With movie theaters being dominated by Barbie while Taylor Swift and Beyoncé are having two of the most talked about world tours going, women are spending billions of dollars in 2023.
According to one studio executive, this dominance in the entertainment industry stems from the desire to hear ‘intelligent and inspiring female stories’. Swift’s Eras Tour has, in fact, proved so popular that the singer was credited with changing the economic fortunes of major cities across the country by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Beyoncé, meanwhile, was blamed lately for the ‘stubbornly high inflation’ in Sweden after her performance there, with Forbes estimating that both Swift and Beyoncé’s tours will gross billions of dollars each.
While Hollywood was once accused of catering to a male audience, the biggest release of 2023 could be one based on Barbie. The 64-year-old doll has already earned over $800 million at the worldwide box office, and industry experts are predicting it to be the highest-grossing film of the year overtaking The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Screenwriter Julie Bush says that while entertainment catering to a female audience has now proven popular, she does not comprehend why executives did not realize this sooner. Bush wrote on July 22, referring to the success of the Barbie movie released the day before, that ‘we are a vastly underserved audience, although we are 51% of the population’. The majority of male executives think women do not matter, do not spend, and do not need to be marketed to. She said that up to now, Hollywood did not think women were important. Execs think the audience is men and boys and that their moms, wives, or girlfriends will see what they want to see.
Bush pointed out that while girls were playing with Barbies when they were young, boys were busy playing with G.I. Joe toys. Perhaps the fact that Hollywood made three live-action G.I. Joe movies – The Rise of Cobra, Snake Eyes and G.I. Joe: Retaliation before making a Barbie movie backs up Bush’s point.
Therapist and author Sagit Schwartz responded to Bush by drawing a parallel between fans of Barbie and Swift. She said you have to be living under a rock not to know what female Swifties are spending on Eras tickets. The federal reserve literally said the economy has boosted the tour. She wrote that Barbie was another chance to dress up and bond but cheaper.
Although the figures for Swift’s tour are not yet available, according to various sources another feminine icon, Beyoncé, has been raking it in on her Renaissance World Tour.
Billboard estimated that the singer made $154 million on the European leg of the tour, selling more than one million tickets across the 21-show run. Beyoncé is now touring across North America where she is expected to make millions more.
Forbes projected in May, that Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour would gross $2 billion in total while Swift’s Eras Tour would gross $1.6 billion.
The success mostly stems from the desire to see more films and hear more music that is focused on intelligent and inspiring female stories. This type of art has the ability to merge both male and female audiences alike, rather than pit them against each other continued Pellegrini saying that director Greta Gerwig did not intend Barbie to be an anti-male film and instead uses the story to raise thoughtful questions around gender stereotypes and that this was why the film has been a success across the board.
When asked if all the hype around the Barbie movie mattered to them, 64% of women sampled said it mattered to them in some form while 63% of the men asked, said that the Barbie movie mattered to them too.
Pellegrini said that ultimately, good art will always win out, and that it was a good sign of things to come if it meant having more filmmakers like Greta Gerwig leading the charge.
At the very least we know that more toy-based movies are being planned by Mattel with perhaps the massive success of Barbie proving to be a turning point in the entertainment industry, with more female-centric films on the way.
