HOLLYWOOD, CA— Cinema’s latest superhero offering Madame Web was met with resounding indifference and apprehension from audiences and has since become a box-office bomb. Binghamton’s own Pipe Dream then went on to review the film positively, forever cementing the movie as one that no discerning audience member would want to watch. Despite that the film boasts predictable plot-lines, vague characterization, and dialogue so unrealistic it rivals ChatGPT, Madame Web was destined to bomb solely because its protagonist was a woman and for no other reason. Evidently, fans of Madame Web are quick to point out that filmgoers who constructively critique the film’s direction or aesthetic presentation are probably just “sexists.”
Co-president of Sony Pictures, Phil Ming, spoke with the B.U.T.T. to clarify the movie studio’s creative strategy and to contextualize the box-office failure of Madame Web. “Audiences do want to see movies that feature women,” explained Ming. “So long as the movies that center on women characters are worse remakes of movies that previously featured men or barring that, as long as movies starring women have characters who are poorly written and stories that are contrived or barring that, as long as movies starring women are written for a genre that has already long been oversaturated by several male-led films that have come to shape said genre. Audiences are really afraid of well-written, original movies starring women, even if they don’t want to admit it to themselves. Just like they’re afraid of women characters who aren’t written as overpowered Mary-Sue types. Audiences don’t want to see nuanced and varied portrayals of female characters or watch any fleshed-out female perspectives, they would feel more comfortable if every female character we wrote fell into one or two established archetypes.” Ming then went on to describe the film studio’s approach to creating films that center women and other marginalized groups: “Making poor quality movies for female leads to star in is all part of our way of conditioning audiences into never expecting movies with female leads to be of high quality, and to condition them into simply being grateful that our movies feature women at all. The truth is, movie studios like ours probably could write more creative and unique movies to do justice to women who have historically been dissuaded from starring in them, but we aren’t financially incentivized to do so and until we are, we won’t put in the effort.”
At press time, Sony Pictures is in talks with several directors such as Taika Waititi and Christopher Nolan to helm an upcoming sequel film to Madame Web called Madame Web 2: Multiverse of Intersectionality. The film’s script bible notes that “all female characters in the sequel will emote even less than they did in the first movie.”