Paul Dini: Superhero Cartoon Execs Don't Want Female Viewers

[RolandOfGilead]

ha, and look at that, jimquisition article below this comment box, "An Industry Of Pitiful Cowards", not about cartoon execs, but let's face it, that's what all mass media execs are like.

 

[Dragonbums]

I knew the Escapist was late on the news, but man guys, this was news like 3 MONTHS AGO! I mean, it was on the off topic discussion thread for the longest time.

 

[HanabPacal]

It is interesting to me to see how many people are trying to make this into an advertising issue rather than a sexist issue.

This is the same problem that Hollywood has with movies - there were similar comments made by execs in early 2011, I believe, that talked about wanting to get men into theaters, considering women to be their "+1", because women don't buy popcorn. So the only time they actively consider women audiences in movies is when they're making a Chick Flick, or when they're on a date with a guy. That might not seem like much, but every action, every comedy, every drama, every historical - THOSE are for men, and are adjusted for a male audience (where the camera lands on for reaction shots, where it goes for eye candy, etc). Women get the romance and Sex in the City.

This is sexism, plain and simple.

The NFL managed to figure out that women will buy merchandise if it's advertised for them, and so did Nascar. In Japan they release trailers meant to appeal to men, and then meant to appeal for women, because they realize women are 50% of their revenue. Guess what, it WORKS.

This backward thinking in the industry capital of the world is SOLELY a product of sexism, it's wrong, it's biting them in the butt, it's pathetic, it's sad, it's a trend you see over and over and over and over and over and over again and the fact that anyone would cite Hasbro catering to Bronies as evidence that this is just a marketing deal is ridiculous.

White Males are the "golden" audience. Young White Males (of course defaulted as straight) are considered the best audience to seek out, so any company would celebrate to get them. Maybe it's because they've spent so long perfecting advertising methods that appeal to white men? I mean, consider, if you're a doctor, and 90% of the casework you've seen and studied is about working on men, you'd rather have a male patient than a weirdo, offlier female patient. You just know how to fix a male patient better! (That's also an example of an area that's white male-focused. Did you know women typically DON'T experience a numb arm when having a heart attack? too bad all the studies and research were primarily focused on men! Good thing women don't suffer from heart attacks haha! Oh wait!!!)

No, it is not solely a product of sexism. It is the product of many, many underlying factors working together in very complex ways with a resulting final product that could be called sexism/sexist. Pretty much nothing in life, no matter how much some of us might want it to be true, is the result solely of one thing - especially when that one thing has so many forms and complex underlying factors of its own.

The factors involved are a conglomeration of business aspects (marketing reports, revenue reports, executive expectations, shareholder expectations, etc.), societal aspects from both inside and outside the purview of business, psychological aspects of individuals and of the groups involved, as well as many other things. Then, in turn, each of these 'main' underlying aspects also have underlying aspects of their own that need to be identified and studied. Then, many of those underlying aspects will have..., etc.

In order to come to any true understanding of the situation we need to understand the nature of the situation as it actually exists through examining the chain of evidence and not through the lens of bias showing how we want it to be. This means we have to understand those underlying factors, both individually and how they come together to form relationships and interrelationships.

Along with all of the underlying factors not even being mentioned by anybody here, the veracity (as stated by others in this thread) of Paul Dini's statement needs to be confirmed with corroborating evidence. A tweet, a blog post, or a simple confirmation by another individual, regardless of the means, is not corroborating evidence. The simple fact is that no matter what - no matter how outlandish, how untrue (running the gamut from slightly untrue to full on whooper of a lie) and/or how out of context something is - somebody else will back it up.

A conclusion (regardless of the form it takes - an idea, an argument, a counter-argument, a push for societal change, etc.) is not nearly as important as the path taken to reach it. The path reveals to us what the conclusion should be and when studying the different paths taken by individuals reveals much about them and about their commitment to understanding a subject.

 

[Racecarlock]

I saw tower prep, and it wasn't very good. It just wasn't. If you want to see something good about a school that trains people to use their mutant powers, X-men works perfectly fine.

Live action just shouldn't be on cartoon network. That's why people didn't watch. All of your stupid CN Real shows completely poisoned the well. And the plot's not good either. Some kid has powers or something and so one day he just wakes up at a school. How did he get there? Not explained. He's just there. I didn't like it.