Anything Goes : Women moviegoers beat men moviegoers by Hammad Hassan

An interesting report is published by The Motion Picture Association of America on moviegoer demographics, which claims 52% of women among the moviegoer population made up to theaters and bought half of the tickets sold. The fact is never depicted when it comes to the female-led films made by Hollywood. It’s only 15% as compared to Male-led films. For people who want to see more female-driven films and female film-makers behind the scenes, these published figures are not a good omen. From 2007 to 2012, the 500 top grossing films, male actors outnumbered female actresses 2.25 to 1, and yet women keep watching. Shockingly, it’s not films like “Hunger Games” (female driven story) but films like “Non Stop”, a Liam Neeson thriller, females outnumbered men in audience. Even though, in 2013, “Gravity” grabbed seven Oscars, where only one female featured (protagonist) and “Hunger Games” remained the highest grossing film, does not necessarily mean that Hollywood is shifting its directions. The top 100 grossing films in 2013, having a clear female protagonist, like The “Hunger Games”, “Texas Chainsaw” 3D, and “August” made more money on average than films featuring male protagonists. Women-led films grossed on average of 116 million dollars to men’s 97 million dollars. Is this a fair argument? No. In fact, 16 out of 100 highest grossing films released last year actually focused on female characters. So, female driven films are doing well but what would happen if many more films starring women hit the screens? Will it hold the trend as it did in 2013? This is a big question. While Hollywood clearly counted films with “clear” female protagonists in the women’s column, films that gave equal billing to its top male and female characters were counted on the men’s column. If you take this gesture into account, male driven films start to fare a lot better than the small chunk of films which featured women as lead characters. Films like “Temptation”: (confessions of a marriage counselor) are excluded from the female count even though it as an obvious female protagonist film makes things worse. Grossing only 51 million dollars is not a big deal but still it does bring down the women’s purported 116 million dollars average. Now the next question is if women are already going to the movies more than men, why should anyone change films to accommodate them?