Film: Jessica Kellgren-Hayes
women lead summer
Something strange is happening to women in Hollywood movies this summer… they’re getting guns, and street cred, and no-strings-sex, and complex inner lives! This summer sees women in some of the biggest releases playing something other than ‘love interest’ and ‘mother’.
Comedies, dramas and even action films are all being helmed by women. From the all-female ‘Pitch Perfect 2’ to Melissa McCarthy in action spoof ‘Spy’, buddy comedy ‘Hot Pursuit’ (with two female leads rather than the traditional testosterone soaked Bromcom) to Meryl Streep as an ageing rocker in ‘Ricki and the Flash’. Some of these films were even written by women!
Plus, these films are actually interesting. Which is not normally the case when Hollywood decides to throw a bone to it’s female audience; we’ve seen enough badly-drawn-but-beautiful period dramas. These films show the multi-faceted female experience and that women can carry a film by themselves. No token women here! ‘Avengers’, I love you, but really; the only member of the team not to have a solo film is the only woman – how is that acceptable?!
The main theme in this summer’s new releases is the sequel; from ‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’ to ‘Jurassic World’, ‘Ted 2’ and ‘Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation’. Hollywood, despite a willingness to test the commercial power of films with female leads, is still very much driven by a desire to repeat what has previously worked. ‘Paper Towns’, starring British model Cara Delevingne, is an adaptation of a Michael H Weber book, brought to the big screen by the same team who adapted his ridiculously popular ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ (their trade is the weepy, you have been warned!).
The aforementioned ‘Spy’, directed by Paul Feig and starring Melissa McCarthy teams the duo for the third time. Meryl Streep’s ‘Ricki and the Flash’ is also somewhat of a known quantity, the actor has had summer hits going back to 2006’s ‘The Devil Wears Prada’.
We should note that these new female-fronted films will live and die by the box office; if they make enough to encourage a sequel (even a bad one). That means more films fronted by women in the cinemas, but if they don’t…
Judd Apatow’s ‘Trainwreck’, starring Amy Schumer, is his first film with a female lead. If it fails to win support at the box office it is likely that this will be blamed not on the director but on his leading lady. Likewise, whilst it is notable that Disney’s ‘Tomorrowland’ has a teen girl for a protagonist, will her co-star George Clooney or director Brad Bird be blamed?
Trying something new is always scary, having a summer film roster full of female leads is relatively new and the Hollywood studios are likely to be wary of the outcome.
As audience members it is our duty not to see a film specifically because it has women in, nor to pretend to love something that is terrible just because it is full of women (hello, ‘Pitch Perfect 2’) but we need to be honest about why we don’t like a film. Don’t let a shoddily written or directed film be blamed on its actresses and we can make a change.
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