Gender roles in entertainment

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Heero
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Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2012 7:32 am
Anime Fan Since: 1980
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Gender roles in entertainment

Post by Heero »

Starting a topic to go into an intellectual sidebar on a topic that started in the "Sailor Moon - Crystal" thread. I think it is an interesting question to look at how we view gender roles as society has advanced and how we view the differences between men and women. But if the mods think this does (or has too much potential to) "go off the rails" or cause problems, please feel free to lock/dump it. Altho, I'd hope we're all mature enough to discuss without things going bad.

An interesting thought that came to mind re: marketing is about shows that are made. I fully acknowledge that from the business side men have controlled the levers for decades (tv/movies have more or less been around for less than a century so I limit that to "decades" ;) ), but I have another thought on things. Ignoring/accepting that a large percentage is "men fund/select the shows, and thus choose what appeals to them", I think there is also a matter that women might be more "accepting" of entertainment that is "less appealing" to them.

Without putting actual labels on the specific types of programming, I'd say:
-Show A: targeted to males (pick an age demo)
-Show B: targeted to females (same age demo)

MOST of the time, I'd say the women are more likely to accept Show A rather than men accepting Show B. As example, I'd note that of the 10 highest grossing movies of all time (according to BoxOfficeMojo), 2(ish) were (IMO) "female targeted" (#2 Titanic, #10 Hunger Games) and the other 8 were not (3 are comic book movies and 2 are Star Wars movies). (interesting corollary, this seems to be a more recent trend, rather than the opposite as one might expect, when adjusted for inflation "Gone With the Wind", "The Sound of Music", and "Doctor Zhivago" all make the list, none of which would likely be classified as "guy" movies, with tSoM maybe being tabbed as a "family" movie, although lots of "action" movies with male leads make the top 20)

Point being, it SEEMS that more women will watch entertainment featuring male leads rather than men watching the female leads. (note: I am not saying this is "fair" or "right", merely that it appears to "be") One could point to something like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and say it did (I think) better than spin-off "Angel" or argue that many female led shows are "poorly written", both of which are probably valid points. But it also begs the question (all men ask at some point), what do women WANT? An interesting (IMO) perspective being Japan's anime/manga market. Shounen manga is VERY different from Shoujo manga, but BOTH exist and are well catered to. But "boys" manga sells MUCH better than "girls" manga.
(top selling titles for first half of 2014)
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... 014/.75177
There's a few girls manga there, but none in the top 10. (one COULD argue that girls are driving the sales of titles like Kuroko's Basketball, although that would speak to my point) My other thought, is that AT A HIGH LEVEL (ignoring that ANY comment glances over what any SPECIFIC person might do) girls/women spend less on "disposable" entertainment (DVDs, manga, etc.) than boys/men. (One exception I would make in America at least is traditional "books" (ie. NOT comics/manga), my OPINION is that book reading has plummeted and many boys/men have for all intents and purposes stopped reading altogether while the female readership has declined more slowly and thus sells in greater numbers than males, but that's just conjecture) My opinion is that ON AVERAGE women spend more on their "presentation" (women's hair styling costs more than most men pay for a haircut, women buy more variety/styles of clothing than men, women buy/wear makeup GENERALLY men don't, etc.) and men spend money on "toys" (games, movies, manga). Because of this, content producers go where the money is. This is also the argument re: otaku anime vs. wider band anime. Even if people wish to say that an anime aimed at the mainstream COULD pull tens of millions, it could also lose hundreds of thousands if it flops, whereas the otaku anime will pull hundreds of thousands on a hit, but will always at least "break even".

But I would ask (especially the female forum-goers) do you think the issue IS the content (good entertainment for women, especially anime/manga) is not being made (and if so, WHAT would you WANT to see) or do you think there is an aspect of women (in general, NOT in specific) not buying as much disposable entertainment? (For the record, I DO think both are at play, but I think the safety aspect inherent in the second issue "causes" the first, as "proven" (IMO) by the fact that you can find MANY books targeted to young women (Hunger Games, Twilight, etc) because that is a proven BOOK market now)
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