Warner Bros. declares war on female lead movies? I'm horrified, but I can't say I'm surprised.
Hollywood has been atwitter all week with news that Warner Bros. kingpin Jeff Robinov has issued a moratorium on any and all movies with a female lead.
According to Nikki Finke of the LA Weekly, this summer's poor performances of The Brave One (Jodie Foster) and The Invasion (Nicole Kidman), amongst others, have caused the not-so-closeted misogynist to declare that he doesn't even want to see a script with a female lead cross his desk.
Of course, the elephant in the room here that Robinov is neglecting to realize that these movies failed not because their protagonists were lacking external genitalia, but simply because the movies weren't very good. But of course, that would mean admitting that he was ultimately responsible for putting out bad cinema, when it is so much easier on the ego to blame someone else. And since Foster and Kidman have both raked in Academy Awards, thus proving their personal skills, well then let's just blame it on their whole gender shall we? It simply MUST be that the American public doesn't like seeing its mothers and sisters in such radical roles. Outside of the kitchen, away from the babies, and off their backs? Sacrilege!
Unfortunately, since Warners' buck really does stop with him, he is entitled to make such decrees--however ludicrous they may be. And we all know the futility of trying to persuade a higher up that perhaps, just maybe, the might be (gasp) wrong. I'm not even sure if using your artistic license to only greenlight male-lead films comes anywhere near offending any discrimination laws. It merely offends the sensibilities.
The saddest thing for me is how powerless the whole thing makes me feel. I mean, could we boycott Warner Bros. movies until we see some highly-publicized female lead vehicles in the pipeline? Theoretically, yes. But I'm more of a pragmatist than that. I've tried personal boycotts of places like Target (for allowing their pharmacists to refuse prescriptions of the Pill or the Morning After Pill), and the reality is that after a while the sheer convenience of the place wins out and I wind up trolling the aisles for my refill of cheap toner and shower curtains to the tune of my angry, but over-riden conscience. And all Warner Bros. would have to do is roll out one appealing trailer, and I'd break and be in line with the rest of the masses for my socially-sanctioned 90 minutes of geek-out bliss.
Of course, in the days since this news broke, Warner Bros. is now denying that Robinov ever said anything of the sort. And for my part, I hope that he didn't, and this was just a silly rumor that snowballed because of how simply appalling it is. But I doubt it.
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