Hollywood Discovers the Power of Women

What do Russell Crowe, Adam Sandler, and Will Ferrell have in common? Each starred in films with production budgets of at least $75 million and each was routed at the box office by television actresses like Katherine Heigl in films with much smaller budgets. As a result Hollywood proclaims once again that this is the year of the woman.

The relationship between the film industry and its female participants has always been dicey. Women rarely head studios or work as executive producers, which has a direct impact on the kinds of films that are made. Those that were made rarely contained thoughtful, developed roles for actresses and instead gave us flat stereotypes like the shrill girlfriend, the suffering mother, or the ditzy date. Often if a woman writer wanted to get her script made she had to do it herself without the connections and support of the Hollywood studio system. And that’s not even getting to the issue of ageism compounded on the sexism rampant in the community.

The numbers currently celebrated are a little deceiving. One reason that women are outperforming men at the boxoffice is because they are given inherently smaller budgets to work with. So that remains a problem. However, earing over $200 million on a film that cost $30 million to make is phenomenal, and this latest report does give us some reasons to think that women as writers, producers, directors, and top box-office earners is becoming less of a rarity. For starters, the movies that did well were not always the standard romantic comedy fare. They had fully developed, multi-dimentional characters. Many were written by women. And even more were produced by women.

So maybe Hollywood is surprised when strong stories written about strong women and portrayed by strong women do better at the box office than action schlock, but a lot of women are not. If this kind of success continues then soon women’s dominance at the box-office will become as commonplace as bloated and overproduced superhero movies. And if women can make it in Hollywood they really can make it anywhere.

Read more: film, hollywood, womens rights

photo courtesy of therumor1988 via Flickr

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Elizabeth S.

2:41PM PST on Dec 26, 2009

Thank

send a green star

Silvia M.

4:42PM PST on Dec 25, 2009

Figures :P

Carol H.

10:43AM PST on Dec 24, 2009

What took them so long?

Joy Lynn S.

8:48AM PST on Dec 15, 2009

Interesting read.

Anita Z.

4:44AM PST on Dec 15, 2009

thank you for this artical

Elaine D.

2:56PM PST on Dec 14, 2009

interesting reading

Teresa M.

9:16PM PST on Dec 13, 2009

GOOD ARTICLE, THANK YOU

Teresa W.

2:14PM PST on Dec 13, 2009

Better late than never!

Mary D.

2:30AM PST on Dec 13, 2009

article read, noted,

Reg B.

1:01AM PST on Dec 13, 2009

Oh my god Zoi you have just expressed in short form exactly what I have been saying for years!

Big deal!! Who gives a crap if the writer, director, producer, or participants, have penises or vaginas?? A good movie is a good movie... a bad movie is a bad movie... and people will pay to watch that which is worth their money.

TRUE gender equality only exists when we forget gender completely and only review such things as having been written on their merits by human beings.

I remember many years ago watching a news interview in Canada where a highly successful female lawyer was offered a judicial posting. She declined the position because it was based on her appointment through affirmative action. In the interview she said something like, "I worked too hard, for too long, I tried too many cases and enjoyed too many career successes, to be awarded this position because I have a vagina."

My jaw hit the floor and my respect level for her went through the roof!

TRUE equality whether by race, gender, sexuality, etc... means NOT seeing these things as a reason for inequality in the first place!

Thank you Zoi! So absolutely correct!!