That "New Audience" should show up to buy tickets aaaany... mmmmoment.... now...
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None of these female superhero movies work because women do not fit the hero’s journey. A man needs to struggle against the world to create value and establish his worth. A woman, by contrast, is born with value. So when a woman pretends to struggle like a man, it rings hollow to the audience. Because that’s not how the real world works.
there are tons of issues with these feminist movies, and its not just that females do not fit in to the hero's journey, its also that they behave like men whilst still having the privileges' of women..
Alita Battle Angel and Sailor moon and the magical girl genre work well, but i think a big part of that is because the characters actually look and BEHAVE like females and they have the same struggles and vulnerabilities that females would have. The stories dont shy away from writing them as being actually female and looking and behaving like females.
. Whereas all the hated female feminist movies all have the same problem of female characters who look and behave like men yet will never struggle or suffer like a man would in a hero's journey(do you believe they'd ever let a female character have a hand chopped off like with Luke for example?) because it goes against the feminist message. .
Female superhero movies could actually work and they're not inherently contradictory with the hero's journey, but feminism is simply incompatible with quality, artistic integrity and fidelity.
They are contradictory for the fact that a man has to build his worth to overcome adversity to eventually establish and generate a worthwhile legacy and lineage.
This is not something a woman has to do ever, she simply has to find a man she genetically feels predisposed to create a lineage/legacy with.
So a female superhero is literally antithetical to the hero's journey because of what current_horror said: a woman's greatest trait and virtue is something she's born with, hence her inherent value is what she has to GIVE not what she has to achieve.
A man has to ACHIEVE his value to receive the gift of purity from a woman to create an offspring based on his stature as a hero (his achievements change him, and thus make him worthy of having a strong seed). That's the whole point of the hero's journey: that a man EARNS his right to a legacy.
Women don't have to earn anything, and there is no reason for them to because biologically it serves no purpose. A female superhero can work, but not in the same way as a male superhero, which is precisely why most female superhero films simply do not work.
The only one most people consider to be relatively "good" was the first Wonder Woman, but keep in mind that she didn't have to earn her worth; once again, she was born with it. So no hero's journey there. The same thing with Red Sonja -- who had her value forcibly taken from her and so her journey was one of revenge rather than one of attaining value.
The end goals are always going to be different between men and women due to base differences in biological essentialism. This is precisely why the hero's journey for men is so much more compelling than one fabricated out of absurdities for women. Because in the latter case, we all know for a fact how basic biology works and how the dating market works, and how Western societies favour, pamper, or coddle women. So trying to depict a woman struggling like a man is both unrealistic and subconciously jarring because we all know it's not true.
For women, their stories are always more compelling when it's centered around traits that identify with their real life struggles from a feminine perspective, typically dealing with familial issues, finding the right romantic partner, or seeking restitution/recourse/retribution for a grave injustice (the last of which actually applies equally to both sexes for obvious reasons).
If you look at most good films that star women, it's usually about some form of recourse for what value they've lost, rather than what value they can gain. As opposed to most good films starring men, where -- as current_horror points out -- the hero's journey is always the more compelling narrative for him.
It would help if you'd bring this in the context of a village or something.
Anyway, you make a plausible (romantic) argument but the 'work with what you got in order to fend off an aggressive enemy' seems not to be listed as one of the story arcs for women.
Ah, that fits under the seeking recourse for a grave injustice, since obviously fending off a village or avenging the village for the grave injustice of being dominated/overrun by a greater enemy still fits within that trope. Sort of like Disney's Dragon Slayer, where Caitlin Clarke's character journeys to seek help from a wizard to slay the dragon as a form of saving the people from the dragon's wrath (which also ties into the classic Hero's Journey for Peter MacNicol's character), which kind of fits with your request to put this into the context of a village.
Idk man the first Wonder Woman movie with Gadot was pretty good. 2nd was some weird feminist rape fantasy.
The first Wonder Woman movie was average at best. It received a lot of effusive praise because the bar for female-led geek genre films - and DC films in general - is absurdly low. It’s worse than probably half the Marvel films.
Up until the last 30 minutes...
Ive never seen a movie self destruct so hard so intensely so late in the runtime lol