WOMENOMICS

It’s pretty clear that Hollywood pays its male leads more and gives them roles for much longer than women.

This has extended to the world of comics. Five of the six upcoming Marvel movies feature male leads with women firmly relegated to the roles of girlfriends or assistants. Why not a Wonder Woman flick or any true super heroine movie? It’s not because directors and writers lack good material, there are literally hundreds of comic book super heroines, and female characters play integral roles in just about every superhero team and major comic book plots.

We recently saw women flexing their box office muscle giving Sex and the City the highest-grossing opening for an R-rated comedy in movie history; it’s not inconceivable to think that a super heroine flick could draw both the “girls night out” crowd and the already broad fan base for comic movies. That would give the studios a revenue bump of the kind provided by the Spiderman and X-MEN franchises. Don’t the movie moguls want our money? We are an economic force to be reckoned with.