USA Today has several great stories featuring women's power in film. The first, Hollywood's power women shed light on movies this summer, talks about the successes of Sex and the City and Mamma Mia and what that could mean for the future.
For these two pictures, having female talent calling at least some of the shots made all the difference.Ok, how cool is it that they have my quote and then Diane English's quote. Could I be any more psyched? It's true that we have to build a market but the only way we can build the market is that if there are quality movies out there for us to see.
"It absolutely matters who's behind the scenes," says Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. "When you have at least one woman in a position of power, such as an executive producer or director, you not only get more female characters, but more dimensional and powerful female characters."
If Sex and the City and Mamma Mia! have proved anything, it's that it makes no difference to the bottom line if most men decide to steer clear. Women did it all by themselves.
And if female moviegoers want more of the same, they will have to continue to take a break from their busy routines and buy a ticket again.
"Go see a movie about women on the opening weekend, that is what matters to Hollywood," says Melissa Silverstein, who blogs on the Women & Hollywood site and contributes to the Huffington Post. "We need to build our economic power and prove we're a market."
Cash, at least, doesn't have a gender bias.
"The only thing that makes anyone pay attention is money," says Diane English, the creator of TV's Murphy Brown whose update of the 1939 Joan Crawford-Norma Shear classic The Women arrives Sept. 12.
"Anyone who thinks otherwise shouldn't be in this business. Young men under 25 keep seeing comic-book and slasher films, and that's why Hollywood makes them. If women want to change things, they can't wait for the DVD."
Women won't go see a piece a shit movie like a 25-year-old boy, its just not going to happen, so the quality of films and the marketing of these films is key. Hollywood really needs to figure out how to market to women. They spend so much money on research but can't figure out how to get our butts in the seats except for the biggest, most high profile films. I think that even the smaller films could find an audience if Hollywood cared enough to market to us properly. Their marketing kind of reminds me of not too long ago when all medical testing was done on men and then all the findings were extrapolated to include women. Women are not just smaller men, we are different. Why is that so hard to understand?
Fashioning a future for women in Hollywood
These ladies got the moves at the box office
