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Bridesmaids
(A Few Words)
Here's a fact: last year, Universal Studios, responsible for distributing Bridesmaids, had its best ever year, raking in nearly $1.4 billion in revenue.
Here's another 'fact': I've never seen Girls, I despised the whole concept of SatC and I quite fancied New Girl but didn't watch any in the end.
Here's a (rhetorical) question based on the two statements above: am I contributing to the continuing fusion of capitalism and conservative patriarchy?
TV and film matters. Maybe not as much as literature, or at a push music. History and technology are continually playing a large part here. But it is influential, it's trendsetting, and it's become a stimulator for conversation between dozens of interlinking social groups.
A small exercise: try to remember the last time you started a conversation with 'Have you seen' or 'Did you see'. Pretty easy isn't it? No surprise then, based on all of the above, that film makes a massive, massive amount of money through its central position in our daily existences. We don't need a number to tell us that's undeniably true.
It's not a small jump to suggest that an industry with that much traction gets a say in shaping what others think of each other. That's also a given - and that's mainly why I felt a bit guilty about Bridesmaids. I loved it - and then realised why. I'd never seen anything else like it.
Watching a film is supposed to be fun, so no one considers the implications when they buy their ticket for whatever they're watching. And why should they? I don't want someone scrutinising my viewing choices (unless it's on here of course).
But going back to that last question: am I, alongside a broad percentage of the male population, reinforcing a certain 'oeuvre', thereby eschewing a different set of films entirely, by 'opting out'? The $64,000 dollar question here, however, is of a chicken-egg nature: does audience influence output, or visa versa?
A small exercise: try to remember the last time you started a conversation with 'Have you seen' or 'Did you see'. Pretty easy isn't it? No surprise then, based on all of the above, that film makes a massive, massive amount of money through its central position in our daily existences. We don't need a number to tell us that's undeniably true.
It's not a small jump to suggest that an industry with that much traction gets a say in shaping what others think of each other. That's also a given - and that's mainly why I felt a bit guilty about Bridesmaids. I loved it - and then realised why. I'd never seen anything else like it.
Watching a film is supposed to be fun, so no one considers the implications when they buy their ticket for whatever they're watching. And why should they? I don't want someone scrutinising my viewing choices (unless it's on here of course).
But going back to that last question: am I, alongside a broad percentage of the male population, reinforcing a certain 'oeuvre', thereby eschewing a different set of films entirely, by 'opting out'? The $64,000 dollar question here, however, is of a chicken-egg nature: does audience influence output, or visa versa?
Take directors - the executors of 'Hollywood's' creations. A 2013 Neilson report highlighted the more or less even gender split in moviegoers in the US over three years. But the top ten highest grossing films in 2013 were all made by men. In 2012, only Kathryn Bigelow made the financial cut.
Whilst I'm not suggesting directors like David O. Russell or Steve McQueen are perpetuating a male capitalist hegemony (first and last outing for that phrase) it is coming from somewhere. Women are watching as many movies as men - so what are the reasons for the dramatic imbalance?
It could be something to do with genre. Neilson also notes that
the most popular genre of film in 2012 was action/adventure, with 61% of moviegoers seeing at least one within the year. Discounting arthouse, musical and re-releases, the three genres least viewed by moviegoers was romances, kids/family films and romantic comedies with less than 25% people watching in each case. It's not unreasonable to suggest two out of three of these genres appeal to women more than men, although it is mighty difficult to prove.
Nonetheless there seems to be a correlative relationship there of sorts. Of course it's ridiculous to suggest women don't enjoy action films or comedies and there's obvious perils when matching men and women to film genres. So here's the part that can't be measured - at least accurately, or with any degree of impartiality: is there a top-down assumption on what men and women find funny?
I don't believe that marketing bods in Universal et al are out to reverse women's suffrage through the form of cinema. That was a joke. But budgets and spending constitute risk by necessity - and there are some huge budgets for films out there. And risk is only really assessed based on two composites. The first is unassailable knowledge - that is, empirical fact. Not even 'it is raining'. That's ultimately subjective, based on language, geography. I mean granular, like 'water is wet'.
The other is effectively educated guesswork, increasingly done through algorithms, increasingly placed in the hands of the customer. That's obvious and everywhere. And that's where the really knotty question lies. We have almost no empirical truths left, beyond those that are irrelevant due to their mundane nature. Another day of existence invariably means progress of some sort in a particular field on inquiry.
So when people watch a film like Bridesmaids and argue over the reasons for its success, much of it does boil down to the fact it is an apparently honest appraisal of women in the real world, behaving normally. But how did Universal reach the decision that that was all it took for an economically successful film?
Tick a couple of obvious questions off: how many films are there like Bridesmaids? Of that pretty small pot, how many were successful and translated well culturally? How many of the actresses have a big following in media? Who was the director? Do they have cultural traction? Are you any closer to a definitive answer? Speaking objectively, it's a miracle this film actually got made, because none of those questions are definitive in any sense.
The question is pretty obvious: how do you change a setup that's almost entirely based on perspective? Here's a more provocative question: when your best, most accurate consumer research is completed for you every day by consumers, with the author as such making almost no autonomous decisions based on the above, is the industry really the issue here? In a nutshell: is your audience unconsciously preserving a male-dominated industry through its economic decisions?
I don't believe that marketing bods in Universal et al are out to reverse women's suffrage through the form of cinema. That was a joke. But budgets and spending constitute risk by necessity - and there are some huge budgets for films out there. And risk is only really assessed based on two composites. The first is unassailable knowledge - that is, empirical fact. Not even 'it is raining'. That's ultimately subjective, based on language, geography. I mean granular, like 'water is wet'.
The other is effectively educated guesswork, increasingly done through algorithms, increasingly placed in the hands of the customer. That's obvious and everywhere. And that's where the really knotty question lies. We have almost no empirical truths left, beyond those that are irrelevant due to their mundane nature. Another day of existence invariably means progress of some sort in a particular field on inquiry.
So when people watch a film like Bridesmaids and argue over the reasons for its success, much of it does boil down to the fact it is an apparently honest appraisal of women in the real world, behaving normally. But how did Universal reach the decision that that was all it took for an economically successful film?
Tick a couple of obvious questions off: how many films are there like Bridesmaids? Of that pretty small pot, how many were successful and translated well culturally? How many of the actresses have a big following in media? Who was the director? Do they have cultural traction? Are you any closer to a definitive answer? Speaking objectively, it's a miracle this film actually got made, because none of those questions are definitive in any sense.
The question is pretty obvious: how do you change a setup that's almost entirely based on perspective? Here's a more provocative question: when your best, most accurate consumer research is completed for you every day by consumers, with the author as such making almost no autonomous decisions based on the above, is the industry really the issue here? In a nutshell: is your audience unconsciously preserving a male-dominated industry through its economic decisions?
Of course that's all pretty obvious. So here's my solution: formative years are the most important. We should get as many kids watching women screaming about bleaching private orifices as they can. Want to see more films like Bridesmaids? Get films like Bridesmaids into schools. I'm only being a tiny bit flippant.
Thanks to artsclash for that awesome comic pic
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