This blog entry by Chimy Trinh. The story: "Warner Bros. Responds to "No More Female Films" Rumors"
The analysis:
- Browsing through entertainment news and gossip columns, I came across this very interesting story of outright gender discrimination committed by the Warner Brothers movie studio president of production Jeff Robinov on rottentomatoes.com. According to many movie/blog/gossip/etc. sites, Robinov declared "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead". Well now, that created major controversy which in turn has Gloria Allred jumping on the horn screaming ‘Boycott!’ faster than Britney heading off to the Peninsula Hotel before dropping off her kids to K-Fed. Damage control ensued immediately by a publicist from Wanrer Bros. movie studios stating that this incident was a total fabrication. Sounds familiar, but why would someone make a serious allegation to damage the prestigious image of the Warner Bros. movie studio?
Well, for one thing, regardless of the statement being true or not, this issue is not uncommon, nor is it surprising to me. First of all, after the Gina Marchetti’s reader and watching Byron Hurt’s “Beyond Beats and Rhythms” the entertainment industry does not look like it is going to do a paradigm shift anytime soon. There are major proponents to keep acts of misogyny on the screen, in the music, in advertisements and other avenues of society. As for movies with female lead roles, I enjoyed most movies with a female lead (minus Pam Anderson’s Barbwire). For instance, many video gamers can recall female-lead roles such as Resident Evil and Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider as successful video game to movie translation with the roles fitting snug like a toasty sweater out of a Whirlpool dryer. Although these examples are not produced by the Warner Bros. movie studios, the movies were successful.
The main reason for Robinov to make the alleged comment was three female led action films bombed at the box office. Those movies were “The Invasion” starring Nicole Kidman, “The Brave One” starring Jodie Foster, and “The Reaping” starring Hilary Swank, all released within this year. He said he is giving the green light to many female led roles in upcoming projects such as Cameron Diaz, but we will have to wait to see what type of movie it will be. Although Robinov has dispute charges of him being misogynistic toward female led movie roles, in my opinion his intentions are still there, which is to not use female leads in action movies. I guess Robinov’s rationale of the situation is that many women (if not all in his case) cannot carry such a role for such a “macho” genre, more or less look good brandishing a gun while talking tough, and above all, bringing in the big bucks which an audience of overwhelming majority of males invest their money to watch this movie genre. Overall, if Robinov does not plan on using females in action flicks in the future, which I might think he will do, or at least have sparing use for, this decision would continue to put females in objective roles as the love interest, the damsel in distress, and no higher than sidekick status in action-adventure movies. Bottom line, it could be looked at as a profit issue or male insecurity. I think Robinov is just pissed he could not look that good on screen like the females mentioned above.
1 comment:
Notably, the idea that these films flopped because women lead them isn't really questioned yet why not first ask: "were they any good?" I don't want to sound naive here - a lot of very bad films make tons of money (see: "Transformers") but the failing of a film might also be a consequence of it simply being a film that not enough people liked.
That said, female-lead action films can be a tougher sell precisely because such casting may usurp the normal social convention of male heroes. Getting the audience to warm up to the idea of a female action lead requires more than just changes in Hollywood - it requires changes in social expectation and beliefs.
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