“Alias” and Representions of Female Fandom

Girls & women are often neglected within discussions of superhero fandom. Alternatively, they’re demeaned as “fake geek girls.” But in a story running across issues #11-14, “Alias” offers a thoughtful portrait of female fandom as a form of self-making and community building. 1/9

In this storyline, Jessica Jones is hired to locate a teenage girl named Rebecca Cross who has run away from home to escape the bigotry of her family and hometown. As part of her investigation, Jessica visits Rebecca’s bedroom and reads her journals. 2/9

In Alias #11, Rebecca’s bedroom features posters of Elektra, the Punisher, and Daredevil. Rebecca also creates “collage books” that include drawings and pictures of superheroes interspersed with poetry and personal thoughts. Jessica says she made similar books as a teenager. 3/9

Rebecca’s collage books highlight and validate connotatively feminine fan practices—such as crafting & fan fiction—traditionally marginalized within male-dominated fandom. In “Geek Hierarchies, Boundary Policing, and the Gendering of the Good Fan,” Kristina Busse argues… 4/9

…fans fail to be “good fans, and thus embarrass other fans, by liking the wrong things and liming them in the wrong ways.” And such distinctions between “good” and “bad” fans are routinely gendered. 5/9

“Underlying all these analyses,” writes Busse, “is a gender binary that identifies certain behaviors as masculine or feminine, with the former usually connoting active, intellectual, aggressive, and objective, and the latter, passive, emotional, sensitive, and subjective.” 6/9

In Alias #14, Jessica finds Rebecca reciting a deeply emotional poem about Daredevil. Though Rebecca’s favorite superhero is a man, her fandom further nurtures a connection to Jessica, who is also fond of ol’ hornhead (she sometimes works as Matt Murdock’s bodyguard). 7/9

In addition, the presentation of Rebecca’s fandom emphasizes the complexity of fannish desire. Rebecca’s passion for Daredevil is erotic, but not straightforwardly sexual. Through her Daredevil poems, Rebecca meets her first romantic girlfriend. 8/9

The story’s ending isn’t happy; Rebecca reluctantly returns home to confront family tragedy. But it also finds hope in tragedy, and Jessica’s ability to connect with Rebecca through fandom is crucial to that hopefulness. 9/9