It’s ironic that while many women are complaining about halfway-demasculinized (“trans”) men seizing their sporting titles, “female-empowerment entertainment” is still being unabashedly thrust upon America. This is, of course, entertainment with macho but still sultry female characters who not only toss gargantuan men around like rag dolls, but whose portrayal suggests that women should have no problem equaling (besting?) men at sports.
Yet, though Hollywood loves its 120-pound, pulchritudinous, man-bashing dynamos, “audiences are not embracing these stories,” film consultant David Gross told The New York Times last month. A case in point is the subject of the Gray Lady’s article: how Disney’s recent film The Marvels flopped. And why the rejection? Here’s a reason:
“Real women like strong men, even fake ones portraying superheroes,” writes commentator Alicia Colon.
Instead, Disney delivered another woke feminist fantasy that, it should be added, alienates real men as well. Oh, but know this: Its failure is actually your fault.
In fact, the director of The Marvels, Nia DaCosta (the first black woman to direct a Marvels film), “is blaming hateful sexist, misogynists for the massive box office failure,” writes Colon. This is an interesting theory, given the next fact Colon presents. To wit: “What is probably really upsetting Ms. DaCosta is that more men than women bought tickets to the film. Women, like me, are not at all interested in paying for a film starring macho women.”
“No thanks, Disney,” Colon continues. “Real women like strong men, even fake ones portraying superheroes.”
For the record, I said “No thanks,” too — to virtually all modern entertainment long ago. Along with the pervasive left-wing messages, the continual vulgarity, and gratuitous sex, the masculinized female characters are an additional turn-off.
As for Colon, she’s apparently no anomaly. While men are more likely to watch Marvel movies in general, the disparity with The Marvels was far greater than normal: The opening-weekend, over-25 male/female audience breakdown for the film was more than two to one.
While there perhaps could be multiple reasons for this, Colon is correct about real women’s desire for strong men. Just consider 2022 research on women’s preferences for different kinds of mates. While some women want “nice guys” or “bad boys,” Psychology Today reported last year, “ultimately, however, many desire the hero….” (Emphasis added.)
A couple of points should be noted here, too. Part of the “bad boy’s” appeal may be that he’s exciting and bold, something akin to a real-life anti-hero. Moreover, women who actually land a hero type “also tend to be the most desirable mates themselves,” Psychology Today further informs; this perhaps means that even more women than the study indicates would choose a “hero,” but must settle.
Even more apropos may be a 2015 study out of Europe finding that women “are more attracted to war heroes than regular soldiers or men who display heroic traits in other fields, such as in sports or natural disaster work,” as ScienceDaily related at the time. Given this, doesn’t it make sense that women would be attracted to, and want to see, not heroines but brave male heroes battling on film?
This desire, expressed in Bonnie Tyler’s ’80s song “Holding Out for a Hero,” is innate. Could you imagine a man singing such a song and creating the accompanying video (below) — but with a heroine? The whole idea is ridiculously laughable.
In a nutshell, normal women want to be swept off their feet by the hero; normal men want to be the hero and do the sweeping.
As for villains — or at least villainous forces — Colon writes that even when young, she “was convinced that the women’s movement was more concerned with destroying the average male than furthering women’s rights.” This would help explain why feminists’ (and, in general, leftists’) calls for “equality” have always been a lie; that is, they’re issued selectively, only in areas where such appeals undermine tradition and increase feminist power and prestige.
For instance, there’s much caterwauling about how disparities “favoring” men (e.g., the wage gap) must be eliminated. Yet disparities redounding negatively upon men aren’t even mentioned. Examples are women’s greater lifespan; female fashion models out-earning their male counterparts; men being less likely to obtain college degrees; that men perform virtually all the most dirty, dangerous jobs; and that, as a result, men constitute 92 percent of workplace deaths.
To the point here, leftists focus on “female-empowerment entertainment.” We must liberate little girls from the “patriarchy’s” shackles by showing women fighting on screen — even better than the men do!
But if you really believe in this “equality,” here’s where to start: Compel women to register for the draft just as men must. And once in the military, ensure they perform the exact same roles. Anyone can play fight on screen; the rubber hits the road with real fighting, and shedding real blood, in real life. Anything less is just playing at equality — like a child.
All this said, while normal men and women don’t appreciate the macho-female portrayal, it still is part of a feminism-inspired conditioning program that serves to make many boys and girls quite abnormal. I remember, for example, a left-wing man online who essentially said that his appreciation for the feminist worldview was cultivated, in part, by watching The Powerpuff Girls (seriously).
For certain is that macho-woman imagery serves to further blur the distinctions between the sexes, a process now in an advanced stage in which many believe boys and girls can switch sexes at will. This isn’t good for society any more than, apparently, it is for Hollywood’s bottom line.
