Jezebel 
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New York, 9:54 AM
Sun Nov 29
17 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/24/09
'Whip It' did NO where near these kinds of numbers and sadly it seems the worse the movie, in the case of New Moon, the bigger the female audience. Im hoping that Hollywood will look at this and say, "Oh we need to get more females behind the scenes so we can develop better films for them", but what it will probably mean is about two - three more adaptations of YA series on vampires, which will eventually kill the whole genre.
11/23/09
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11/23/09
They have different tastes, so they stand up for them. Has nothing to do with men.
11/24/09
But they apparently aren't even sure there's a market for movies that are primarily about women.
11/24/09
This is like the sexist version of "I don't see color"
11/24/09
11/24/09
In our society we value men and things that are associated with men. That's why women get praised for being "genderblind" and doing guy stuff. Girl stuff has an automatic stigma of being frivolous and stupid, and women aren't immune to that impression. The real change is already happening, and you're missing out.
At any rate, these anecdotes still add nothing to the discussion, except to clog it with a bunch of identical pointless comments.
#tips
11/25/09
No, no ma'am, everyone already knows that women (or anyone) will see a movie. Just because that movie has more men then women means nothing to who will see it, because it is the plot and the writing that should count, not what gender the actors are.
Also, frankly, saying there isn't a market targeting women is absurd. Romantic comedy's, right there.
Maybe you want an entire market full of good movies with main characters? Because there are many, many movies with women as main characters, but it doesn't mean any of them are to your taste.
Ranging from drama filled hallmark movies to action thrillers (Inglorious Bastards for one--MĂ©lanie Laurent was amazing) to vampire/werewolf ass kicking, horror to comedy to indie. Really, just think of anything with Angelina Jolie or movies written by Quentin Tarrantino.
How can an entire genre be targeted at one group and still satisfy everyone? It's impossible. I personally don't like vampire/werewolf ass kicking, or horror, but I love action thrillers, comedy and indie. That means I watch man only targeted programing? Hell no. That's ridiculous.
What is really the problem here, the fact that the main female characters your getting in movies aren't memorable enough, or the fact that you feel you would enjoy a movie with less men in it?
Now write me back, and try not to say, "It's not about men".
11/25/09
11/23/09
Sometimes I think they just say "movies for women don't make money" as an excuse to keep making only what they want to make, and silencing women who try to speak up about what they want to see.
These men don't want to be bothered with actual facts.
11/23/09
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11/23/09
Plus, while New Moon has legitimately problematic themes, the genre of it is actually important. It's supernatural romance with a bit of horror. It's not a romcom. The fact that it's a genre fiction actually gives me more hope, because reading and viewing that sort of stuff usually leads to more varied reading and viewing tastes. At least from what I've seen, I've no data to back that up.
And the Frog Princess, sure, the Princess thing is there...and I truly wish we'd get better about that culturally as something we ram down little girls throats. But. It's also really progressive in other ways. So.
The reality is, no movie made my mainstream Hollywood is going to be as full of nuance as we'd like. We should always push back, of course, but we shouldn't ignore it when they do get something right.
11/23/09
11/23/09
Okay, thank you for posting that, because ever since I heard about this movie I have been struggling mightily to understand how she can be a princess if she's from America. I mean, seriously, it has confounded everyone I know. Somebody even thought her NAME might be Princess, just to keep her in the Disney line, albeit with Palin-y logic.It makes so much more sense now.
11/23/09
But like you said, if the character themselves is more progressive then we start to change what the princess thing is all about. And that's a good thing, since I highly doubt we're going to somehow get it out of the pop cultural. I think we made it harmful by associating it with lack of agency (Cinderella, Snow White), lack of character (Sleeping Beauty), and being the go-to for a lot of female characters.
11/23/09
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#tips
11/24/09
11/23/09
I said this when Titanic was out, but 13 year old girls are probably one of the strongest demographics to market to. They're more likely to have spending money from babysitting and such than boys their age, they have zero in the way of expenses (ie no gas money), and they have absolutely no shame about their squealing fangirlism. I should know, I WAS a 13 year old girl. They buy merchandise and go see movies repeatedly in theater with friends and then talk the movies up to their other friends.
11/23/09
That Italy movie with the Taylor Swift song in the trailer had me swooning 20 seconds in.
11/23/09
11/23/09
I <3 Amanda Seyfreid, I am pumped for "Big Love" to return. And seriously, I downloaded "Love Story" when I got home from the movie. And then *ahem* re-watched the trailer.
11/23/09
11/23/09
Everything else is negotiable.
11/23/09
My best friend was one of these crazy 13-year-old Titanicards - she made me see it three times and she saw it 12 times.
12 x 10 - 120 dollars!!!
11/23/09
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11/23/09
I have bought every version of Labyrinth they've even put on DVD. I own a Ludo doll and a Doorknocker. Lord of the Rings? I bought the super extended versions with the collectibles, Treebeard figure, jewelry, maps that I have framed and put up in my house, and I have zero shame about that at all. Even though LOTR is pretty male centric, the products were really well thought out.
I think there was a Jez article awhile back about how no one knows what women over 25 want, so they don't bother marketing to us in terms of films. It's really not that complicated. We want films where we exist. Where characters like us are not always The Girlfriend, with no other purpose than sitting in as the token vagina.
Hence why so many non-teen women are seeing New Moon, among lots of other reasons. Whatever else I may think of the story, it's from Bella's perspective. And we really don't get movies from the girls perspective very often.
11/23/09
Or, even when something does in fact have a strong female fan base, they pretend they don't.
11/23/09
Honestly, I can't begrudge the uber fangirls Twilight. I may never have been one of those girls lining up for miles and miles to see Titanic, but I Get It. They finally feel like their voices are being heard in some way, and Stephanie Meyer is speaking their language (the language of ZOMG HOT GUYZZZZZ!!). It's one of the reasons I took the decidedly UNpopular opinion on the internet that Twilight didn't actually ruin ComicCon, even before I'd seen the first movie or knew anything about it beyond what I'd read on FanWank. The stories themselves may be stupid, but the fans aren't.
And if we're going to start critiquing fandom based entirely on the quality of the story, Star Wars is just another coming of age story and is completely ripped from various myths and the special effects aren't that good anymore anyway. Avatar is Dances with Wolves In Space but with a slightly different beginning.
Yeah, I said it.
11/23/09
Plus, Comicon was a giant mess well before Twilight happened. It's just incredibly hypocritical and disingenuous to claim otherwise.
And yeah, if you're going to bitch about Twilight's story quality or obsessive fans, then please explain to me how Transformers or Star Wars are, omg, so much better. I love Star Wars, but give me a break. It's Space Opera. And if you're allowed to dress up a storm trooper, they're allowed to dress up like a vampire.
11/23/09
11/23/09
I honestly and truly think it's because it was girls and a girl fandom/story. None of them would have complained the same way about any of that for any of their "acceptable" read: malecentric, fandoms.
Plus, it's just not true. Panel camping and long lines have been going on for years. I've been doing to SDCC for 3 years now, 2 of which were before Twilight. Same line issue and panel camping. And I heard about it all 8 years I've worked in comics. It's just not new, and it's ridiculous to claim Twilight ruined Comicon.
But because they're bigger, most obsessive fans in certain ways, some folks are freaking out. It's ridiculous.
I've hear this idiocy this year because the 4 day tickets for Comicon 2010 are already sold out. Like it's all the Twilighters buying these tickets, and so no one will be on the floor buying stuff. They scheduled all the Twilight stuff in one day last year, so unless they're doing big events all 4 days of con, that's just not true. Plus, most people go for the movie stuff anyway. That's been true for a decade at least.
11/23/09
11/23/09
Since I'm one of those female professionals/fans that's been working in the industry for most of a decade, but who doesn't exist, or is regularly excluded from the boys club a lot of the time, I am awash in the tragedy. It's always sad when privileged group gets testy about being excluded from something, after they've been doing it for years.
11/23/09
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11/23/09
Also, I found a really awesome article the other day about how part of the reason dudes hate Twilight and R.Pattz is that ladies treat R.Pattz like a GIRL! By which I mean, they objectify him and watch him in movies just because he looks good, and that's a reason we consider valid for watching Megan Fox, not for watching a GUY.
11/23/09
Ugh, seriously.
That sounds about right. I think there's also the fact that R. Pattz and even Taylor are "pretty" boys. And a lot of the female fantasies around them are homoerotic. It's catering big time to women's fantasies and boy howdy does that seem to work some fella's up. The exclusion factor really seems to bug them. To which I can only say: Welcome to the Female Experience in Popular Fiction.
The man candy part is definitely the lionshare, I think. Men shouldn't be objectified, of course. I'm heard some really horrible stories about fan stuff with R. Pattz. But I think it never even occurred to some dudes that women can be sexually aggressive when they really want to be. And that this lets them safely enjoy their own fantasies without having to deal with being objectified themselves. I think that's especially true for teen girls, who are so sexualized in our culture, I'm not surprised they're embracing this.
11/23/09
11/23/09
My main objections to Twilight are really all the result of my being a story geek. I edit stories for a living so some things just bother me. And Twilight's got lots to bother, even if you ignore all the tropes, and just concentrate on form stuff like narrative and plot consistency. However, I don't expect most people to care about that kind of thing.
This is why I loved Jennifer's Body, and why I think it didn't do well after it was marketed to men. It was absolutely not for them at all. It was so incredibly girl perspective centric, it was like watching a really twisted version of some of my HS friendships. The lack of movies aimed at telling stories women want to see, whether it's man candy, or just about us and our experiences, is really depressing.
I think a whole lot of the appeal of Twilight is actually Bella's complacency. Because I think she is, as a character, way closer to how most girls actually feel in terms of agency. So it's a lot easier to project themselves onto her and identify with her.
Add to that the adolescent intensity of her romance, and the adoration of two sexy boys, and you've pretty much got a perfect, hot, cocktail. Because they're the eye candy, and it's "safe" to be Bella in a certain kind of way.
I would Star Trek to the awesome man candy movie list. And I swear, that was deliberate in the casting of Kirk and Spock. You don't cast guys that fucking hot if you're only trying to appeal to hetero men.
11/23/09
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11/23/09
But, it also indicates that romance really is something women want in large numbers, that women are okay with passive female characters, and that maybe women don't care so much about the actual quality of the story as we do ab ratio.
Which puts us at about on par with a lot of the dumber action movies that show some boobs and have stuff explode.
I mean, I'll take Twilight over The Ugly Truth...but I still hate that that's the choice a lot of the time. Which is why it's discouraging to see movies like Whip It! or Jennifer's Body do poorly...because Twilight is in no way a better story, but it clearly appeals to a much larger audience.
11/23/09
Hot guy, preferably shirtless at some point, in slightly sexually threatening but ultimately safe romantic situation + identifiable female character + visual spectacle = ENORMOUS PROFIT.
But apparently they only clue in once a decade.
*adjusted for inflation, sixth-highest grossing
11/23/09
What's created the problem we have now is that since the 1970s and Jaws studios have been stuck believing that young men are the holy grail for ticket sales and they do not want to do anything that could possibly alienate that section of the market. And to them, having a female lead character or a film that deals with women's issues in any way will jeopardize their male audience. Women will see lots of testosterone-driven crap but popular perception (and in my experience, reality) is that men won't go see films targeted at women.
Hopefully, these movies will convince the studios what we've known for a long time, which is that women frequently buy more movie tickets than men do.
11/23/09
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11/23/09
I think it's actually Deep Throat.
11/23/09
11/23/09
(ETA: Wikipedia appears to agree with me: [en.wikipedia.org]) )
Dirty Dancing made $213.9M as of 1997, according to Wikipedia, and cost $6M to make. It remains the most profitable mainstream movie ever made.
11/23/09
And so, so, so much of it sexism. Women are weak so men can't/shouldn't identify with their characters or stories, women as the "other"...or the ridiculous notion that women have such radically different experiences, at core, than men do. And by that I mean that we ALL can relate to coming of age stories. Loss of virginity stories. Awkward adolescence. Love. Loss. Quests. Etc. None of those things are inherently gendered, we've just decided they are. Or value one genders specific experiences over the other as more relatable. Drives me nuts.
11/23/09
I hope Nine does well, I'm super excited for that one (Cruz fangirl, holla!).
The only thing that kind of sucks about this analysis is that the movies women seem to flock to at the theaters are New Moon and SATC, rather than smaller stuff (I guess Precious would be the exception). I think that has to do with the whole "theater experience" thing though...I can wait for Precious to come out on dvd, but I want to see something like SATC on the big screen with a bunch of people.
11/23/09
(I say this as a lifelong consumer of really stupid movies. I almost never watch foreign films, dramas, or anything serious. I watch total crap, but I'm not proud of it.)
11/23/09
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11/23/09
I would have gone and seen New Moon, but I didn't want to contribute to it making more money than The Dark Knight. I read all the books, but I never got around to seeing the last movie, either.
11/23/09
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11/23/09
But hasn't Hollywood always known that? I mean, the first Disney princess came on the scene more than 70 years ago, and the term "chick flick" exists for a reason. I'm pretty sure Hollywood has been catering to (and making money off) women for awhile now. Or am I missing something?
11/23/09
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11/23/09
Well, some of the time, you get Pretty Woman, but mostly you get the dreck that's been clogging up our screens for lo these many years. Titanic is the last movie that I can think of that fit the traditional Hollywood chick flick model (huge budget, big stars), and you could make an argument that it was a synthesis of an action movie and a romance more than anything else.
11/23/09
11/23/09
And are we pretending that the Twilight franchise is a blow against the celluloid patriarchy? I thought the general consensus was that a) these movies are bad and b) the Twihards are obsessed with the cute BOYS in the books/movies--not the female protagonist.
11/23/09
11/23/09
'Chick flicks' are a sub genre instead of being embraced and wrapped into the mainstream label. And its a lot of pap and crap -- which I won't deny is pretty standard Hollywood in general -- but there's something to be said about movies aimed at women needing to be sectioned off like they were some niche market.
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