For a long time, women weren’t in movies because the “industry” sprouted various lies about them: women don’t sell movies, women aren’t funny, etc. While obvioulsy ridiculous, several films released in 2015 have finally disbanded this fallacy.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, Mad Max: Fury Road is the “freshest” movie of the year. As you may recall, this is also the movie that got the panties of many so-called “Men’s Rights Activists” all up in a twist. They actually called for a boycott of the film because it was “feminist propaganda” disguised as a “guy’s movie.” Apparently, the absolutely stunning visuals are cheapened by Charlize Theron’s (plus literally like 12 other women, all with speaking roles and Tom Hardy, I guess) presence and, more importantly, badassery.
Other action movies that included female leads: Jurassic World, Insurgent, and Terminator Genisys.
Even kids’ movies are getting in on the action. Two of the biggest movies targeted at kids this year were Cinderella and Inside Out. If you don’t know what Cinderella is about, please educate yourself, but know that it features a heavily female cast; the leading man, Richard Madden, has very little screen time in comparison. Inside Out features a predominately female cast as it follows the misadventures of the emotions inside of an 11 year old girl as she struggles with her family’s move. It also had Pixar’s second best opening weekend, after Toy Story 3.
Watch emotions have emotions.
It’s been a big year for comedies too: Pitch Perfect 2 has been the highest grossing comedy so far, again with an almost exclusively female cast. Spy starring Melissa McCarthy was another female-driven hit, and Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck is set to be a hit too.
Hell, even Magic Mike XXL featured a variety of women of varying age, race, and body type without oversexualizing any of them. I don’t even know what genre to classify that movie as.
Not the women, but you’re welcome.
To top it all off, the USA-Japan Women’s World Cup final was the most watched soccer game – men’s or women’s – in U.S. television history. It averaged over 25 million viewers and was the most watched sporting event since the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which had 28 million viewers. While it’s disappointing that the women’s team earned only a quarter of the money to win the whole tournament as the men’s did to lose in the 16th round, and no, I’m not joking, it’s safe to say they probably destroyed the argument that they’re paid less because they bring in fewer viewers. Time to own up to the misogyny, FIFA!
While women have been wildly successful this year, it’s also important to note that men really, really haven’t. For a while, having an R-rated flick based on “male humor” was an almost surefire way to make a killing, but those sorts of movies have been bombing: Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 was one of the most successful, if that tells you anything. But movies like Ted 2 and Entourage were complete disappointments at the box office.
When people say “people don’t wan’t to watch women,” what they’re really trying to say is “men don’t want to watch women.” But even if that were true, why would you start off by cutting half your potential audience off before you even start? Contrary to popular belief, women are just as funny, tough, endearing, and interesting as men. Sometimes these traits manifest in different ways, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t just as valuable.
Here’s to girl power.
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