Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don't want largely female audiences

[Karthak]

http://io9.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-1483758317
http://smodcast.com/episodes/paul-dini-shadow-of-the-shadow-of-the-bat/
http://agelfeygelach.tumblr.com/post/69938753252/fatman-on-batman-52-beware-the-batman-talk

"And then we began writing stories that got into the two girls' back stories, and they were really interesting. And suddenly we had families and girls watching, and girls really became a big part of our audience, in sort of like they picked up that Harry Potter type of serialized way, which is what The Batman and [indistinct]'s really gonna kill. But, the Cartoon Network was saying, 'F***, no, we want the boys' action, it's boys' action, this goofy boy humor we've gotta get that in there. And we can't?' and I'd say, but look at the numbers, we've got parents watching, with the families, and then when you break it down?'Yeah, but the?so many?we've got too many girls. We need more boys.""

The excerpt I posted here shows only part of the mindblowing misogyny the execs were spewing. I suggest listening to the entire podcast. It is as enlightening as it is infuriating.

 

[Doclector]

It just doesn't make sense to me. I get it, they're a soulless corporation at heart, money money money, all that, but turning off a large portion of your possible audience goes against that, so this can't just be simple thoughtless money hungry corporation stuff.

I struggle for a reason besides just kind of being misogynistic dicks in the first place. Either that, or simply being such massive idiots that they can't recognise that this would be a good thing, for both audiences and from the viewpoint of monitary success.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It just doesn't make sense to me. I get it, they're a soulless corporation at heart, money money money, all that, but turning off a large portion of your possible audience goes against that, so this can't just be simple thoughtless money hungry corporation stuff.

I struggle for a reason besides just kind of being misogynistic dicks in the first place. Either that, or simply being such massive idiots that they can't recognise that this would be a good thing, for both audiences and from the viewpoint of monitary success.

Yeah, apparently it's a real problem. Them upstairs know how things should be done, and discount all evidence to the contrary. It's why you can't have a female led action movie, except when you can, or black action heroes, except when you can, because it doesn't count when that happens.

 

[OneCatch]

It just doesn't make sense to me. I get it, they're a soulless corporation at heart, money money money, all that, but turning off a large portion of your possible audience goes against that, so this can't just be simple thoughtless money hungry corporation stuff.

Same here - companies are falling over themselves trying to speculatively corner the next emerging market in all kinds of fields; whether it be google vs apple vs microsoft with mobile touchscreen devices, or consoles trying to muscle in on the social and media fields, or games companies trying to grab the next minecraft.

But there's this one sat there figuratively on a platter and they won't touch it.
I guess they're worried about the political side of things, but I really can't see that many parenting groups going apeshit about their little 9 year old girls wanting a superhero figurine instead of a fucking barbie.

EDIT- spellcheck derp

 

[JoJo]

"Girls don't buy the toys"

Well, there's your problem. I guess they're thinking that a show which attracts a large female following might also be losing a certain percentage of their male viewers who are being turned off by the same content the females want, and since the boys are more likely to buy their toys, that's potentially revenue lost. Impossible to know without the sales figures whether that line of thinking is right or wrong but it's understandable, at the end of the day their job is to make money for their company, not to advocate gender equality.

 

[Dragonbums]

I wonder how the League of Legends fans will feel knowing that their awesome show was cancelled because execs still haven't grown out of their cootie phase.

 

[Nickolai77]

I think it's a bit of an assumption to make that A) Developing a greater focus on female characters would cause the male audience to lose interest and B) That girls won't buy merchandise related to the show. Both points could well be true, but I wouldn't want to make a business decision based on two unproven hypothesis without further research.

I think the interview suggests a bit of a worrying mentality with the network executives. I can't help but think that in an industry with a more progressive, innovative and ambitious outlook a network executive would be all in favour of reaching new and alternative audiences for their products. The executives referenced here don't seem to share that sort of outlook, which I don't think is a healthy sign for the industry as a whole. Once a company or an industry stops innovating it begins a slow death.

 

[Thaluikhain]

The executives referenced here don't seem to share that sort of outlook, which I don't think is a healthy sign for the industry as a whole. Once a company or an industry stops innovating it begins a slow death.

Eh, sometimes it's very slow. Sure, they'd get more money by not excluding the female audience, but the male audience is apparently adequate.

The free market is often very forgiving of stuff like that.

 

[Nickolai77]

The executives referenced here don't seem to share that sort of outlook, which I don't think is a healthy sign for the industry as a whole. Once a company or an industry stops innovating it begins a slow death.

Eh, sometimes it's very slow. Sure, they'd get more money by not excluding the female audience, but the male audience is apparently adequate.

The free market is often very forgiving of stuff like that.

I was making a more general point about industry as a whole and why it's important to be constantly innovating. Customer tastes, technology and economic factors are always changing, and therefore companies also have to change in order to retain and grow their market share. The company in question could probably coast along as it is, but eventually its revenues will decline or it may lose to competition from a more progressive company- perhaps another TV network brave enough to sell toys to both male and female audiences.

 

[EternallyBored]

"Girls don't buy the toys"

Well, there's your problem. I guess they're thinking that a show which attracts a large female following might also be losing a certain percentage of their male viewers who are being turned off by the same content the females want, and since the boys are more likely to buy their toys, that's potentially revenue lost. Impossible to know without the sales figures whether that line of thinking is right or wrong but it's understandable, at the end of the day their job is to make money for their company, not to advocate gender equality.

Wait, you've lost me here, how is it understandable that they think an increase in female viewers requires a proportionate decrease in male viewers, that seems like a massive logical disconnect that would require the executives to be making leaps in logic without any real evidence, they have the numbers breakdowns by gender (although demographics numbers are hardly 100% correct so they are making educated guesses about the numbers at best), the show was apparently popular with boys as well as girls, and families too, but they canned the toy line before even trying so they have zero statistics on who's buying the toys as it is.

More on topic with the OP, I don't think I buy the "girls buy less toys" excuse to begin with, the numbers of boys buying action figures has been dropping dramatically as they gravitate towards things like gaming and electronics devices, the amount of money girls spend on dolls is actually higher than the boy equivalent. Not to mention part of the reason may be because they don't make toys of any of the damn female characters. Seriously, look at most superhero toy lines, even if the adjoining cartoon or show has female characters, even popular female characters, they don't make any toys of them, or the few they do make are collector's models targeted at adult nerds with disposable income.

They don't even bother to try, yet other companies have had success with this very thing recently from both angles, Lego discovered that their Harry Potter and LOTR sets and the spinoff Lego video games were attracting female attention, so they nutted up and adapted by making their marketing more gender ambiguous, as well as rolling some of their newer sets out with much less gender targeted advertising, and they seem to be succeeding with it. They still have sets targeted at boys and girls (and the girl sets are still usually in annoyingly bright pink packaging), but they didn't run away screaming when they found out girls were interested in their product either.

On the flipside, Hasbro didn't lose their shit when they found out boys were flocking to their new MLP incarnation, they also didn't assume that male viewers were taking a chunk out of their female audience. They didn't run in fear of their unexpected audience, they exploited the hell out of it. "What? males aren't interested in the brushable hair dolls targeted at the little girl demographic? Fuck that, hold them over with some shirts while we make molded figurines and vinyl collectible figurines, and license a Magic style collectible card game while we're at it (yeah a google search reveals that is apparently a thing that exists now)". Seriously, they even went so far as to make the packaging black and dark purple for some of their sets, which sit on the pink isle right next to the Barbie dolls and pink crayons. If my weak ass google-fu is worth anything, this plan has apparently worked extremely well with the toys selling well, and the number of girls buying them going up along with the accidental periphery market. To bring this full circle back to the comics arena they are producing MLP comics now as well, which are doing extremely well for anything that's not under the DC/Marvel umbrella, and even seem to be outselling a number of DC and Marvel titles. It also doesn't seem to be just sweaty male nerds buying these things either, it's apparently popular enough in the young girl and family demos that the publisher IDW, seems to be brokering a deal to get them sold in supermarkets, a la Archie style comics.

Ugh the whole thing just smacks of laziness and cowardliness, they don't know if they can succeed so they would rather just not even try. I get that they shouldn't be required to take the risk, it's their money afterall, it's just disgustingly cynical to see something popular with passion behind it get canceled just because some business suit released a prediction model that said they had a lot of girl viewers, and then jumped immediately to "girls don't buy action figures" rather than even making an attempt at adapting. What's even more sad is they probably lost money canning the toy line before it was finished, all based on speculation and assumption.

 

[JaceArveduin]

I wonder how the League of Legends fans will feel knowing that their awesome show was cancelled because execs still haven't grown out of their cootie phase.

... Please elaborate? I don't much follow League's outlier stuffs, but this part here intrigues me.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

http://io9.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-1483758317
http://smodcast.com/episodes/paul-dini-shadow-of-the-shadow-of-the-bat/
http://agelfeygelach.tumblr.com/post/69938753252/fatman-on-batman-52-beware-the-batman-talk

"And then we began writing stories that got into the two girls' back stories, and they were really interesting. And suddenly we had families and girls watching, and girls really became a big part of our audience, in sort of like they picked up that Harry Potter type of serialized way, which is what The Batman and [indistinct]'s really gonna kill. But, the Cartoon Network was saying, 'F***, no, we want the boys' action, it's boys' action, this goofy boy humor we've gotta get that in there. And we can't?' and I'd say, but look at the numbers, we've got parents watching, with the families, and then when you break it down?'Yeah, but the?so many?we've got too many girls. We need more boys.""

The excerpt I posted here shows only part of the mindblowing misogyny the execs were spewing. I suggest listening to the entire podcast. It is as enlightening as it is infuriating.

But Cartoon Network is airing Steven Universe, which is the most positive female role model feminist show I've ever seen on a kids network.

 

[deathbydeath]

Boys, boys, boys. Boys buy the little spinny tops, they but the action figures, girls buy princesses, we're not selling princesses.

I'm calling it now: a show about princesses that are superheroes. Shit will be cash.

Also OP: That's not misogyny; it's stereotyping. There is a rather large difference.

Also also to nobody in general: Come on, it's more than possible to create a superhero story whose cast is mostly positive female role models good female characters; Worm [http://parahumans.wordpress.com/] has already done it. If a network picks up that story and plays their cards right, then they'll have the new Game of Thrones in their pocket.

EDIT: I remembered the major arcs and themes in Worm after I posted the post, and edited accordingly.

 

[keniakittykat]

What it all boils down to is a tantrum a 7 year old would throw? "Girls can't play with us, they have cooties! Just give me one thing that isn't tainted with the icky stink of girls!"

 

[RJ Dalton]

I think the interview suggests a bit of a worrying mentality with the network executives. I can't help but think that in an industry with a more progressive, innovative and ambitious outlook a network executive would be all in favour of reaching new and alternative audiences for their products. The executives referenced here don't seem to share that sort of outlook, which I don't think is a healthy sign for the industry as a whole. Once a company or an industry stops innovating it begins a slow death.

Everything you learn about the studios suggests a worrying mentality. This kind of shit has been going on for years. There was a slight break in the early 90s on a couple of networks because you had Fox just getting started with its TV stuff and they wanted something to make their network stand out from the rest and thus were willing to take a chance on letting Dini and his crew do something different with Batman. But it didn't last long and even then, Batman's popularity made them start a trend of cartoons like Batman (X-Men, Iron Man, Hulk, etc). It was just a trend. Now the trend is different (and much more annoying). The networks have always been like this. It's not about creativity or quality, it's about what they *think* the audience wants and what demographics they're trying to push.

And it's bullshit because they don't do any research about it. Back when I was a kid, there was this girl I knew who owned the entire collection of the first line of Aliens toys. Ripply, Hicks, Apon, all the aliens. She had every single toy in the first line. I only got into it because she brought them to school and I thought it was cool. And there's another girl I know who had a huge number of the Ninja Turtles toys as a kid (she still has a few of them now). So it's total bullshit that girls don't buy the toys. But the executives are locked in the same mindset that they've been in since the 1940s and they're so insulated from the world that nothing can break them out.

 

[Kolby Jack]

http://io9.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-1483758317
http://smodcast.com/episodes/paul-dini-shadow-of-the-shadow-of-the-bat/
http://agelfeygelach.tumblr.com/post/69938753252/fatman-on-batman-52-beware-the-batman-talk

"And then we began writing stories that got into the two girls' back stories, and they were really interesting. And suddenly we had families and girls watching, and girls really became a big part of our audience, in sort of like they picked up that Harry Potter type of serialized way, which is what The Batman and [indistinct]'s really gonna kill. But, the Cartoon Network was saying, 'F***, no, we want the boys' action, it's boys' action, this goofy boy humor we've gotta get that in there. And we can't?' and I'd say, but look at the numbers, we've got parents watching, with the families, and then when you break it down?'Yeah, but the?so many?we've got too many girls. We need more boys.""

The excerpt I posted here shows only part of the mindblowing misogyny the execs were spewing. I suggest listening to the entire podcast. It is as enlightening as it is infuriating.

Misogyny is a bit too strong of a word for this. It's marketing, pure and simple. Sexist? Yes, of course. Hatred? Nah. It's just business models and trends and shares to those guys. Hatred is personal.

 

[Terminate421]

Here is a far more relevant question. When were those people born? I feel like they are all 70, white, male, and rich as shit.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

It's funny, because there's a certain cartoon aimed at young girls that has managed to pick up a pretty good-sized adult audience, both male and female, and has become quite successful as a result. Why would it not work in reverse?

 

[kurupt87]

Targeting a product at a demographic does not a misogynist make.

 

[Raikas]

What I find baffling about the toy angle is that the line between action figure and play doll is virtually non-existent* - neutralize the boxes (or hell, put the same toy in a pink box) and why can't you sell the things to both?



*And at a collector level, I'd even say completely non-existent: there's pretty much zero difference between those pose-able figures from Sideshow Toys and the licensed characters from a doll company like Tonner.