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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 19, 2024

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But a lot of similarly brainless beat-em-up action movies have been released with women leads over the years, often with better objective craft and quality overall, and male audiences have generally rejected all of them.

Like what?

There are a lot of misses, but I'd guess that most of them are due to a dynamic where the producers start out with the goal of making an action movie that women will be interested in watching. They then start my casting a lead woman and usually other supporting women, but also change it in other ways such as making these women hypercompetent, degrading the other male characters, or focusing on themes and topics that would be of particular interest to women specifically. It's not really a surprise when men turn out to be less interested in these movies that are after all not for them.