So, this past weekend, an action movie with a non-sexualized female lead broke a few box-office records. I may be the only feminist fangirl who hasn’t read The Hunger Games, and at this point I’m in that weird position where, even though the books look good, I’m turned off by the idea of coming late to the party. My loss, I assume. But I am incredibly pleased that the film adaptation became the highest grossing non-sequel and non-summer release of all time, with a weekend take of $155 Million. I’m usually skeptical about the to-do over box office records. Adjusted for inflation, people still bought more tickets for Gone with the Wind. But studio execs don’t care about inflation, they care about how much money is made. So I’ll take these “record breaking” numbers if only on the chance they might smack some sense into people who think female driven films can’t strike gold.
Of course, female audiences were 61% of the people who bought those tickets, which will maybe help studios start respecting the tastes of women,[1] when fishing for blockbusters. I also would like to point out that men, 40% of the audience, were apparently interested in a story about a woman. Gasp! How can it be?! It can.
So yeah, this is great. I look forward to seeing if it leads to any real change. Though, it would have been nice if The Hunger Games had been directed by a woman. Just sayin’.
[1] “Tastes of women” does not equal “romantic comedies.”
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