I was reading this post by paperhearts, which is about the issue she takes with the female leads in series such as Castle and The Mentalist. Among her fine points, was this:

These men (who are not law enforcement officers nor have any law enforcement training) step in, and with a little hocus pocus, manage to do the woman's job better than she does. Never mind that neither of these men have gone through a police academy or received formal training, all it takes is writing crime novels or being a fake psychic to slide in and neatly out-perform a woman who has worked her way for years up the ranks. Worse yet, Lisbon and Beckett are made at times to look incompetent, uncreative, unable to think outside of a box.

And I realized, that this was in fact why I hadn't ever given these shows the time of day. I had always passed them over, for no real, conscious reason, even though, on paper, the characters of Castle and Patrick Jane sound like the kind that I just adore having on my television laptop screen.



It's because what I had gathered of the female leads just turned me right off. paperhearts worries that this might be internalized misogyny, and I definitely agree with the possibility, because hey, it's my subjectivity. But to be honest, in any show, especially a procedural I need more than one character that I enjoy to the point where I'm not actively waiting for someone else to come on screen and do something else.

More importantly, I need a female character to imprint on. I identify as female, and I need more than just the awesome, albeit limited selection of genderswapped Kirks, Bones', Winchesters, Reeses and 11th Doctors to provide a media narrative that gives the possibility that I, a girl, can act just as crazy, charismatic, sexual and brilliant as any of these men and pull it off.

So I’ve been trying to nail down the appeal of genderswaps – most specifically, the flip of male characters to female. The most popular lately has been in the fandom for Star Trek XI, with female versions of Bones and Jim generating the most fanwork, and Spock not far behind. Other prevalent fandoms I’ve been involved in that have genderswap that’s carved out its own niche are Supernatural and Stargate: Atlantis. Besides the alliterative quality of the names, I’ve been trying to figure out why the genderswap of the main male characters, the ‘heroes’, if you will, appeals to me so much.

I went through a couple theories;

1. that it’s a lack of engaging female characters in the cast, but I adore Uhura. I was one of the few to really enjoy Ruby, Bela, Jo, Ellen and Anna all through Supernatural, despite the fact that they were often antagonistic or obstacles to the objectives of the show’s emotional focal points, the boys. I thought SGA had awesome female presence through Teyla, Weir and Sam. But again, there's paperheart's point that the crazy brilliant schemes and behaviour almost always belong to the male leads. (This is part of why I loved Ruby's evil crazy long-con ass so much).

2. So really, I think it’s a desire to see symbols, avatars, women who not only transgress the boundaries of the televised interpretation of ‘woman’, but act as if those boundaries were no longer pertinent, and move in a world where they are not, because the genderswapped character originated in a male whose story functions according to the very fact that the boundaries of the socialized female do not apply to him. Genderswap, well-written, clever, emotionally sound genderswap will deal with socialized misogyny, but the basic status and behaviour of the character tends to remain the same, and in doing so provides hope. The stories function as symbolic narratives, the same way narratives and stereotypes carve out places in our minds, are how we socialize ourselves and function in our culture according to these overarching stories we create for ourselves.

A woman who is, like a genderswapped Dean might be, hard-drinking, promiscuous, and entirely comfortable and natural about that fact, physically strong, anti-social and yet desirable, a sarcastic bullshitter, a con-woman, arrogant, condescending, but endearing with streaks of violence and a strong desire for family along with the freedom of the road and mullet rock. Doesn’t she sound awesome? Hard to live with maybe, just like Dean is in canon, but awesome nonetheless.

This is why I love good genderswap so much. Though I'm talking always-been-a-girl swaps, I do also mean the opposite way around. So many female characters seem to be written first as women, then as characters while male characters get to be characters first and above all (see: Jane, Castle, House) that putting those televised characters into female bodies and making it work is one of the most surprisingly happy-making things I've discovered within fandom.

Of course, there are the occasional female character who goes above and beyond the stale, neurotic narrative of a successful woman who seems to act just like a high school girl, and I love them. Aeryn Sun, Dani Reese, Gemma Morrow, Lucretia, Katharine from the Vampire Diaries, and, well, I'm struggling here.

The actual female characters we do get aren’t awesome in their infinite variations. A female character doesn’t have to be a man’s woman, tough, a tomboy to be awesome, but the enjoyability of the genderswap is, for me, in the perceived freedom of TV’s male-coded behaviour as compared to what a woman can get away with.

Or perhaps it's the caliber of actors as well the writing. Certainly the actresses portraying the female characters mentioned above do not lack for charisma and talent.



So, for the tl:dr crowd (and I don't blame you): where do you guys think the popularity of the genderswap of alpha males springs from? And why the prevalence of genderswap in certain fandoms, and not others?