Quickest Way to Get a Superhero Show Cancelled is to Appeal to Girls

[Shlup]

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

tl;dr Executives are quoted as demanding shows work towards appealing to boys because "boys buy more toys," refusing to acknowledge girls do buy toys (doll sales more were double action hero sales last year) and/or marketing products girls might want, even going as far as to cancel shows with large audiences of girls.

What lame-asses. Adventure Time works towards appealing to everyone, markets all kinds of products for kids and adults and males and females, and has been hugely successful. It's not hard to sell things to females--my Etsy store is mostly fandom stuff and has over 4.5k sales.

I heard Young Justice was good too. Bummer.

[Shauna]

jesus christ .__. That was depressing.

[Loony BoB]

How the hell do they know what gender the audience is... do they actually run around schools surveying seven year olds?

[Del Murder]

Ratings and focus groups usually contain this information.

[Ayen]

Executive #1: It seems our show is doing very well in the ratings, sir.
Executive #2: Excellent! How many boys does that make now?
Executive #1: Um...
Executive #2: What?
Executive #1: It's actually girls who are watching the show, sir.
Executive #2: GIRLS!? Pull the plug immediately!
Executive #1: But, sir, ratings are through the roof--!
Executive #2: PULL THE PLUG!
-plug is pulled-
Executive #1: Don't you think you're overreacting just a little bit?
Executive #2: A little bit? Everyone knows that girls have cooties and if left loose they would have destroyed everything!
Executive #1: Sir, that's ridiculous! Everyone knows it's boys who has the cooties.
Executive #2: -gasp- Get the smurf out of my office!
Executive #1: Fine! -storms out and takes his 'Best Employee mug' with him-
Executive #2: You leave the mug here.
Executive #1: ... No -leaves with the mug-

Hrm... Did I have a point to this? Oh, right, executives are stupid.

[Calliope]

I was gonna make a thread about this, but I forgot, so thanks, Shlup! Remember everyone, superheroes are for boys. Lady superheroes shouldn't get their own shows and movies, and if they somehow do they are to be hypersexualized and misrepresent violence and arrogance as "commanding respect" and "being empowered". Ladies, when presented with one of these Lady Superheroes, you are instructed to be so grateful for any representation at all that you blindly idolize her without any hint of analyzing her actions or comparing her to Male Superhero counterparts.

[Shorty]

This is some horsetrout right here.

[Shlup]

The part about how they did a few great episodes focusing on the backstories of the female characters and the executives were like "WTF is this trout!" really bummed me out.

[Old Manus]

Maybe the reason really was that they want to sell more toys, and girls don't buy as many toys of characters they see on TV. It seems more like a business decision, rather than a 'The Patriarchy's Minions At Work Again' decision.

[Calliope]

What are you basing that on? Do you know how many Barbies and My Little Ponys and Sylvanian Families and ANYTHING ELSE little girls will bug their parents to buy? Women aren't just automatically immune to brand association and wanting to reenact the shows they see on TV with loads of merch, you know.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I don't see why execs wouldn't want a marketable/profitable IP. Putting everything else that is offensive aside and focusing on pure business, it just seems odd.

Do they think it has something to do with boys being easier to market to? Maybe they think it's easier to blow some trout up, call it a T.V. show, and then have commercials with loud announcers telling little boys about action figures with real kung-fu grip so they can also pretend to blow some trout up? Are girls more expensive to market to or something?

I'm not trying to defend anything, I'm just surprised execs would put anything (even their misguided misogyny) over profit. It's weird.

[Slothy]

Even if their reasoning that boys buy more toys than girls was accurate, have they never heard of diversification? It blows my mind that people who probably have business degrees and are definitely making business decisions on a daily basis don't actually seem to know anything about business.

And to touch a bit on Del's post, it's a shame that TV ratings aren't based on a true random sample. I'm not convinced that TV ratings are representative of actual viewership in a lot of cases.

[Shorty]

The Powerpuff Girls are probably among the most popular - if not the most popular child female superheroes.

A total of 78 episodes were aired in addition to two shorts, a Christmas special, a feature film, and a tenth anniversary special. Additionally, the series has been nominated for six Emmy Awards, nine Annie Awards, and a Kids' Choice Award during its run. Spin-off media include an anime, three CD soundtracks, a home video collection, and a series of video games, as well as various licensed merchandise. The series has received generally positive reception and won four awards.

Same with Kim Possible. Kim Possible has had a pretty notable amount of DVDs and video games released, and I can only imagine that there's a pretty fine number of merchandise available.

I don't keep up with modern cartoons so I have no other exampls to provide. It's disappointing that the execs aren't willing to think outside the box on this because it could have probably earned them a lot of success because the market for female icons is so little. Now whatever show they make is just going to get lost among the rest of the trout marketed at little boys and be forgotten in a couple of years.

[Shauna]

Perhaps the reason girls don't buy as much stuff for these shows is because all the toys are marketed towards boys. :3

[Old Manus]

What are you basing that on? Do you know how many Barbies and My Little Ponys and Sylvanian Families and ANYTHING ELSE little girls will bug their parents to buy? Women aren't just automatically immune to brand association and wanting to reenact the shows they see on TV with loads of merch, you know.

Is Barbie a TV show?

I mean, obviously the thought process here is based on the idea "girls' cartoons don't sell as many toys as boys' cartoons". Is that true? I have no idea. I just can't imagine this scenario where girls' cartoon toys do sell as much as boys' cartoon toys, but execs cancel it anyway because they want to oppress girls. The former seems more likely.