Pop Culture Curmudgeon

Is 2008 the Year of the Woman?

In the 1990s, each year seemed to be hailed as the Year of the Woman when there had been enough meaty roles for women to fill out the Academy Awards slates for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. (Some years, the nominees were a real stretch. Sharon Stone in Casino? Courtney Love in the movie about Larry Flynt? Really?)

These pronouncements always made me mad. It was not a victory for women when female actors were given 5 lead and 5 supporting roles that were decent. It was a victory for women when it was nearly impossible to pick the best of these roles and performances from the myriad available.

But, this year, three of the biggest box office winners emerged from the pocketbooks of women: Mamma Mia!, Sex and the City, and Twilight. Other more traditionally male movies made more money. The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ironman (or is it Iron Man?). The usual summer blockbusters were there, smashing records and captivating the country.

But the blockbusters had the ridiculous budgets and the ridiculous expectations. These girly movies had considerably lower budgets and very low expectations. SATC seemed to made only to mollify the fans of the tv show. It was as if it wasn’t expected to make any money, let alone place in the top 10 grosses for the year so far.

Mamma Mia! had even lower expectations, but one must never discount the power of ABBA to propel it to #6 for the year so far.

And Twilight. Twilight had the expectations, but it had a miniscule budget, and it made back the entire investment in one day. I don’t know where it will fall in the receipts for the year, but it is a huge success to have everything after day 1 of release be profit.

Does this make women the new Hollywood power brokers? Or is it just the natural offshoot of the waning chick-lit fascination, as the popular books from this movement are brought to the theaters?