Abstract
Responding to the 2010 media discourse around Katie Goldman—a ten-year-old Star Wars fan bullied for her interest in something perceived to be “for boys”—this essay investigates the relationship between industrial logics of media franchising, postfeminist culture, and the vernacular participation of social media users in regulatory ideologies of gender and sexuality. Reading mediated public performances of support for Katie against the hyper-feminized, industrially-produced “princess” media culture she seemingly rejected, as well as the sci-fi fashion shop HerUniverse that opened up a feminized space of fan subjectivity in the marketing of the Star Wars franchise, we can see how the transgression of normative consumer ideals by girls became re-inscribed within postfeminist and heteronormative gender roles. While celebrating unruly girl science fiction consumers as “different,” both industry and vernacular media cultures repositioned these figures in relation to beauty, princesses, heteronormative romance, and other postfeminist (but traditionally feminine) ideological frames.
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