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Anna Ásmundsdóttir’s MA thesis on gender swapping in High Fidelity (Utrecht University, 2022)
This thesis analyses Robyn Brooks, or Rob, the gender-swapped main character in High Fidelity (2020 series), by relying on adaptation theory, feminism, gender-swap theory, and discussions in published reviews. The essay uses the Map Your Hero(ine) site by answering a survey on the webpage and experimenting with Voyant Tools to discover how these perform when researching gender swap in adaptations. The essay concludes that female versions of formerly male-oriented stories are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can provide role models for women, depicting them in roles commonly allotted to the male gender and inviting a discussion on gender performativity, but they also set them up for being compared to and thought of in relation to men.