Female Leads (Follow Up)

The Robinov "conroversy" continues
And with it continues the assumptions, half assed reasoning, and inappropiate analogies.
Over at Stars and garters "Not in the face" assumes this "decision" was prompted by Catwoman, despite the fact that that movie bombed several years back and this "decision" seems to have been made as a result of the poor box office performance of "The Brave one" and "the Invasion" Not in the face then goes on to claim that the reason Catwoman failed was because "it didnt stick to the comics"
Over at In One Ear Thom Wade makes the claim that Die hard would have done just as well with Jane Mclain as it did with John. Over at Little dark voice's blog she first "questions the logic thast female leads dont sell" then goes on to bitch at a network whose audience are uniformly oversexed adolescents for puting creating and oversexed and adolescent series. At pretty fizzy paradise "Kalinara" cant even seem to get her movies staight, while at written word "Ragnell the foul" (as usual) got all pissy and decided to start a letter writing capaign.

Bottom line is its exactly what Ive been expecting, irrationality, piss poor attempts at logic, assumption of motives and reasoning which are either based on little or no information or flatly contradicts what information is known, and very bad analogies.

SO lets get started witht he reality check shall we?

On the Idea this "policy" is due to Catwoman - Give me a fucking break. Robinov is just now responding to a bomb from several years ago? Sure Bob.

On the idea that Catwoman failed becsasue it didnt stick to the comics - Yeah we wish. Truth is if WB (or anyone else) made a comic book movie and not one comic book reader went to see, they wouldnt even notice. We are simply too small of a demographic to have any meaningful effect on box office reciepts. The best selling comic in recent years didnt even reach a half a million sold. The average "flagship" title is lucky to sell 100,000. Meanwhile the average movie draws in Millions of viewers.

On the idea that Die Hard would have been just as good featuring Jane Mclain - Bullshit. Yes one of the things that made Die hard Great was that John Mclain was a Man, (not a boy, Thom Wade, theres a difference though I doubt you know what it is) The fact is for a huge number of people Die hard would have required too much "suspension of disbelief" if the lead had been a girl. Sorry to burst your vaginal hive-bubble, but for the most part female action heroines really dont sell, especially not in movies where they are required to go around fighting a bunch of guys.

Why not? Because we all know its bullshit. There's a reason Laila Ali isn't fighting Oleg Maskaev, or even Juan Manuel Marquez, despite the fact that she is a very talented Boxer. Yes with enough training, the right tactics, and a lot of luck, a woman can hold her own against a man, and possibly even beat him, but she has to be far more skilled than he, because on a purely physical level women just can't compete. Female Powerlifters dont lift nearly as much as men do, and Chyna for all her unusual size and strength, was nowhere near as powerful as the men in the WWE who weighed the same as she did.

Furthermore the biggest audience for action flicks by far is men, and like it or not we prefer to see men kicking ass. Why? Cause any 12 year old boy (even one stuck in a 35 year old body) can pretend to be john Mclain. Jane? Not so much. Feminsits like to call it a sterotye, but the fact is most women dont really like Action Flicks, yes there are exceptions, jsut as there are some men (loosley applied) who love romantic comedies. But you'll notice few if any romantic comedies are marketed torwards men.

And as always if you audience mostly shares a single trait, your lead is gonna have to too. Can you imagine how many Blacks in the 70's would have gone to see Shaft if they had cast Stacy Keach in the title role? Not too many.

Finally even if you can find a script that guys will buy, the problem is finding an actress who can actually play a "tough chick" Ever seen the "quick and the dead"? Sharon Stones attempts at being "tough" were embarrasing, Same with Jennifer Lopez in "enough". Hell even Jodie Foster couldnt pull off tough girl act in Silence of the lambs, and if you've ever seen "Miss Congenialty 2" you know how badly Sandra Bullock tried and failed.

My point is, like it or not, Action Flicks are a male driven genre. We're the ones watching them and by and large, we dont buy female action heroes in the same way we buy male ones.

But ever since this comment was publicised, Femifans bloggers have been racking thier pea sized brains trying to think of action movies that did well with female leads. Kalinara Points out "alien" forgetting that in fact the first "alien" wasn't an action, but a sci-fi horror and That weaver wasn't the lead in that movie, becasue it was an esemble cast. "Aliens" could be honestly described as a Action flick and yes she was the lead, but given that it was a sequel to a highly popular horror Movie the rules are different. More to the Point, the single most successful movie in the series (even if we adjust the gross for inflation) was Aliens Vs Predator, which everyone went to see for the aliens.

She then goes on torefernces "The 5th element" somehow forgetting that Bruce Willis was the lead in that movie, and had far more screen time than Mila Jolovitch.

All in all the response was exactly as soft headed as I expected, primarily consisting of vented spleens channelled through dysfunctional brains.

On a final word WB has oficially denied that this statement was ever made, which is just a pussy ass move if you ask me. Yeah it has created a little bad press, but theres nothign inherantly wrong with WB decided to focus ther efforts on a single demographic. It might cause them to lose money, or it might not. But unless it does cost WB money, theres nothing worng with it at all.