The Death Of The Girlboss?

now I believe it was Newton's third law of motion which states that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction unfortunately it doesn't work quite the same way in the world of corporate entertainment where the rule would be better described as for every 50 or so actions there's an extremely belated and insufficient reaction a good example of this would be the disastrous series of flops we've seen over the past year or two projects like rings of power Peter Pan and Wendy ahoka She-Hulk Resident Evil roban Hood The Witcher the Marvels and most recently Madame web why did you say that there I mean let's be honest here that was a movie that anyone with more brand celles than me after six pints of skull splitter knew was going to be a massive flop despite having an opening weekend almost as long as its entire theatrical run if it carries on at this pace I love this quote from The Hollywood Reporter from a North American distributor on Wednesday night you could actually watch Advanced ticket sales declining in real time as buyers were refunding their tickets it really says something when you'd rather have Shazam 2 numbers the point is that when a big flop like this happens the access media tends to scramble to find a convenient and politically acceptable excuse but in this case The Hollywood Reporter seems to have made an admission about the film's target audience that I don't think anyone expected quote I don't know if women are enough to carry the box office here one veteran Studio Source outside of Sony says indeed males make up 65 to 70% of the superhero audience in North America in the case of Madam Webb the percentage of female viewers was still only 46% now pay attention 007 because this one's important Madame web was a superhero movie specifically designed to appeal to a female audience it's got a female lead a trio of female supporting characters a female director and a female lead writing team and guess what none of it helped women didn't turn out to see it not in the numbers they needed anyway it was the same problem with the Marvels that film had three female leads a female director and an female writing team and what happened to it the male audience was put off by a movie that did everything except ban them from attending screenings the much anticipated female audience failed to show up and as a result it was the biggest box office flop in MCU history so tell me what exactly did these two movies have in common that's right they both tried to Pander to an audience that was never going to see them in the first place you know it's actually kind of funny reading articles from mainstream Outlets that cover stuff like this because it's like watching someone with an almost complete jigsaw puzzle who simply refuses to put the final piece into place because they don't like the picture that it forms well if they won't do it then I'll have to do it for them because here's An Inconvenient Truth dear viewer men and women tend to be interested in different things oh man oh god oh man I know it's truly an earth shattering Revelation but there it is in fact if you care to break down the box office statistics by gender you'll find that women make up 85% of audiences for romance movies and 70% for musicals men on the other hand make up 70% of the audience for superhero movies 75% for action movies and 65% for Science Fiction and Fantasy in fact this Nifty little graphic from the British Film Institute breaks down the preferred genres for men and women and you can clearly see the difference in preference between them that's not a good or a bad thing but it is a thing that movie studios should pay attention to instead they've been doing the exact opposite in recent years they seem to regard audience demographics as a problem that needs to be fixed instead of the inevitable result of different groups of people having different interests and the thing is their solution has produced the worst possible outcome for everyone in the case of the big box office franchises like Marvel Star Wars Lord of the Rings Star Trek and others which naturally tend to skew towards a male audience they made a conscious decision to tell more stories with female leads a lot more there's nothing wrong with that on the face of it but whether or not not it works all comes down to implementation instead of writing likable and distinctly feminine characters that complemented the existing male ones the writers and creatives treated it more like a competition that only one side was ever allowed to win a story about a female protagonist learning to free herself from the oppressive demands of others and discover her true potential is a perfectly viable story to tell the problems creep in when that becomes the only story that you ever tell and their standard practice of lazily taking stereotypical male traits and pouring them straight into female characters failed to win anyone over men were generally put off by the new crop of overbearing aggressive infallible girl bosses who seem to exist purely to show off and humiliate their male counterparts at every opportunity while women failed to connect with them either because they represented masculine ideals that didn't come naturally to them in a genre that most of them didn't particularly care for anyway in short Hollywood's wasted billions of dollars chasing an audience that doesn't exist and in the process they've gradually pushed away the one that did on the flip side look at at what happens when you actually understand your target audience and make a film that caters specifically to them Barbie was the biggest hit of 2023 and even if I personally didn't like it that doesn't matter one bit because it wasn't made for me it was a movie written and directed specifically for women everything from its Aesthetics to its dialogue to its themes and messaging were designed to appeal to female audiences and it worked Big Time top gun Maverick on the other hand was aimed primarily at men because it Incorporated so many of the masculine tropes and themes that men traditionally find appealing action and explosions advanced technology fighter jets militarism matual conflict and competition both of these films achieved massive success because they understood their core audience and how to appeal to them now imagine how detrimental it would have been if the studios tried to incorporate elements that appeal to the opposite gender like if Barbie's colorful exploration of female identity empowerment and self-actualization was interrupted by big Macho action scenes with guns and explosions and Technology porn or Top Gun Maverick devoted lengthy sequencies to a female pilot lamenting how difficult it is to gain respect in a male dominated profession while maintaining her sense of feminine identity and her aspirations for marriage and family in both cases the core target audience would probably have rolled their eyes and thought why do they have to inject this crap into my movie and totally spoil the fun well congratulations now you know how it feels to be a fan of any of the big franchises over the past decade or so the thing is I think the message is finally starting to sink in with the good people of Hollywood maybe not the creatives but definitely the soulless money men paying their salaries who've spent the past several years watching their profit margins slowly fall off a cliff like I said earlier for every 50 or so actions there's a belated reaction from Hollywood and it's finally starting to happen now the first Domino to follow is silk spider Society a female Centric Spider-Man spin-off in development at Amazon Prime according to the press releases the entire writing team's been fired and the show is being refocused with a more male skewing audience in mind now this might not sound like much of a big deal but it is because it's the first time that a studio had the balls to publicly declare that they're targetting a project towards a male audience again in 2024 that's the equivalent of a vegan restaurant saying that their new menu is going to cater towards Meers it's the first time that anyone in Hollywood's openly admitted that what they've been pushing on us for the past decade or so just isn't working no matter how much money they throw at it that you can't make every movie appeal to every person they're trying to attract female audiences into a male dominated genre with Clumsy pandarin doesn't work and never will work in the words of ner rotic all they're doing is taking boy brands that everyone could enjoy and turning them into girl brands that no one enjoys so what exactly can we expect now that the pendulum is starting to swing the other way and more importantly what do we want to see moving forwards well believe it or not I don't think their approach needs to change that radically if they want to win back old fans and restore a bit of balance franchises like Marvel Star Wars DC and Star Trek can still have plenty of kickass female Heroes going on exciting Adventures they just need to be written more like actual human beings with believable flaws and weaknesses and challenges to overcome instead of overbearing obnoxious power fantasies that nobody can identify with and they need to be balanced out by equally strong and capable male Heroes that appeal to male audiences because believe it or not those are the driving force behind your box office revenue they need characters who can actually Challenge and push them to be better who don't automatically give way to them at the slightest sign of conflict instead of the Neutered lumps of wet lettuce that we've been getting who are always portrayed as less smart less skilled less confident and well just less in general and yeah after almost a decade of trying to make it work I think it's about time to accept that the great experiment has been a complete failure you're not going to get equal numbers of women to watch science fiction or action or superhero movies just like you're not going to get equal numbers of men to watch romance flicks or musicals the girl boss concept is dead you might not like it but your audience is your audience all the same and if you don't start catering to them you might just find that they no longer exist and perhaps neither will you anyway that's all I've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 2,187,643

Keywords: critical drinker, review, funny, best, mcu, marvel, disney, feminism, feminist

Id: o84Xp6xh5UE

Length: 9min 16sec (556 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2024