{"id":2272199,"date":"2024-06-20T04:48:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T08:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/feminism-killed-the-female-led-action-movie\/"},"modified":"2024-06-20T04:55:26","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T08:55:26","slug":"feminism-killed-the-female-led-action-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/feminism-killed-the-female-led-action-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"Feminism&#8217;s Impact on Female-Led Action Films"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffeminism-killed-the-female-led-action-movie%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2272199&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The\u200c article discusses\u2062 the decline of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jennifer-lawrence-dont-know-much-about-movie-history\/\" title=\"Jennifer Lawrence \u201cDon\u2019t Know Much About (Movie) History\u201d\">female-led action movies<\/a>, highlighted by the box office failure of &#8220;Furiosa.&#8221; Despite previous successes like &#8220;Captain \u2063Marvel,&#8221; recent female-led\u2064 action films such as\u2063 &#8220;Charlie\u2019s Angels,&#8221; &#8220;Black Widow,&#8221; &#8220;Birds of Prey,&#8221; &#8220;The Marvels,&#8221; and &#8220;Furiosa&#8221; have underperformed. In\u200d contrast, male-led movies and other\u200c genres continue to perform well even\u200b after weak openings.<\/p>\n<p>Historically, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/furiosa-a-mad-max-saga-delivers-a-seed-of-hope-but-not-at-the-box-office\/\" title=\"Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga\" Brings Hope, Despite Box Office Numbers\">female-led action films<\/a> like &#8220;Terminator&#8221; and &#8220;Alien&#8221; \u200bseries have been successful. The\u200c article mentions that traditionally these films have \u2064appealed to a mostly male audience, including sequels which emphasized strong female\u2063 leads.<\/p>\n<p>However, the\u200d shift towards portraying these films with \u2062a strong feminist angle and \u2063replacing male characters with\u2062 female counterparts has not been\u200c well received. Movies \u200dlike \u200dthe female-led &#8220;Ghostbusters&#8221; reboot and changes in\u2062 major franchises like &#8220;Star Wars&#8221; faced backlash. The narrative often portrayed male characters negatively, which has led\u2063 to accusations of\u2063 an anti-male bias.<\/p>\n<p>Such changes align with wider societal shifts where men increasingly\u200c feel marginalized. The article argues that this trend in movies reflects broader gender dynamics where men perceive an infringement of their space, causing them to push back\u2063 against what they see \u200cas \u200ba culture \u2063war against them.<\/p>\n<p>even though feminist\u2062 themes in\u2062 these\u2062 movies aim to\u2063 empower women, they\u200d have not increased female viewership significantly and have \u2063instead alienated a segment of their traditional audience. \u200bThis divergence has contributed to the poor box\u2064 office performance of recent female-led action films. The article suggests a need for Hollywood to recalibrate its approach to these films.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>Female-led action movies are dying as a genre. This is clear after watching <a href=\"https:\/\/thedirect.com\/article\/furisoa-box-office-budget-money-flop-warner-bros#:~:text=Furiosa%20was%20immediately%20in%20trouble,%2465.2%20million%20from%20those%20markets.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the recent box office failure of <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/thedirect.com\/article\/furisoa-box-office-budget-money-flop-warner-bros#:~:text=Furiosa%20was%20immediately%20in%20trouble,%2465.2%20million%20from%20those%20markets.\">\u201cFuriosa\u201d<\/a> its opening weekend. <a href=\"https:\/\/collider.com\/furiosa-domestic-box-office-49-million\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Its box office only got worse the following weeks<\/a>, despite the massive hype for the prequel follow-up to the beloved \u201cMad Max: Fury Road.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to argue that this isn\u2019t part of a trend. While \u201cCaptain Marvel\u201d made $1 billion at the box office, later female-led action movies have increasingly underperformed or bombed, from \u201cCharlie\u2019s Angels\u201d (2019) to \u201cBlack Widow,\u201d to \u201cBirds of Prey,\u201d to \u201cThe Marvels,\u201d and now \u201cFuriosa,\u201d it\u2019s hard to deny there is a common thread in these female-led action films. Particularly as other films with weak openings out around the same time, such as \u201cKingdom of the Planet of the Apes,\u201d \u201cGarfield,\u201d and \u201cIF,\u201d managed to have much better holds in their later weeks. Likewise, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/will-smith-bad-boys-4-box-office-opening-victory-1235918123\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bad Boys 4<\/a>,\u201d a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/superhero-flicks-like-madame-web-stink-because-theyre-about-other-movies-instead-of-real-life\/\" title=\"Superhero movies like 'Madame Web' flop as they focus on fiction, not reality\">male-led action movie<\/a> with a much lower critic score and positive word of mouth, had a much higher box office only weeks later.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-138774240\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-f7ae4750dbe380d11e9af45f5e438306 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-f7ae4750dbe380d11e9af45f5e438306\"><\/div>\n<p>But it hasn\u2019t always been this way. Female-led action films have traditionally done quite well. \u201cTerminator,\u201d \u201cAlien,\u201d \u201cAliens,\u201d \u201cTomb Raider,\u201d the original \u201cCharlie\u2019s Angels,\u201d \u201cWonder Woman,\u201d and \u201cThe Hunger Games,\u201d have all been hits with audiences.<\/p>\n<p>The good news is we know why this is happening, which means there are relatively simple solutions. Whether Hollywood will do it is another matter entirely.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Boy Movies vs. Girl Movies <\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mlavkg99wUw&#038;t=877s&#038;ab_channel=FandomEntertainment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Men have always been the majority audience for female-led action films<\/a>. While you can argue that movies like \u201cAlien\u201d and \u201cTerminator\u201d weren\u2019t overtly female-led until the end of their films, their sequels, \u201cAliens\u201d and \u201cTerminator 2: Judgement Day,\u201d equally beloved by men, certainly did lean into those parts. This is not to say men have ever loved female-led action films as much as they loved male-led action films. But they\u2019ve always loved them more than women do.<\/p>\n<p>Action movies, like superhero movies, sports movies, and Westerns, are about facing your own inner weaknesses and flaws and conquering them so you can conquer an external force that threatens what you love. Likewise, genres that appeal more to women, such as romantic comedies, dramas, and princess stories, are about people who start out either as strangers or estranged from each other and who \u2014 in the end \u2014 become united by love. Dr. Jonathan Haidt addressed this cross-cultural phenomenon in his new book <em><a href=\"https:\/\/a.co\/d\/02DW3ZVy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Anxious Generation<\/a> <\/em>as representing \u201cagency\u201d versus \u201ccommunion\u201d values. This is one reason boys tend to get addicted to video games, which emphasize \u201cagency\u201d values, while girls struggle with social media addictions, which emphasize \u201ccommunion\u201d values.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-fbc44575f125e66240e83bbc307ebafc fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-fbc44575f125e66240e83bbc307ebafc\"><\/div>\n<p>This also explains the exceptions to the rule that men like female-led action movies more than women. Consider \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d and the original \u201cWonder Woman.\u201d Both focused heavily on their romantic relationships with their male co-stars, and the desire for relationships with others, whether it was romantic or familial, formed the motivating basis of their stories.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Narrative Shift<\/h2>\n<p>But that all changed when female-led action films pushed anti-male and overtly feminist views of both men and women.<\/p>\n<p>The first shift was when female-led action movies set out to replace male franchise characters rather than introducing new ones. \u201cGhostbusters\u201d replaced the original members with an all-female cast. \u201cStar Wars\u201d replaced their male franchise leads with female ones. Captain Marvel was touted as the Marvel Universe\u2019s most powerful member and the original inspiration for the Avengers. Many of these replacements were humiliating in nature. <\/p>\n<p>Luke Skywalker and Han Solo were portrayed as broken losers after their adventures ended in the previous movies. (But not Leia.) Captain Marvel largely portrayed Nick Fury as a joke. She-Hulk humiliated Bruce Banner and asserted repeatedly \u2014 with the show\u2019s endorsement \u2014 that she was better than he was, often because she was a woman. Harley Quinn claimed she came up with all of Joker\u2019s best tricks. Even \u201cCharlie\u2019s Angels\u201d revealed that Bosley was a secret villain before replacing him with a woman \u2014 and revealing that Charlie was a woman all along too.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3383bab9da2e37958ba8de14979b5e4d fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-3383bab9da2e37958ba8de14979b5e4d\"><\/div>\n<p>The movies\u2019 storylines and the filmmakers themselves encouraged viewers to see these stories of female empowerment as explicit feminist messages, that there are no differences between men and women \u2014 except when women were better \u2014 women\u2019s problems are all due to the patriarchy, etc. When men objected to or even showed a lack of interest in any of these movies they were called sexist. <\/p>\n<p>Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) said she didn\u2019t want to hear any male criticism of female-led movies because it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/opinion\/2330285\/brie-larson-doesnt-want-you-reviewing-her-superhero-movie-white-males\/\">\u201cwasn\u2019t made for you.\u201d<\/a> While room was given for people to dislike the movies for \u201cartistic\u201d reasons, any discussion of specific problems with anti-male bias or disrespect of male characters was framed as misogyny or the problems with having <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment-arts\/story\/2024-05-30\/star-wars-fandom-women-struggle-kathleen-kennedy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a \u201cmale-dominated\u201d fan base<\/a> (as Kathleen Kennedy put it).<\/p>\n<p>This \u201crebranding\u201d of female-led action films as feminist myths came at exactly the time that men have been turning against feminism, partly because men are increasingly treated as second-class citizens compared to women. The new generation of men is less likely to succeed in school <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2021\/11\/08\/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">and get a college<\/a> degree than women, which means less likely to get a high-paying job, which often means not as likely to be <a href=\"https:\/\/ifstudies.org\/blog\/the-ideal-husband-a-man-in-possession-of-a-good-income\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">chosen by women for marriage<\/a>. Much of this is the fault of schools, which dramatically <a href=\"https:\/\/ifstudies.org\/blog\/stop-penalizing-boys-for-being-boys\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">favor women\u2019s learning styles<\/a>, and workplaces, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stevestewartwilliams.com\/p\/fifty-years-of-gender-bias\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">where<\/a> gender-biased hiring for the first time favors women over men. This means men see the anti-male bias in their fantasy as reflective of the anti-male bias they see in their own lives. And pushing back on the perceived anti-male media, they feel like they are fighting back against the (wo)man.<\/p>\n<p>This pro-women culture-war push has not made female-led action films more popular with women. Since this push, the primary audiences for these films remain male, even down to \u201cThe Marvels\u201d and \u201cFuriosa,\u201d even as men\u2019s interest in women-led action films has diminished.<\/p>\n<p>Women obviously aren\u2019t turned off by feminist politics in movies \u2014 as box office hits like \u201cBarbie\u201d have shown \u2014 but clearly sexual politics isn\u2019t enough to overcome women\u2019s dislike of action movies geared toward men\u2019s tastes. It\u2019s ironic because \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d and \u201cWonder Woman\u201d already showed what action movies designed for women\u2019s tastes looked like. Hollywood just opted not to make those movies.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Will Hollywood Change Course? <\/h2>\n<p>The good news is that this toxic brand is a simple fix. Bring back female-led action movies with a strong male co-lead, especially if there\u2019s a romantic interest \u2014 think Steve Trevor if he didn\u2019t die. Hollywood execs should also signal a move away from anti-male rhetoric in female-led action movies and stop calling men sexist if they don\u2019t like their movies.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t to say action movies shouldn\u2019t still offer women something as well. Keep relationships, whether that\u2019s romantic or otherwise, at the center of the story. How does this movie center around people we care about and lead to reconciliation and restoration (i.e., communion) rather than just a person who kills everyone and ends up alone (or dying themselves)? \u201cEverything Everywhere All at Once\u201d is a good example of an action movie built around reconciliation and love between family being primary.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s possible to make female-led action films that don\u2019t denigrate men because that\u2019s something male-led action films have done historically in reverse. Whether it\u2019s Princess Leia, Pepper Potts, Mikaela from the original \u201cTransformers,\u201d Arwin and Eyowyn from \u201cThe Lord of the Rings,\u201d or Nakia from \u201cBlack Panther,\u201d male-led action films have long been inclusive of women. There\u2019s no reason why it can\u2019t work the other way around.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-e8fdfa21e2ac276a3e65117100f4e666 fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-e8fdfa21e2ac276a3e65117100f4e666\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Female-led action films are faltering, evidenced by &#8220;Furiosa&#8217;s&#8221; box office bomb despite its initial hype. The prequel to &#8220;Mad Max: Fury Road&#8221; saw declining revenues after a disappointing opening, suggesting a genre decline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2904,"featured_media":2272200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Screen-Shot-2024-06-19-at-12.12.44-PM.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2272199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Screen-Shot-2024-06-19-at-12.12.44-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2904"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2272199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2272200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2272199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2272199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2272199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}