, he has a very varied resume. He brought us both Mad Max and Happy Feet. There are a couple reasons his movie never happened. Superman Returns didn’t perform as well as expected. Batman Begins exceeded expectations, but they weren’t going to get Christian Bale for the Justice League movie (which may have backfired). The Writer’s Guild strike happened. Financing fell through down in Australia. And in the end, Warner Brothers wasn’t comfortable spending $200 million making the movie.

However, the people who read the script all raved about it. Miller was passionate about the project. With advances in effects, it is possible Miller could revisit his project and make the movie for less than $200 million today, though that budget wouldn’t be unreasonable now. The Avengers had a $220 million budget. Again, Warner Brothers doesn’t have a lot of blockbuster franchises today. My only concern would be whether or not the script everyone loved would work with the upcoming Superman reboot, or if they’d have to refactor it.

Steven Soderbergh

Yes, I seriously suggested the director of Magic Mike

He just directed a movie about male strippers and is moving on to a Liberace biopic. Clearly, he is the obvious choice.

Like many of the suggestions above, Soderbergh has a very diverse resume. He is a strong visual director, elicits great performances from his cast and doesn’t force one visual style on his movies. He also happens to be one of the best all-around directors working today. He has handled action with The Limey (with General Zod no less) and Haywire.

Perhaps most importantly, what made Joss Whedon such a fantastic choice for The Avengers was his ability to handle a large cast (from his TV background) and balance it well. Soderbergh did an amazing job handling multiple screen-chewing stars in Oceans Eleven. Even if the script suffered in sequels, Soderbergh knows how to handle an ensemble cast.

The South always gets such a bad wrap in entertainment. It specifically gets a bad wrap on television and reality television is the worst offender. I knew this when I sat down to watch TLC’s latest disaster of a television show, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.  I’m a proud Southern girl, but even I didn’t expect this mess.

In case you haven’t heard of Alana “Honey Boo Boo Child” Thompson here is a quick overview: she appeared on one of TLC’s other disaster shows (Toddlers and Tiaras) and quickly became a viral favorite because of her flamboyant personality and low class/redneck family. As the Washington Post noted in a recent article, Alana speaks and gesticulates in a fashion comparable to stereotypically attributed to African American women. The Post considers that it could be an interesting form of latent racism, but her whole family has some of those qualities. Her mother in particular demonstrates some of the same patterns of behavior. Her mother is also an “extreme couponer” which also cross-categories with TLC’s programing base, but is also telling of the family’s socioeconomic status. We only get a brief look at the Thompsons in Toddlers and Tiaras. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo brings it all into sharp focus.

The Honey Boo Boo Family

TLC graced us with a whole night of Honey Boo Boo Child, first with two episodes of her show and then with an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras focusing on a Georgia-specific pageant in which Alana is featured prominently. It was cringe-worthy, horrified awe-inspiring and while watching it I couldn’t help but feel like I am what’s wrong with America because I was completely transfixed. In the first episode we are reacquainted with Alana and introduced to the rest of her family. In glorious Southern tradition everyone has a nickname. Dad Mike is known as “Sugar Bear.” Then we have “Mama June” and Alana’s three older sisters: Pumpkin, Chickadee and Chubbs. I swear I don’t even think we found out their real names, just that Chickadee is seventeen, in her third trimester, and everyone’s so darn proud of her for staying in school (despite the fact that, during the ultrasound, Chickadee had no idea what an abdomen was.) We are also, over the course of the evening, introduced to the Thompson’s life. Rural Georgia is no joke, but the Thompson’s situation is sobering even from an insider-outsider’s perspective. The family lives in a small house that is quite literally right by the railroad tracks (they run through the backyard mere feet from the house.) The home appears sparsely furnished and doesn’t have a working shower. Mama June explains that they’ve always washed their hair in the kitchen sink because bathtub water is dirty and she emphasizes that taking care of oneself is important. They shop at a local retail auction each week to save money, buying a mix of what appears to be discarded retail items and a strange conglomeration of low-quality junk food. The local sheriff calls the family at one point to collect the carcass of a deer that was hit by a car so they can utilize the meat. Sugar Bear is the lone breadwinner working seven days a week mining chalk. Everyone else seems devoted to Alana’s pageants, even the “gay uncle” Alana calls Poodle.

The family goes through various daily adventures in the shows. They go to a redneck festival in one, they hire an etiquette coach, they take Alana to a pageant, and they get a pig as a pet. Each adventure is highlighted with the family’s absolute lack of social appropriateness (there is a lot of farting and more than a passing reference to scratching fleas) but more importantly Alana’s antics. The child is out of control (in a funny way) with her snappy comments, witty comebacks and boundless energy. She’s the star, both in her own mind and in the focus of the show. Yet for all her exuberance there is something very sad about her. She’s a little girl screaming for attention and acceptance. For as much as the family showcases just being themselves they are also struggling to make Alana like all the other pageant girls. They are trying get her accepted in that warped version of what society considers beautiful and acceptable. When, after failing to take a supreme title in yet another pageant, Alana bursts into tears. We see the weight on her tiny, chubby shoulders. The money a supreme title brings would have helped her family, a situation not lost on Alana. We also see her struggle to validate herself as she reminds the viewer that, win or lose, “you’re still good.”

Her “gogo juice” appears to be Red Bull in Mountain Dew

Toddlers and Tiaras toes the line of child abuse and exploitation, but Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is devastating in its own way. It exploits Alana and her family in a way that is vastly different. The clips and interviews in the show are framed in such a way that the producers are deliberately making fun of the family’s cultural backwardness. Any other show would have footage of the family matriarch farting, loudly, on camera edited out, but TLC instead glorifies the moment by using it in the show’s opening credits. Alana, too, is framed in a fashion that presents her as being there only for our entertainment: a loveable mockery with no hope of ever being anything but “white trash” like the rest of her family despite their best efforts. We see her set up for the same track as her family: overweight, undereducated, unrefined, and resplendent in ignorance. This framing sets us up as viewers to laugh at them, to mock them, and in fact makes it culturally acceptable to do so. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of people who have come up to me since the show premiered last night to say something to the effect of “oh my god did you see that Honey Boo Boo mess?” People want to talk about the show, but nothing they have to say is positive. The Thompsons and their life is becoming a laughing stock. It further reinforces the idea that there are only two kinds of people in the South, the endangered Old Guard and the stupid, redneck White Trash. It makes us further marginalize people and that is wrong.

I have no doubt that this show will ultimately benefit the family. TLC is likely paying them a decent bit of money to participate and any financial gain will no doubt improve the family’s quality of life (especially as they add in Chickadee’s new daughter.) In fact, good on them for putting themselves out there just as they are with no shame. It takes a special kind of pride. What worries me, though, is the cultural impact. When we glorify this sort of thing without some sort of commentary and without some sort of dialogue of understanding all we are doing is promoting irresponsibility. We’re also lowering our own standards and ultimately keeping a subsection of the population “in its place”. This does none of us any favors.

Once upon a time TLC was The Learning Channel. NASA was involved in getting it up and running. It was designed to provide actual education through television, making higher level information more accessible to the masses. It was meant to benefit society. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is still educational, but I’m not sure it’s the kind of education we want or need. I’d like to think we’re smarter than this.

When our Hollywood protagonist needs to access a secure system, they are able to use deductive reasoning to magically guess any password they need. With a little logic supposedly you can figure out exactly what password anyone is using in a given moment. And while some people choose poor passwords (the type an idiot might have on their luggage). The good news is that is a bullshit trope. Hollywood is notorious for really terrible representations of hacking and technology. People can’t magically guess your password. The bad news is that they don’t have to.

We live in a world where teenagers (who didn’t require any technical acumen) were able to “hack” Sarah Palin’s email, and the White House Twitter feed. “Script kiddies” with a little technical acumen were able to hack LinkedIn, Sony, Citigroup and others. (In Sony’s case, several of their websites were hacked with very basic SQL injection techniques while the Playstation Network involved physical access to the datacenter).

In the 21st century, technology moves faster than our comprehension for it. Exceedingly profitably companies like Apple make billions finding ways to try and make technology more accessible. In turn, hundreds of millions of consumers feel comfortable integrating technology in their lives that they don’t understand. We choose to trust companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. with our personal data, but more importantly, our digital lives. As we stand on the precipice of ubiquitous adoption of cloud computing, the biggest problem isn’t that we can’t trust those companies with our most precious personal data. It is that those companies are merely gatekeepers to our digital lives, and in most cases, that gate can be bypassed with a simple password reset.

The greatest advantage of cloud computing is the notion that your data is forever safe. The hard drive in your computer has an expiration date. At some point it will die and take all its precious data with it. But if I store my pictures, music, email, movies, and musings in the cloud, then they will always live another day (even if laptop were submerged in liquid nitrogen and then destroyed). And yet it was specifically because Mat Honan used cloud services that hackers were able to remotely wipe his phone, laptop, Google account, and all the photos of his daughter.

Teenagers accidentally hacking NORAD in Wargames. Today they do it intentionally for “lulz”

Even more terrifying is what those hackers could have done. Once they had access to his email, they could have performed password resets for his credit card accounts and used social engineering to target all the high profile technologists in his address book. The technique to destroy his digital life is trivial. Apple and Amazon are both changing policies that allowed his accounts to be so easily hacked, but in the end, passwords have utterly failed us.

Sadly, many of our policies that we believe increase security (making complex, hard to remember passwords and enforcing that we change them frequently) hurt more than they help. This encourages people to write down passwords, or use passwords that can be determined via social engineering. And for what it is worth, long passwords that are easy to remember are more secure than short passwords, but most systems I’ve seen limit max password length foolishly.

Mixing different characters is trivial for brute force attacks where last year’s technology could crack an 8 character case-sensitive password in 2 hours. If there was a valuable target, you can assemble a temporary super computer via Amazon’s cloud offering to greatly reduce that time. The linked article mentions the super computer could be used for cancer research, but it could likewise be used for nefarious purposes.

Ideally, someone shouldn’t be able to attempt password guesses repeatedly with brute force attacks. But not every system follows best practices, and in the end you’re only as secure as your weakest link. We can try to improve the situation. Google Chrome could offer a feature in their browser to generate a random, difficult password unique to each website or service you use, and store these passwords in a password locker. You then use one password to open the locker, but if that one password is compromised you lose everything. And it doesn’t address the root problem of password resets.

So long as passwords can be reset with commonly accessed knowledge, passwords are inherently insecure. And since so many millions of username/password combinations have been leaked online in the past year, there is a good chance someone can access your accounts without even needing to do a password reset.

Oddly enough, the rise of cloud computing can be both the problem and solution. More and more people have smartphones, and thusly an always connected device. Your phone can be used for what people currently call two-factor authentication, though it arguably isn’t. Google currently supports this if you enable it. You have to type in a password, and a code that is sent to your phone. The problem is that if someone steals your phone, they’ll have access to your email (to do password resets, and your actual phone). This would prevent hackers from remotely accessing your account, or someone trying to access several accounts if they don’t possess the physical phone.

But perhaps the ideal solution is a true two-factor authentication of using biometrics (such as a finger print) on our phones. Either way, we need to move away from passwords.

I read a lot. It’s my first and favorite hobby, but I love sharing what I read almost as much as I enjoy the act of getting lost in a book or an article. When I was a kid I used to come up and try to share the new knowledge I would get from my readings. Inevitably my mother would be the ultimate killjoy and tell me “you can’t believe everything you read.” This infuriated me. Of course I could believe everything I read! Writers have a higher calling! They are honor bound to write only awesome nuggets of truthfulness and perfection. Even bad writers have to tell the truth! To show her I decided that I was going to be a writer and a journalist. Then she’d have to believe everything she read because I would be like every other writer in the world and held to that higher standard.

Not everything on the internet is real

I’m going to say it now and just this once: Mom, you were right. I can’t trust everything I read. Why? Because writers lie. Last week Jonah Lehrer, staff writer for the New Yorker and all around wunderkind (dude’s a Rhode’s scholar, a neuroscientist, a successful writer and he’s only thirty-freaking-one) resigned. Why? Because someone busted him for making crap up in his latest book, specifically fake Bob Dylan quotes, but that’s not even the worst part. Lehrer has lied before by plagiarizing his own work. Suddenly it doesn’t matter that he’s a brilliant guy. Now he’s just the liar and he’s not alone. Literary lies span all branches of writing. Remember Jayson Blair? Maybe not, but in 2003 he resigned from the New York Times for plagiarizing other people, making up quotes, and flat-out lying about things he was reporting on. He also mislead people about graduating from college in order to get his job with the Times. Stephen Glass went to even more drastic measures, going so far as to create fake organizations with business cards and websites for his fabricated work for NPR. Kaavya Viswanathan ripped off another author’s novels. And James Frey is still somewhat notorious for being outed by Oprah for outright lying in his “memoir”. Liars, liars, pants on fires all of them.

Hayden Christensen in Shattered Glass. He didn’t always whine like a Skywalker.

Why lie? Jayson Blair empathizes with Lehrer in an article for The Daily Beast, suggesting that it is success that forces the lies. His theory is that as one grows more successful the pressure to continue with success becomes too great. That I absolutely do not doubt. I think we’ve all been there at some point in our lives. We do something well and then are expected to do even better the next time. Does that mean that we are all pressed to lie, though? Lying is a form of cheating. Using success as an excuse to cheat is just that, an excuse, but it does something more. It sends the message that one can’t succeed without dishonesty. It’s a message that cheapens the work of others. It damages the playing field for everyone.

It isn’t all about the playing field for other writers, though. It speaks to something larger in our culture that makes it an acceptable option to lie in the first place. Blair’s assertion that the pressure of success is responsible for turning someone into a liar isn’t just an assertion that success is the issue. What Blair is really saying is that we shouldn’t hold a person responsible, but the environment. Isn’t that sort of the same as “don’t hate the player, hate the game?” I call shenanigans. The players (in this case the writers) make up the game and if the game is jacked up we absolutely need to look at the players. Situations like the one Lehrer finds himself in aren’t ones chock full of extenuating circumstances. Lehrer is an educated individual and given his specialty in neuroscience you’d think he probably had to have an ethics class at some time or another. More than that, you’d expect that he’d be at least introduced to the ideas of stress and pressure. Achievement is not a free pass. I don’t doubt that there is a higher standard for achievers, but using that as an excuse to do something wrong is just an excuse. It sends a bad message. It says it’s okay to be dishonest, to cheat, and to in effect steal from people by lying in your work.

It lowers the standard for all of us.

James Frey is still successful, albeit with a bit of controversy as he works on his latest literary and media endeavors. Kaavya Viswanathan is becoming a lawyer. Stephen Glass is still fighting to become one. Jayson Blair became a life coach. No one yet knows what Lehrer will do but I can tell you what I will do with them: use them as an example of who I don’t want to be when I grow up.  I have better standards and I expect more than that.  I hope you do, too.

The scent of pwnage

There’s a fan homage for everything, and for Diablo fanboys, it’s Path of Exile. If you haven’t yet heard of Path of Exile, let me sum it up for you neatly: it’s an online Diablo clone that’s free to play.

That’s right. I said free. So let’s all just be honest — nothing I’m going to say after this is going to affect whether or not you play this game. You’re going to play it because it’s free. And rightfully so. That’s why I played it, too.

I had the pleasure of participating in one of the open beta weekends and tinkering with more than half of the characters available. As a female gamer, I was a little disappointed to see that the characters are all fixed genders, and of the six classes available, only two are female. I’ve been gaming almost my entire life (I won’t say how long that is — if you want to believe I was raised on Nintendo, I’ll probably thank you for the compliment) and I’m used to having only male avatars. However, I did find the lack of gender options disappointing, given that women are finally becoming recognized as gamers and game purchasers. But whatever. I’ll play your dirty, bearded, loin-cloth wearing templar and I won’t complain. But not all younger women gamers are, so I think it’s worth mentioning.

As for the classes,  they’re pretty standard-fare. Gamers who look forward to the staple wizard and ranger classes will be happy. Personally, I was disappointed in the lack of imagination. The only class that breaks the class mold is “The Shadow”, a hybrid who wears a claw, sets traps, and looks like Sweeney Todd. But even that character’s bag of tricks felt heavily borrowed.

Character progression is a big detour from Diablo 3’s stripped-down, linear system. Characters are given a few skills to choose from and, more interestingly, special attacks are granted via gems that are slotted into armor pieces. As the avatar levels up, the gems and abilities level with you. I like that. In addition, characters progress via massive skill, um, tree?

Not quite tree-like. Star chart, maybe?

At first glance, it looks like an exciting (and overwhelming) list of choices that could alleviate my gripes about unoriginal classes, allowing characters to be tailored into something unique and original. Sadly, I soon found that the tree is the same for all six classes. Each class starts out in the center, but is pointed in a different, fixed direction.

Purchasing skills from the tree feels as mundane as the class selection. I had hoped for fun skills and stats to earn, but I was really underwhelmed by the choices, many of which are small stat increases like +3 dex or +2 int. So while the image looks exciting, all they’ve really done here is combine a separate “skill up” panel and a classic talent tree.

So really, the tree is smoke and mirrors: it’s not as intricate, elaborate, or creative as the image would like you to believe. I never felt adequately rewarded for my accomplishments. No matter what stats I purchased or how far my gems advanced, I always felt slightly underpowered. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for an easy button. I love to be challenged; that’s half the fun of video games. But the other half of the fun is to be adequately rewarded for my efforts.

I love the idea of Path of Exile. I love that it’s free, and that I can play online with my friends. However, I feel the execution and creativity are lacking here, and player rewards are sorely lacking. I appreciate that a few folks got together to make a game they wanted to play, but this is starting to feel a little like Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams. If they build it, will people come?

Indeed they will, for the freebie alone. But I doubt they’ll stay.

Path of Exile is currently in beta mode through 2012. Players interested in joining the testing efforts can sign up on their site and pay $10 for unlimited access to the game, or wait for open weekends, which are free.

I’m free which is crazy, so play me maybe?

A quarterback has never won a football game.

Bear with me for a second as I make a few statements that you and I both know are facts.

• It takes dozens of successful plays to win a game
• It takes 11 men to execute one football play
• It takes countless hours of practice to learn how to execute said play
• It takes countless hours or film study to create the play

Got it? Good.

Nowhere on the list says, “The quarterback makes the play successful”.

So understand that I cringe when I read that Phil Simms wants to put Eli Manning in the Pro Football Hall of Fame because HE has won two Super Bowls among other things.

Eli Manning and 21 other chumps are two-time champs

But he’s not the only one giving too much credit to the signal caller; everyone does. And I mean EVERYONE. ESPN, NFL Network, NBC, Fox, CBS, HBO, Showtime, Google, Wikipedia, your friend’s blog, my blog, the pizza delivery guy, the drunk at the bar who still wears a Jeremy Shockey New York Giants jersey, etc.

I don’t care who threw the ball to Mario Manningham, I really don’t. Because at least five guys had to block pass rushers, three other receivers had to run routes in order to divert coverage, and finally Manningham had to make the catch.

But all we hear is, “What a great play by Eli!”

No lazy sports fan, it was a great play by the offense. Eli is a part of the offense; he doesn’t get all the credit like you think.

Michael Strahan, Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck, Antonio Pierce, Chris Canty, and a plethora of other defensive players don’t get mentioned in the same breath as Eli. But correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the defense do just as much to shut down the Patriots in two Super Bowls as the Giants’ offense did?

That defense held the best offense of our generation to 14 and 17 points respectively in two Super Bowls. But nobody wants to put Osi, Aaron Ross, or Pierre-Paul in the Hall of Fame. We’re stuck talking about the quarterback.

On the other side of the division is Tony Romo. You can’t bring up his name in a positive light without someone reminding you that, “HE can’t win in the fourth quarter.”

Excuse me for a second; he? You mean there aren’t 21 other players playing in that fifteen minute timeframe? It’s just him on the field to win or lose the game? That’s what you’re telling me right?

Romo does the blocking, the route running and the catching. He also does the pass rush, covers receivers and makes the tackles.

Absurd.

Last year the Cowboys went 8-8, but fans across the nation will tell you that Romo went 8-8. Nevermind his 3:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio, that didn’t mean anything. I’m sure it was his fault that the defense was 24^th in yards-per-play allowed. It was also his problem that the D was 22^nd in third-down conversions.

You get the picture right?

Sure Romo makes his mistakes and Eli has made great plays. But we as football fans need to open our eyes, watch the games, and credit teams. Not quarterbacks, but teams. If you want to credit one person, let it be the head coach.

You know the guy who orchestrates practices and designs the gameplan. He should be the only one with a win-loss column attached to his resume.

Tim Tebow wasn’t winning games by himself; Sam Bradford wasn’t losing games by himself, etc. A quarterback has never won or loss a game by themselves. So I beg of you all, stop it with this nonsense. Let’s recognize football for what it is; the ultimate team sport. It’s not tennis or track, its football. And because of its team structure, we love it so much.

Sometimes it’s really hard being a girl.

From a young age, we’re told that we can be anything we want to be. We’re encouraged to try new things and left with the thought that when we get older everything we were spoon fed will be true. And then we grow up and discover that, yes, we can be anything we want to be, so long as it conforms nicely into a very restricted set of expectations.

There are limitations too, ones that we ignored as children but get faced with on an almost daily basis as we grow up. We can’t like science-fiction; or sports. It’s okay to do well in math and science in school, but don’t think about pursuing a career in those fields. And owning a successful business? Good luck with that.

Yes, there are some exceptions to these. Women who ignore what society tells us and break the mold. But they’re still few and far in between, even today. And that is why it is so important to have positive female role models; something that can be hard to find in the age of Jersey Shore and other reality TV.

So, my mission over the next few months is to find those women. The women who have succeeded in areas that are still predominantly strongholds for men. The women who are exceptional role models for girls young and old.

The first featured role model is Ashley Eckstein. Known as the voice of Ahsoka Tano in the animated Clone Wars series, Ashley is also the founder and owner of Her Universe. Spurred on by her own experiences and seeing the lack of science fiction shirts for female fans, Ashley created Her Universe. It is the first fashion line to produce science fiction themed shirts just for women. The initial designs were all Star Wars, but now the line includes such hits as Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who. They even have a line of children’s clothing for the younger geeks.

Ashley has done something quite amazing. She’s into science fiction and owns a successful business all without having to sacrifice her femininity, a challenge that many women who venture into fields dominated by men face. She makes it okay for female geeks to be both female and geeks. Or, as she put it during our interview: Flaunt your world- We’re girls and we can be cute, we can show off our passion and our fandom and look cute while doing it.

You list Disney as your first love- when and how did you first get interested in sci-fi (particularly Star Wars)?

Honestly I got started in to the whole sci-fi/fantasy world before I can even remember because my dad started working for Disney when I was just two years old. I just remember a childhood full of not only watching every single Disney Movie that came out and sometimes getting advance screenings because my dad was an employee, but I grew up watching Star Wars and the Hobbit cartoons and the Never Ending Story. It was a childhood full of a lot of sci-fi and fantasy so I don’t even remember exactly what age because it goes back as far as my memory goes back.

My first memory of Star Wars is the shot of R2-D2 and C3PO in the desert of Tatooine. I remember the scene vividly as a little girl. My favorite character has always been R2-D2, still to this day. Instead of playing Princess Leia I would play R2-D2.

With my dad working for Disney I got to go what is now Hollywood Studios when it first opened, but more importantly Star Tours when it first opened. I remember being a part of that and that ride opening and how big of a deal it was. Posing on the Star Speeder, and the Ewoks and it’s just a big part of my memories as a kid.

How did you get the role of voicing Ahsoka?

I got the role of voice Ahsoka similar to how most actors in L.A. get a job. I got a call from my agent. I got a call the night before, that’s usually how it works- you find out the night before about your auditions the next day. He called me the night before and said you have an audition tomorrow for the voice of Padme on the Clone Wars. Usually I’m a pretty positive person and I remember telling him, look, I just don’t think I sound like Natalie Portman from Star Wars, but I’ll give it my best shot. I wasn’t too optimistic about it because no matter how hard I tried I just didn’t feel I sounded like her.

Sure enough I went to the audition and the first line out of my mouth they stopped me and said I didn’t sound anything like Padme, I sounded too young. But, there’s this new character, a fourteen year old girl we’re auditioning for that we’d like you to try out for that part. Because it was so top secret they weren’t announcing the auditions for that character. They were keeping it very secretive and private.

Luckily I went in anyway for Padme and they had me audition for Ahsoka. I found out I got the part but I didn’t know who I was playing until after I got the part because it was so top secret. All I knew was that I got the part of a new girl in the new SW cartoon. I found out on my first day of work actually. I went in and they explained who I was going to be playing. It’s one of those moments where you pinch yourself and I’m like really? How did I get here? How did I get this part? Are you really trusting me to help originate a new character- especially Anakin Skywalker’s padawan? And I didn’t believe it for a while and I was so nervous that they were going to recast me and find somebody new because it was such a big deal. I’m just so thankful and honored that they gave me the opportunity.

How do you come up with the designs for Her Universe?

That’s one of my favorite parts. Every design has a story, an inspiration or a person behind it. Every single genre, every single universe is so large especially Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who. All three franchises are so massive- where do you even start?

I start with stories, either from personal friends or fans or castmates. Stories from people or events that happened, or my favorite moments. Sometimes it selfishly comes from what I’ve always want to see. But every design has a story.

The “I Know” shirt actually came from Catherine Taber who does the voice of Padme. We once recorded a show on Valentine’s Day. The cast had a little celebration because we were all working most of the day together. She brought in heart shaped cookies and half of them said ‘I love you’ and half of them said ‘I know’. And that was always one of her favorite moments and my favorite moments and so we did a shirt inspired by it.

The “I’ve Got a Crush on Crusher” shirt came from my head designer for Her Universe. She was a Star Trek fan growing up and her crush was Wesley Crusher. She spoke up about it and absolutely had to do the design and brought it to me. She had such a connection to the shirt and design. I love that.

There’s so much thought and compassion and care for each design.

Who were some of your role models while you were growing up?

I was definitely an odd kid. Growing up before I decided I wanted to be an actress, my uncle was a lawyer and he showed me all of his law books. I knew I wanted to get into law- in third grade. I didn’t want to be a lawyer; I wanted to be a judge. Around the same time I did a book report on the first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. I was fascinated by her because of what she stood for. She was the first. She was the first female Supreme Court Justice. She paved the way and now it’s common. I was so inspired by that. She really struck a chord with me.

When I decided I wanted to be an actress and no longer pursue law school she was still an inspiration to me because she represented that just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean you can’t achieve it or make it happen. I’ve always had her in the back of my mind. If she could gain a seat on the highest court in the United States then I can achieve anything. If that’s possible, then I can do it too.

I’ve always been one of those people that when you tell me I can’t achieve something I’m going to find a way to make it happen to prove you wrong. I was turned down twice for Her Universe. It was the third time that I re-approached the notion and the idea that we were actually able to make it happen. I knew there was a need for it. Just because it’s never been done before, just because people believed girls wouldn’t buy sci-fi merchandise doesn’t mean that’s the case. The numbers spoke otherwise; close to all sc-fi fans are women. I just needed to figure out the right way to go about it. If I did that, I knew it could be a success because the fans are there and they want to be recognized.

Who are some of your role models now?

I think it’s all sorts of people around me. I think a true role model should be someone in a person’s life on a regular basis whether it’s a family member or a close friend or someone you can interact with on a regular basis.

With being an actress and a personality and also with my husband being a sports figure I take it very seriously because I know that when you’re a public figure you are a role model whether you like it or not. When athletes and actors or actresses say that they don’t want to be role models that is unfortunately not the reality. Just because you don’t want to be a role model doesn’t mean that you aren’t. If you are in the public eye, you are going to be a role model to someone. People look up to you, especially kids.

Being in that position is something I don’t take lightly; I take it very seriously. Once I got the role of Ahsoka, I hoped that her character would be a role model for girls. I knew that being the voice of such a strong female character and being associated with the Lucasfilm franchise, that I would also be in the position to be a role model. I knew it was going to be a big responsibility and I was going to do right by it. I was going to make the most of that opportunity.

My role models now are family members, people I work with. I have several close friends that I work with on Clone Wars that are my role models. I have several people I work with on Her Universe that have guided me to work on the business. It’s very important to develop a team of trusted people that bring out the best in you and that you can learn from and can be role models to you.

First and foremost my number one role model is my husband. He’s my best friend and I look up to him, and he helps me in always doing the right thing and always making the right decision. We work together as a team.

What message do you have for the young girls of today? What about young women and grown women?

I would have to say that it would be Her Universe’s new tagline: Dream Your world. Be Your World. Flaunt Your World.

Dream your world represents the little girl that has dreams of being a superhero or Ahsoka Tano or a Jedi or a fantastical character and doing great things. But as a little kid you have your parents that control your destiny, so they’re essentially just dreams because you don’t know at that point that you can actually achieve them.

Be your world comes in as we get older and we realize that we do control our own destiny and we can be a real life superhero. I look at the 501st and Rebel Legion. They have these amazing costumes, but they do things for good. They’re always at charity events. They’re always making kids smile and doing positive things. That shows that you can change the world, you can be that superhero. So that world you dreamed of as a little kid- you can go live that world now.

Flaunt your world is where the term “geek chic” comes in. You can show off your fandom with pride. You don’t have to hide it anymore. Be proud of it, flaunt your world.

We all remember Katie- the 7 year old who was teased for liking Star Wars. What do you think about the fact that this sort of attitude (girls can’t like sci-fi) still exists today?

We definitely have a long way to go- I’ll be the first to say that. I feel that we’ve made huge strides but it’s such a major stereotype that it’s going to take a long time. I would just say, and ask, not just female fans but male fans as they are some of our most passionate fans in speaking up for the women in their lives- to speak up about it. That’s the way we’re going to change it. That will debunk the stereotype and make sci-fi a more accepting place for both genders. Sci-fi is for everyone. Also rally around the young kids, bringing awareness to the fact that this genre we love is not gender specific.

It’s a big task to take on. Carrie Goldman launched her book this week, called Bullied, based on her experience from a year of research on bullying. She brought up some great points on things we need to learn and how we can fix it and how to end this cycle of fear.

Doing whatever possible to get the word out to change the perception. The more that we speak up about it, the more it will change. I think that it is changing, but we still have a long way to go.

Be sure to follow Her Universe on Twitter and like them on Facebook!