When I was working in film, I asked many people why blockbuster movies so rarely featured female leads. In response, I was always assured that mountains of hard-data proof indicated audiences won’t accept female lead characters in blockbuster movies. For some reason, perhaps given the time period, Barb Wire (Pamela Anderson) was frequently cited as proof of this – as if nothing could have possibly held that movie back other than its lead character not being Bob Wire. One of the counter-arguments I always offered was: then how come Alien (Sigourney Weaver) not only succeeded, but spawned a highly successful franchise, complete with merchandising?
It was a fluke, came the answer. This was a deflection, not a response. As the link details, any “fluke” in which a male-led movie makes more money than expected gets scrutinized so filmmakers can figure out how to replicate its success. This never happened with Alien.
I’m going to attempt it now. I don’t have any hard data or numbers or any of that stuff. How could I? There aren’t enough blockbusters with female leads to fill up a sample pool. But in the absence of ideal data, it is possible to come up with good theories that help researchers ask the right questions of the data they have (since asking the right questions is as essential for good results as the scientific process itself).
Ellen Ripley v. other female leads
Let’s compare and contrast a few female leads and see if we get a pattern. As I said above, we don’t have enough to consider this statistical, but we’re just looking for a starting point. Besides Aliens, I can think of one other female-led action movie that was successful enough to at least spawn a franchise: Underworld (Kate Beckinsale). And two female-led movies regarded as financial disappointments would be Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) and Catwoman (Halle Berry) – neither of which even made back their budgets on the gross revenues.
Let’s start with the most obvious: appearance. All four lead actresses are beautiful by Hollywood standards, so it’s not that either set of movies had more or less beautiful leads than the others. I’m ignoring acting ability, since that has never been correlated to movie success and is a highly subjective metric, anyway.
Here are images of:
Sigourney Weaver in Alien.
Kate Beckinsale in Underworld.
Charlize Theron in Aeon Flux. And finally…
I see a pattern – how about you? Theron and Berry are way sexed up in those costumes – lots of cleavage and skin showing. Beckinsale’s tight clothing doesn’t call particular attention to her breasts, hips or legs. And Weaver, god bless her, except for that one infamous underwear scene in the first movie, looks like a woman who never wears makeup and is fighting for her life. Weaver and Theron are both using guns, but Theron’s hair is perfectly smooth and mussed in a cute way. Weaver’s looks real, and it’s not a particularly attractive look.
Other sexy flops include: Ultraviolet, Elektra, Charlie’s Angels, and Doomsday. On the other side (less sexy successes) we have Kill Bill and Resident Evil.
But we’re told sex sells. So how come the movies with less sexed-up leads succeeded and the more sexed-up ones flopped? (Don’t worry – I’ll get to Lara Croft later.)
Getting inside men’s heads
If, as conventional wisdom assures us, a young male audience is essential to a blockbuster movie’s success, and most young men are attracted to women, you’d expect the opposite. Assuming this is a real trend, what could explain it? What might be happening in the heads of men watching these movies?
I started by asking myself what happens in my head. Why did I see Aliens and Underworld, but ignore the other two films? Because I find hyper-sexualized women distracting. I adore Charlize Theron, but I know I’ll have trouble paying attention to the movie if her breasts are being carefully framed for me in every shot. I don’t particularly like Halle Berry, to be honest, but I’d certainly have been more open to seeing the movie if she’d been put in something like Michelle Pfeiffer’s costume – like Beckinsale’s costume, it doesn’t call particular attention to her curves, even though it’s tight.
And here’s the question that finally hit me one day: what if men find that pandering sexed-up look distracting from the action? What if, like me, they find it hard to concentrate on both the plot-advancing action and some actress’ half-exposed breasts or acres of skin? Just because you like something doesn’t mean it isn’t distracting from other things you like, right? I like singing and I like eating, but you just can’t do both at the same time. Maybe looking at people you find attractive and watching a plot unfold are similarly incompatible.
So then I asked myself about my own reaction to blockbuster movies with leads I consider gorgeous, and I got the same answer, even though they never sex up the male leads like they do the women. Sexual interest and concentration on a story are mutually exclusive. If every scene is both unfolding the plot and titillating you, your brain tries to split in two directions, gets frustrated, and doesn’t enjoy either.
Women leads, not sexpot leads
What if the answer is that audiences never rejected “women” as action or sci-fi leads, and instead rejected distractingly sexed-up leads (which just always and exclusively happen to be women)? Well, if I’m right about that, how do I explain the success of the Lara Croft movies, despite Angelina Jolie’s highly sexed-up appearance?
By all accounts – even the few positive reviews – the Lara Croft movies were pretty silly. There was little story for Jolie’s appearance to distract anyone from. This was exactly the right formula for adapting a video game that featured one of the most drooled-over animated characters of all time. Men adored Croft like they adored Jessica Rabbit. So they cast Croft with a beautiful actress, costumed her so you couldn’t miss her breasts, and put a bit of story in the background just as an excuse to keep filming her. It was, in short, for those who wanted a little story with their sex.
And while no one wants to admit this, you can do the same thing with male leads and also profit. (I knew young women who saw Point Break quite a few times in the theater and never could tell me what the plot was. Thank Kathryn Bigelow for getting it.)
So I call this an “alternate formula” for blockbuster success: the low-story, camera-drooling-over-the-lead formula. Catwoman missed it by incorporating a lead character whose development was central to the story (thereby rendering the story essential), and Aeon Flux was based on a TV series which had a strong story that fans loved (maybe you can get by with sexed-up female leads in TV sometimes, because there’s just more time for everything than there is in film).
Taking women seriously
Or here’s a slight twist on my above theory: what if audiences never rejected female leads, but instead reject leads they can’t take seriously? When someone’s being served up on a sexual silver platter for you, it’s hard to imagine they’re in control of their destiny, or even trying to be. Action leads need to have agency. What if overly sexy costumes work against actors the way Botox does, rendering them incapable of putting across that authenticity that’s so essential in movies where outlandish things are happening?
So there you have it: two possible conclusions based on one theory which fits at least some of the available facts. What do you think?
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My current “favorite” example of this is Warner Brothers and superhero movie titles: Prior to the launch of The Dark Knight, the studio was really worried that the film would do poorly because it didn’t have Batman’s name in the title (because viewers would not know that it is a Batman movie). After it was a much bigger hit than expected, and Superman Returns did poorly, WB decided that the key to a successful superhero movie is to not put the hero’s name in the title. Thus, the upcoming Superman reboot will be titled The Man of Steel.
Superhero movies that don’t have the hero’s name in the title: Obviously contributes to success, and should be replicated.
Female Lead that Audiences Love: Just a fluke. Nothing to see here, move along.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
I know a number of women who will see anything Jason Statham is in. When asked “what is tha plot about?” there appears to be an inverse relationship between how detailed the response is and how many shirtless scenes Statham has.
Snatch: “A bunch of British low-lifes involved in diamond theft and illegal boxing get mixed up together.”
The Transporter: “Statham is hot. I think there were cars.”
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
Most tellingly, when Terminator 3 came out and didn’t do as well, the studio made all sorts of excuses, even though it had just as much Arnold. The fact that Linda Hamilton wasn’t in it was obviously not a factor.
Those men who supposedly won;t see movies with female leads? The reason I (and a number of other men) did not see Terminator 3 was because Linda Hamilton wasn’t in it.
But there’s no way there were enough such people that it hurt the movie’s sucess, right? Must have been some other reason.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
There’s also the fact that the mainstream porn industry features a wider variety of women’s appearances and body types than Hollywood does.
This is not meant as a compliment of the porn industry (which still has a ridiculously narrow definition of female attractiveness outside of mainstream porn), but as further criticism of Hollywood.
Perhaps most notably, the average weight of female performers in porn is much healthier than in Hollywood. Performers such as Gianna Michaels are major stars, where Hollywood would regulate them to the “chubby” best friend in chick flicks if they cast them at all.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
Well, it’s not going to help if that’s how they’re trying to sell it – the movie was never actually promoted here so I missed any of that.
Cara Marie(Quote) (Reply)
You’ve just described the bulk of Michelle Rodriguez’s male fans.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
God, yes. What’s really sad is that for years and years artists have put her in armor, and she has always looked awesome that way, but DC just keeps going back to the “iconic” outfit.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
There were ads for the DVD release of the fourth Resident Evil movie through the Christmas shopping season. Milla Jovovich is fully clothed, in an action pose shooting guns, and has an “action hero shooting guns” look on her face. But clearly that has nothing to do with why the franchise is successful.
… I think my sarcasm is getting worn out by posting on this thread so much.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
No lead role without serious man-pain … which is a pity. I liked plucky opportunistic Jack better.
Cara Marie(Quote) (Reply)
Yet another fantastic article! <3
The more you think about it the more obvious it is that Hollywood's reasoning makes no sense AT ALL. I mean, you have these 2 opposing "truths" about making money with movies that together make a quite interesting paradox:
#1) Sex sells.
#2) Women don't sell.
The fascinating thing here is that they do equate sex with women* which renders whatever effect they wanted to achieve to absolutely ZERO – according to THEIR OWN LOGIC! So how the fuck does that even work? /facepalm
Truth is of course, bigotry/discrimination/etc. are not based on any logical grounds at all. And they are especially not based on reliable "they just want to make more money" business models. You do not make _more_ money when you scare away the majority of your potential audience with stupid shit that no one wants to see.
What I find to be true is that more often than not sexed up female leads go hand in hand with bad writing. I'm not sure if one causes the other (though my guess would be yes) but there is a definite correlation between the two. First, lots of men (and especially those who are in charge of making stories into movies) still think we womenz are these weird creatures that no one could ever understand – so the majority of stories already feature badly written female characters. If they have a poor story and they know it the only way they think they can compensate this is with a sexy doll lead because "Sex sells!"
But a good story doesn't need such cheap tricks. This is why I'll always have a soft spot for Tarantino (even though I'm not much into all this graphic violence in his movies). He writes his female characters as characters first and female second. And while he does cast those roles with beautiful women they are not conventionally beautiful by Hollywood standards and more often than not they get dirty and kick some ass! And – oh surprise! – it works.
On a finale positive note: The rejection of sexy female leads in dumb movies seems to be a sign that after all people are more interested in a good story and well written characters than fapping material. Maybe there's hope.
*I can't even come up with any exception to this rule. Sure, there are sexy male leads – but there are usually not "sexed up" like the ladies. Hell, I wouldn't even know how that would look like since at least in our western society everything is so much catering to the male gaze that there are barely any criteria for "sexy men" beyond CK underwear ads.
Sabrina(Quote) (Reply)
Sarah Connor is the character who’s in the same knowledge-place as the audience. In the first, she has no idea what’s going on, and learns it as we do; in the second, she’s the voice in the wilderness, the one who does know what the horror is. Of course we identify with her.
She knows the future, and she’s still willing to fight the hell out of it.
There’s a deleted scene on the DVD, where Sarah argues Kyle into going after Cyberdyne Systems then and there (that’s originally why they were making the pipe bombs, even if they ended up using them to fight the Terminator).
SunlessNick(Quote) (Reply)
None of the men I know were interested in Terminator 3, and the lack of Sarah Connor and Linda Hamilton was the reason every time.
SunlessNick(Quote) (Reply)
You forgot to mention Nikita. Yes, I know that it’s a French film, but it must have been successful in the USA too, or it wouldn’t have had 2 spin-off tv shows and one tv rip-off in the form of Alias.
Anne Parillaud is attractive, but not Hollywood conventional beautiful and she was never sexed up in the film. And the picture was very plot/action focused.
M.C.(Quote) (Reply)
Sometimes, it birders on physically painful to learn of such stupidity.
SunlessNick(Quote) (Reply)
Just to play devil’s advocate — I own a pair of boots that have 5-inch stiletto heels (bought for Rocky Horror purposes), and have not only run but swing danced in them. (Disclaimer: I also have the advantage of having studied ballet for many many years.) My lack of access to heavy weaponry means that I can’t speak to their usefulness in grenade launching, but I think even that could be achieved. It’s just a matter of keeping one’s weight on the balls of the feet.
Granted, they wouldn’t be my first choice of footwear for fighting bad guys, but they’d do in a pinch.
Robin(Quote) (Reply)
Well, aside from the obvious adult-drama-vs-family-adventure-show dynamics, it’s very much about Jack’s responsibilities in both shows. I’ve seen several interviews with John Barrowman in which he explicitly says that Jack is lighter and more fun on Doctor Who precisely because he’s just the muscle rather than the leader. His mission is much clearer — stop the bad guys; protect the good guys — and because he’s not the one making the big decisions, there’s a weight being lifted that makes the character a little… I guess “giddy” is the best way I can describe it. He reverts to form in The Doctor’s presence in a way he doesn’t feel he can when he’s in charge.
Also, they have to spread the “hotting up” around a bit more in Torchwood. Otherwise, we’d never have gotten anybody else in that cast naked, which would be a damn shame. Well, okay, we’d probably still get Ianto. Woohoo! But no naked Naoko Mori would be a thing of sadness. [/shallow]
Robin(Quote) (Reply)
Oy. Seriously? Superman Returns flopped because it was a bad movie populated by unlikeable versions of beloved characters. The internet hath no fury like a fanbase whose superhero has been f*%*ed with.
Dark Knight did well because, dark and dystopian though it was, it had a compelling plot, interesting visuals, and amazing actors at the top of their game. And you can’t discount the morbid curiosity factor. I know a lot of people who aren’t really into superhero movies but went to see “the movie that killed Heath Ledger”.
Robin(Quote) (Reply)
Mmm… Aeryn is an avenging goddess in the later seasons. Which is not to say that she became hypersexualized. Claudia just got better at fighting as the years went on. (And they got increasingly bigger guns.) But she was badass from the beginning.
That’s a big part of what I like about Olivia Dunham on Fringe as well. She never really looks made up, and she’s slender in a believable “fighting fit” sort of way rather than being waifish. And, yeah, she gets beat up and dirty a lot.
Robin(Quote) (Reply)
I love Olivia – she’s one of the better characters on TV right now – but she’s got stupid shoes. If I were an FBI agent I would be wearing some comfy combat boots, or flats if I HAD to dress up.
My husband won’t even watch House with me anymore because I cannot suspend my disbelief about doctors in a hospital in pointy spike heels, and I also cannot shut up about it.
Funder(Quote) (Reply)
And for me, I realized later that I only initially liked the movie because Heath Ledger was amazing. Then I realized I can still dislike the movie (I HATED Batman Begins–here comes the disbelief of the guy I’m most familiar with as a dancing, singing Newsie as the Dark Knight…not happening. I’ll stick to the 90′s cartoon, thanks! XD) while thinking Heath Ledger was amazing. And be saddened that he died. There wasn’t a morbidity factor with me, though
. I had to get over that when I started to adore movies made before 1960. Pretty much all of the people in them are dead. The weirdest ones to see are the film shorts made right when film was first invented, like this baby eating a meal. It was over a hundred years ago, so it’s safe to say that baby is dead–hopefully after growing up and being embarrassed by that film and leading a full life, but you don’t get to know that from the three minutes of watching the child eat.
…/ramble….
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
I honestly don’t think the audience is, as a whole, quite as “stupid” and knuckle-dragging as Hollywood thinks. I cannot count how many times some film pro told me “the audience just isn’t as smart as we are.” As if people in Hollywood are smarter on average than people elsewhere. They’re so not. In fact, I’ve never known an industry more dedicated to letting truly stupid fools rise to the top, so long as they know somebody.
Excellent point! Because they DO make that correlation, it’s a total logic fail. There really is just so much bullshit here, you need a shovel.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
“#1) Sex sells.
#2) Women don’t sell.”
This only doesn’t make sense if you don’t add in this little-known #3: male humans who are cis gendered, hetero, and white (teh target demographic) are actually all bisexual or gay! Hollywood knows this because that target demographic all loves football (amirite?), which involves many large, muscley men in tights rubbing against each other. So if they like that, they must just want more male leads all the time because they want to have sex with them because, really, who watches movies and identifies with the characters? Really all anyone ever thinks about ever is sex. OH WAIT. They only think WOMEN want to have sex with the people on screen. Obviously we can’t identify with male characters. Because men and women are from different planets, right?
I think I have to go take a shower to get rid of all the bad logic and stupid things I just wrote in the name of sarcasm. D:
I other news, I hope your idea that there may be hope is correct. i’d love to see this all change within my lifetime. And I’d love to be involved in the change in Hollywood. Note to self: finish resume and demo reel…
The Other Anne(Quote) (Reply)
Nick is talking about this, too, and I’ve heard it offline as well. I’m not sure how Hollywood fails to get the same gossip we do.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
*reads again, stares, reads again*
They’re getting stupider every year. I’ve noticed an anecdotal correlation to WB flops over the past 15 years: bad marketing. They refuse to spend money on marketing (I’ve heard this from people who work in their marketing department) or even hire enough staff to handle it, or anything. They have an extremely poor grasp of how marketing helps even bad films do well at the box office. Who hasn’t seen quite a few films that didn’t live up to a good trailer/commercial? WB apparently doesn’t know this.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
They hear it, they just don’t believe it. Obviously they know more about what “the audience” wants they the people who make up the audience?
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
I think their logic (which is wrong, but internally, if not externally sound) is that sex (sexed up women) sell, but can’t carry the show as leads. Therefore, you have to have a big badass male lead (or even a bespectacled geeky wuss male lead, funny how in Hollywood they all kinda go together) and lots of bland, barely there but always visible sexy (airbrushed, artificial looking) female eye-candy, ala Megan Fox in Transformers
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
could someone fix the HTML fail? I just can’t seem to get the hang of blockquotes.
Attackfish(Quote) (Reply)
I also don’t think the audience is as stupid as Hollywood thinks (- or wants them to be?). But when you see the box office results for some movies… oh my… it’s kinda depressing sometimes. What happened to good critical analysis? – oh wait, it got replaced by the phrase “It’s just a movie!” D:
Haha, stupid fools in charge always reminds me of that infamous Kevin Smith anecdote about Jon Peters and the giant spider. lol
Sabrina(Quote) (Reply)
And Weaver, god bless her, except for that one infamous underwear scene in the first movie
See, for me part of what worked about the underwear scene for me was that it was UNDERWEAR, not LINGERIE. It may have been a little gratuitous but I could totally buy that it was something she would strip down to when alone/getting ready for bed/hypersleep because it was comfortable, as opposed to something with a lot of lace and wire.
I assume if this alledged prequel of Ridley Scott’s goes ahead they won’t have Ripley/Weaver. Because while I can’t see it working WITH her (she somehow forgets at the begining of the original movie that she’s seen this before, while being thirty years younger?), I can’t see it working WITHOUT Weaver, either.
Scarlett(Quote) (Reply)
Also, who doesn’t know a film he almost didn’t see because it was marketed as something else, so a film doesn’t find the audience that would love it. I still remember sitting in »Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind« surrounded by people who thought they were going to see the next Jim Carrey Dumb-and-Dumber comedy. And who left after fifteen minutes.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
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