Top Box Office Hits

Well, three, maybe four, of the top ten box office movies this past week were women-centric; these include: Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Nights in Rodanthe, and The Duchess, and we might be able to include Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.
This may sound like a good thing, shooting thirty, maybe forty percent. But, the only problem foreseeable in this situation is that women make up over fifty percent of the movie-going audiences, and at least two of these movies appear to have a target audience other then women.
Nights in Rodanthe is obviously targeted to women, and an older crowd of them. This movie is about a woman and man who need to find themselves, they meet, fall for each other, etc. Classic romantic movie, and the target audience is obviously women, but the actor and actress chosen, Diane Lane and Richard Gere respectively, appeal slightly more to an older generation.
The Duchess, starring Kiera Knightly, is about the Duchess of Devonshire, who marries one of the most powerful men in England. She is loved by the general public for her fashion sense as well as her political activism, but is unloved by her husband, which sends her into the arms of another man. This movie focuses on the “brutal difference” between the rights of a man and woman in the eighteenth century. It is a good representation of the rights that women had, and does show that the Western world has come pretty far in the past centuries. The target audience, although many would enjoy this film, is again women, as the main point is to expose the differences between the genders.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is about two kids in New York who meet and spend the night roaming the city. Like Nights in Rodanthe, this is a sort of love story, though targeted to a different demographic. Young women are definitely a target audience of this film, but it could be argued that the younger generations in general are targeted, as the movie focuses on the comedic side of the interaction, and less on the romantic aspects.
Finally, Beverly Hills Chihuahua is a movie about a female dog in Cali. that is separated from its owner’s daughter. The movie focuses on the lives of women in some aspects, and girls will definitely enjoy this movie, but it is almost targeted toward a much younger generation, like twelve year olds.
The only movies that truly are about women and show positive aspects of women’s lives are Nights in Rodanthe and The Duchess. Nights in Rodanthe shows that older women still have a chance to be found appealing, beautiful, and sexy, as well as confident, and successful. The Duchess portrays a woman who is loved for her activism, and the way she carries herself. It also shows the inequality between the genders, and may enrage the audience at the unfair treatment.
Beverly Hills Chihuahua shows even the female dog as greedy and driven by appearances, not the image that young girls need to be seeing. The human cast is also superficial and somewhat slutty in appearance.
So, even though it is good that several women-centric movies are out in theaters and making money, it is not enough. Not only do films need to focus on the huge proportion of women who attend movies, but they need to send positive images about those women.

Sources used: http://movies.msn.com/movies/top-box-office/