Why Frozen and Catching Fire are Great for Women in Hollywood

http://www.forbes.com/sites/melissasilverstein/2013/12/02/gender-and-the-box-office/

This weekend, both movies Frozen and Catching Fire broke records at the box office. Frozen grossed $93 million, the biggest Disney release since Lion King and Catching Fire continued to gross over $300 million. Besides breaking records, both of these films have something else in common; they both have female leads. In fact, the article mentions that if Catching Fire continues at the rate its at, it will be the first movie ever with a female lead to get the best box office records for the year. As sad as it is that NOT ONE movie with a female lead has ever been the box office leader of the year, this is a huge accomplishment. 


The one part about this article that was bothersome comes from the fact that the studio behind Frozen was nervous about this movie because they were afraid boys wouldn't want to see a Princess movie, or even just a movie starring a girl for that matter. Gender roles that are represented at the box office reflect how we treat women in our culture. It seems as though all movies about women are not taken as seriously if boys or men are not going to see it. As the article states, "Women all the time go and see movies about strong men as a given because that is what we are offered. No one ever questions whether we are going to go see The Avengers. We need boys not to only believe that it is the men who do the saving, but sometimes it is the men who need to be saved by the women." And that was the thing about both of these movies. Both the lead women are doing the rescuing, not the men. It raised the double standard that women can go see movies about men yet men can't go see movies about women. The same thing happened with The Heat this summer. It was a fantastic, highly praised film, yet when it came to the numbers, it just couldn't compete with the films staring men.